It takes more than a language to unify a nation

[Susan Burt]

Thank you, Lynne!

On Feb 25, 2007, at 10:25 AM, Lynne Murphy wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Lynne Murphy <m.l.murphy at SUSSEX.AC.UK>
> Subject:      Re: It takes more than a language to unify a nation
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> --------
>
> You're making the assumption that anyone who speaks a language other
> than
> English had to be naturalised as a citizen.  There are born-citizens
> in the
> US for whom English is not their first language, and the right to vote
> is
> their birthright.
>
> Lynne
>
> --On 24 February 2007 11:27 -0500 Judith Marie
> <Judith_H_Marie at COMPUSERVE.COM> wrote:
>
>> Hi all,
>> When I voted in November in Berkeley, California, I first had to
>> choose
>> which language I wished to use. The choice was between Chinese,
>> Korean,
>> Spanish, English or Tagalog [sic].
>> It seems to me not unreasonable that since only U.S. citizens vote,
>> and
>> that one has to pass an English language test to become a citizen, the
>> ballet should be in English.
>> Judith
>
>
>
> Dr M Lynne Murphy
> Senior Lecturer and Head of Department
> Linguistics and English Language
> Arts B135
> University of Sussex
> Brighton BN1 9QN
>
> phone: +44-(0)1273-678844
> http://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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