It takes more than a language to unify a nation

Sun Feb 25 06:29:46 UTC 2007

Hold it.
The "grandparents and great-grandparents" argument won't wash.  The
immigrants from primarily Southern and Eastern Europe--my ancestors
too on my Greek side--that came in the second big wave of immigration
during the 1890-1924 period were treated very differently than the
immigrants of the first wave (1845-1875), primarily from Northern and
Western Europe linguistically.  Americans in the earlier period could
get nastily nativist, as anyone who's seen Gangs of New York can
testify.  But the animus was not (usually) directed at the LANGUAGE.
German-Americans in particular, as well as Scandinavians and Dutch,
and even others who came at that time were, for the most part,
tolerated linguistically during that earlier period.  They could set
up newspapers, church services, social clubs, and, yes, even schools--
even in some states like Ohio, PUBLIC schools using their mother
tongues as the primary medium of education.  And still, the second
generation usually spoke English as well as anyone.  You see the
"English only" movement, in any form, only creeping in later.  The
first state to prohibit the use of other languages as a primary
language of education , Illinois, did so in 1885--after earlier
having a quite tolerant record on this matter.  And the rot really
sets in during the years leading up to WWI, and particularly, during
and just after WWI---and that's when a lot of immigrant parents made
the practical decision that their children should primarily use
English; it was a lot better than being labeled a traitor, a
Bolshevik or worse.
        My dad, born in Baltimore but bilingual from the time he learned to
talk, could pass because his name wasn't Greek (his mother was) and
consciously forgot his Greek, so much so that he couldn't speak to
his dying grandmother, who had employed him as interpreter when she
went out of the neighborhood when he was a little kid.  He wasn't
alone, either.  But note--he knew English already.  So did the
children of the first wavers.  And from what I read from studies, as
opposed to anecdotal information, so do the children, or better yet,
the grandchildren, of the third wavers.  And their parents and
grandparents want them to; they just don't want them to have to do
what my dad did, so that they have two strings to their bow.  I mean,
my god, Americans (and we are not alone) who are monolingual have a
LOUSY record of adapting to foreign languages when we do go abroad
(Present company excepted--we are linguists or at least language
enthusiasts, after all. ) Wouldn't the knowledge of a second mother
tongue be a BOON in this world?  A resource for international
commerce or diplomacy or god knows what?  By all means, promote the
learning of English by those who choose to come here.  But I think
most real immigrants--those who really intend to stay, and don't
think of themselves as Gastarbeiter or cyclical migrants or exiles--
want to learn English, and yes, I know, everyone will say that's
wrong, but as I say, the studies I've seen, and the books I use for
my courses all agree on this.  And a real, solid, bilingual
educational program that starts out with whatever medium the kids are
competent in, and actually shades in English at a sensible pace might
actually work--and I've seen data about two-way programs in places
like Broward County, FL in the '80s where you not only generated
positive attitudes about learning English, you made great strides in
promoting tolerance all the way around.  English yes, but why ONLY?
Language wars happen largely under conditions we don't have--and an
essential ingredient is a history of a ruling group either ignoring
or suppressing minority tongues.
        I think the jury is still out about the third wave anyway, because
there are so many first-generation people around.  We are as if we
all lived in New York City in 1910.  And I'm sure there were people
soapboxing about how everyone is going to be speaking Italian, or
Yiddish, or Polish, and no one in NYC is going to understand a word
of English by 1960.
        Check out Edwards, At War with Diversity for more about this.

Paul Johnston

P. S. And I'm 3rd generation enough to wish I knew a bit of Modern
Greek, more than the numbers and the odd swear word anyway (none of
which I picked up from my dad).
On Feb 24, 2007, at 3:32 PM, Cohen, Gerald Leonard wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Cohen, Gerald Leonard" <gcohen at UMR.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: It takes more than a language to unify a nation
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> ---------
>
>     Part of the problem is where to draw the line.  Why stop with
> just =
> Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese, and a few more?  Over a hundred
> different =
> foreign-languages are spoken in the US, with their communities
> varying =
> in size, of course.  Should the speakers of each of those languages
> be =
> provided with translations (+ perhaps translators) so they can
> better =
> participate in our democracy?  Should this provision be made at all =
> levels of government (local and state, as well as federal), and who
> will =
> pay for this?
> =20
>      And why not extend the service to other areas, such as
> education, =
> as in fact happened during the Carter administration? I remember
> reading =
> at the time about NYC high-school principals who were having enough =
> trouble hiring qualified teachers in say, Physics, and were now
> legally =
> required to find Physics teachers who could also speak such
> languages as =
> Urdu.  Mercifully the law was eventually changed.
> =20
>      No system is perfect, but the vision of the U.S. as a melting
> pot =
> worked well for our grandparents and greatgrandparents, and it
> might not =
> be so bad for the present either.
> =20
> Gerald Cohen
>     =20
> ________________________________
>
> From: American Dialect Society on behalf of Arnold M. Zwicky
> Sent: Sat 2/24/2007 1:05 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: It takes more than a language to unify a nation
>
> <snip>
>
> we want our voters to be well informed about the choices they're
> being asked to make.  supplying material in languages other than
> english serves that end.  it's a public good.
>
> arnold
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org