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From: jsq@ut-sally.UUCP (John Quarterman)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: Quack, quack, I'm an American
Message-ID: <191@ut-sally.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 15-Oct-83 21:03:21 EDT
Article-I.D.: ut-sally.191
Posted: Sat Oct 15 21:03:21 1983
Date-Received: Mon, 17-Oct-83 23:36:05 EDT
References: <555@ssc-vax.UUCP>
Organization: U. Texas CS Dept., Austin, Texas
Lines: 34

Well, I don't know about the rest of you, but my remarks about ugly
American accents (notice the plural) referred to accents *in English*.
(No one but a Bostonian could find a Boston accent pleasant to the ears.)
American accents in general lack the musical variation of pitch of British
English, being instead intoned in a flat, nasal, monotone.  Not true of
all American accents, of course, but of most fer shur.

It's true that those Americans who do go to the trouble to learn another
language usually sound no worse than any other *foreign* speaker of that
other language.  I have always found Parisians, in particular, to be
very appreciative of attempts to speak their language, by the way.

It is also true that there are far fewer Americans who take the trouble
to learn any language other than the one they started with than practically
any other national group.  In Iceland, if I recall this correctly, they
start with Icelandic, of course, then move on to Danish, German, French,
and English.  In the Netherlands most everybody who has gone to school
since WWII knows something of German, French, and English.  In Africa,
it's a very rare person who doesn't know at least two languages, and
traders commonly are fluent in three or four or more.  And so forth.

Yet many Americans still go overseas and expect everyone in the world
to speak English.  If they're not understood the first time, they just
speak louder.  They get upset at the French (who are number two at
language ignorance) for expecting them to speak French in France, but
would think it laughable if somebody from France insisted on speaking
French in the States.

I must admit that the few Americans I've met in really exotic (for
Americans) places like Upper Volta *did* speak more than one language,
but they are hardly representative of the great majority of Americans.
-- 
John Quarterman, CS Dept., University of Texas, Austin, Texas
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