Two Peoples, Divided By a Common Language
After some unintended discussion today at another site I went back and read Peggy Noonan's article in the Wall St. Journal concerning English as our national language. Libby posted on this earlier and as much as I love Libby, I think Ms. Noonan is basically correct.
The success past waves of immigrants have had in this country was owed to the fact that the second generation learned the language in school because they had no choice, they had to learn it. The ability to speak and understand our language was the key to their success. We are making a great effort now to allow these new Americans to maintain their native languages and to avoid assimilation. That is a mistake.
I have rarely found anything by Peggy Noonan that I agreed with, this is the exception.
Jim Martin
We speak English here. It's a great language, luckily, a rich one. It's how we do government and business. It's the language of the official life, the outer life, in America. As for the inner life of America, the language of the family, it would be just as odd to change longtime tradition there, which has always been: Anything goes. You speak what you came over speaking, and you learn the new language. Italian immigrants knew two languages, English and Italian. They enriched the first with the second--this was a great gift to all of us--and wound up with greater opportunities for personal communication to boot. Talk about win-win. And so with every group, from every place.I don't find anything wrong with this, we speak American English here and every immigrant that comes here should be encouraged to learn it. It would very acceptable to me to have English made the official language. There is nothing bigoted about it, it just makes sense.
The success past waves of immigrants have had in this country was owed to the fact that the second generation learned the language in school because they had no choice, they had to learn it. The ability to speak and understand our language was the key to their success. We are making a great effort now to allow these new Americans to maintain their native languages and to avoid assimilation. That is a mistake.
I have rarely found anything by Peggy Noonan that I agreed with, this is the exception.
Jim Martin
posted by Libby Spencer at 7:27 PM
6 Comments:
Jim, we are in agreement on this.Adopting an official language (English) and then encouraging new immigrants to learn it helps avoid isolation and distrust. It also helps the newcomer become part of our society and join the ranks of us who come in all shapes, sizes and colors; collectively known as Americans.That being said,I don't think we can expect others to instantly know our language and having literature and interpreters, especially in areas where there is a large concentration of immigrants. I would not want people taken advantage of or agreeing to a service or terms without fully understanding their obligations and rights.
We just need to stop bi-lingual instruction in school and that would do a lot to encourage the speaking of English.
How are Spanish speaking children going to learn English if they are taught in a Spanish speaking classroom.
Coming from a country where English is the official language (England, curiously enough), and where bilingual education is unknown except in the context of teaching ESL to non-native speakers, I think you're over-simplifying the problem.
If you have an immigrant community above a critical size, it's extremely easy for people to slip into the habit of using their first language for almost all interactions. The effect of monolingual education on first generation immigrants here is generally that a lot of kids underperform very badly, and grow up virtually unemployable except in extremely poorly paid occupations. This has long term social implications that I don't need to explain here.
You need to make a call as to whether this is a price worth paying. If bilingual education enables the children of immigrants better to advance their careers, even if it's only within the Hispanic, Bengali, whatever, communities, it seems to me that the argument for monolingualism is moot.
I don't have any easy answers to this. But rockync is right about the need for literature and interpreters. This is an entirely separate question, and anybody who tries to confuse the two should be confronted.
The danger is to make the solution too difficult and any British solution to immigrant problems would be suspect as evidenced by their "Asian" immigrants and the near impossibility of assimilation into British society.
The trick is to make the solution simple. Teach all English to Spanish speaking kids and teach a lot of Spanish to English speaking kids.
We have a problem that the British do not when it comes to mandating a specific language in that our constitution says freedom of speech shall not be abridged.
Although of late such things as the Bill of Rights have been subject to more erosion than Washington's nose on Rushmore, I think restricting the use of language can easily be defined as an abridgment. Creating another amendment to say freedom os speech shall not be abridged only as long as it's English speech opens a huge can of worms - particularly in a country where it's so hard to call the illiterate gibberish some presidents speak, English.
Fogg
You make a valid point but I think there are limits on everything, including speech.
Where is the limit on what must be taught in schools? English, Spanish, Chinese, etc.
You can limit that which is taught and what must be used in certain situations without abridging someone's rights.
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