Quebec Seeks to Ease Divisiveness

[Joseph Farquharson]

Jan,
What do you mean by 'strange'? Bilingualism seems to be the norm in a lot of places outside of totalising regimes. Those of us who are native English speakers have been spoilt, grown to think that monolingualism is the norm, but in many African and (East) Indian communities for example it is quite usual to be bilingual or multilingual, speaking sometimes three or four other language besides their mother tongue.
And there is no reason why bilingualism should not persist in a community, unless there is a political, economic or other reason for the group to abandon one of the languages after some time.
Joseph
 Jan Blommaert <Jan.Blommaert at rug.ac.be> wrote:Strange, it seems to be the rule in so many parts of Africa. Jan Blommaert

----- Original Message -----
From: "Survey Coordinator Brazil"
To:
Cc: "Joshua Fishman"
Sent: Tuesday, April 15, 2003 1:19 PM
Subject: Re: Quebec Seeks to Ease Divisiveness


> Dear Dr. Fishman,
>
> I'm glad to hear that group bilingualism can last indefinitely in many
> cases. I'm just not aware of many. Guarani/Spanish in Paraguay comes to
> mind. What are the many other cases?
>
> Stan Anonby
>
>


Joseph T. Farquharson, BA Hon. (UWI)
Graduate Student
Sidney Sussex College
University of Cambridge
Cambridge CB2 3HU
United Kingdom
jtf25 at cam.ac.uk



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