About forcing a language on someone

[JoatSimeon at aol.com]

>edsel at glo.be writes:

>That's a complete misunderstanding. There is huge difference between learning
>another language for practical reasons (or in more modern times: out of
>interest in other cultures, religion or what have you) and being forced to
>abandon one's own language (and inevitably:culture).

-- "abandon" is a value-judgement; it would be equally (or more) accurate to
speak of "acquiring" a new culture.

Eg., I have a friend who's Japanese-Canadian, second generation.  She knows
maybe 6 words of Japanese (fewer than I do) and is married to someone whose
parents came from Lancashire.  Has she 'abandoned' a language and culture
which is somehow uniquely 'hers'?  Of course not; she has a perfectly good
language -- English -- and a perfectly good culture -- "Overseas European",
samesame as the rest of us.

Language and culture are not like skin color.  They're more like your
clothes.  One can change, mix and match to suit the circumstances.  Many of
my ancestors were Gaelic-speaking and wore the Great Kilt.  I'm
English-speaking and wear trousers, and firmly of the conviction that Butcher
Cumberland did Scotland a favor.

>It [language] is something that defines them.

-- until they get a new definition.  Linguistic and ethnic identity are fluid
and changeable, subjective in nature.

Eg., to take just one example, there's a community of over 1,000,000 people
of South Asian (Indian) origin in South Africa, descended mainly from
indentured workers brought in to cut sugar cane.  A large majority of them
now use English as their native language.  How are they any worse off than if
they were speaking Gujarati or Tamil?  A small language is a prison, under
modern conditions.

>The fact is that ordinary people resent very much being treated as
>somebody who can't speak properly.

-- and then in most cases, shrug and get on with the job.  Eg., my father
worked very hard as a young man to shed his Newfoundland accent. (A dialect
which can get extremely impenetrable to Standard English speakers).  Standard
English was more useful, so he learned it; just as my more remote ancestors
shed Gaelic and Lallans -- or most of the ancestors of the inhabitants of
Vienna shed various Slavic languages for German.

>That's what happens when the original language loses its critical mass and
>becomes the language of a minority: it is then beyond salvation in most
>cases.

-- a "minority" where?  Minority/majority status is a product of the size of
the sphere of interaction, which in turn these days is a product of
technological development.

A small language could get along quite well when most people were illiterate
peasants who rarely left their villages.  The local patois was as useful --
more useful -- than a larger national language.

In the age of 'globalization', even French or German are "small" languages,
of declining usefulness.  A fifth of the entire human race can speak English,
and the percentage increases rapidly.  Meanwhile half the languages spoken in
1900 AD are extinct, and half the languages spoken in 2000 AD are moribund
(no longer learned by children).  This is all to the good.