LL-L "Language politics" 2011.07.17 (01) [EN]

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  L O W L A N D S - L - 17 July 2011 - Volume 01
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From: Isaac M. Davis isaacmacdonalddavis at gmail.com
 Subject: LL-L "Language politics" 2011.07.13 (04) [EN]

Paul Finlow-Bates wrote:
My point, after all this, is that intensive language teaching clearly does
not necessarily "build bridges and promote understanding", as conventional
educational wisdom would have it.

I think an absolutely essential element of language teaching with the aim of
'building bridges and promoting understanding' is putting the children being
taught in contact with other children that speak the target language, and
emphasising that this is a 'real' language, with people that they will be
able to communicate with, if they can speak it. I was 20 before I gained any
fluency in French, simply because it wasn't until then that I was surrounded
by people who I needed and wanted to communicate with, but who didn't speak
English, only French. That's bridge-building right there. When it's just a
theoretical notion that there are people out there who speak this other
language, you're likely just to provoke frustration and hostility, partly
because of existing prejudice, but also because let's face it, learning
languages is hard, and there has to be some meaning and motive in order for
it to be a rewarding experience.

Best,

Isaac M. Davis

-- 

"As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master."
—Abraham Lincoln

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.coom>
 Subject: Language politics

Lowlands Folks,

I believe that, in order to examine this thread a little more deeply, we
need to look at some more "extreme" scenarios of language loyalty or the
lack thereof.

Quite clearly, there are many pieces to the puzzle.

Somewhere along the way, many speakers of Scots and Low Saxon, for instance,
internalized the low esteem in which outsiders (i.e. English, German and
Dutch speakers) held their languages, the result being that many native
speakers or children of native speakers turned into opponents of language
maintenance. It was/is a question of social status. Similar scenarios can be
found with regard to regional and minority languages of Portugal, Spain,
France, Italy, Greece, Ukraine and Russia, to name but a few. Irish has been
mentioned as a case of a language being elevated to national language status
but enjoying little real use and support.

And the opposite side of the coin may be represented by the following
seeming success stories:

   - Hebrew ceased to be a spoken language around 500 BCE (to be replaced
   mostly by Judeo-Aramaic), though over the millennia it was used as an
   occasionally written and spoken international lingua franca among Jewish
   scholars that shared no other language between them. Very few women learned
   the language, however. Beginning with the late 19th century, Zionism, as a
   reaction to increasing antisemitism in Europe, began to propel Hebrew to the
   status of a modern Jewish lingua franca to be used in all spheres of life.
   In the meantime, Modern Hebrew has become the native language of well over 5
   million Israeli Jews.
    - What made the Cornish people rekindle their connection with their
   ancestral Brythonic Celtic language well after the supposedly last native
   speaker of this language had died. The Cornish people, whose country is
   officially a part of England, have been trying to assert themselves in part
   through their ancestral language.
   - What provoked four townships in Madhya Pradesh, India, to instate
   Sanskrit as their primary language? While it is an official language of
   India, Sanskrit ceased to be a true spoken language a long time ago,
   although it continued to be used within certain scholarly circles, and a
   spoken Sanskrit movement has reemerged in India and elsewhere.

What do these cases teach us, if anything?

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
Seattle, USA

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