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From: edwards@uwmacc.UUCP (mark edwards)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Bilingualism: A negative viewpoint
Message-ID: <530@uwmacc.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 19-Nov-86 10:23:37 EST
Article-I.D.: uwmacc.530
Posted: Wed Nov 19 10:23:37 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 19-Nov-86 21:36:34 EST
References: <783@ukecc.UUCP> <1018@ptsfb.UUCP> <524@uwmacc.UUCP> <526@uwmacc.UUCP>
Reply-To: edwards@uwmacc.UUCP (mark edwards)
Organization: UWisconsin-Madison Academic Comp Center
Lines: 56
Keywords: incentive, and real life

In article <526@uwmacc.UUCP> anderson@uwmacc.UUCP (Jess Anderson) writes:
>In article <524@uwmacc.UUCP>, edwards@uwmacc.UUCP (mark edwards) writes:

>>      My wife's japanese, if everyone spoke only japanese and give her
>>    everything she wanted to hear, read, or needed in japanese she would
>>    have no use to even bother with english.

>But Mark, that "if" is not very realistic, is it? I've studied a fair
>number of languages, for a variety of reasons, mostly to get access to
>literatures that are untranslated or difficult to render into English, with
>the added dividend (again, largely aesthetic, as opposed to practical) of
>being able to speak some of those languages. 

   Realistic you say? Yes I was being realistic, and I have evidence to
 support my claims. I was stationed in Misawa, Japan ( A US Air Base)
 a base that had over 3,000 americans and many had their wives and children
 along with them, living on or around the base. Grant it that this is 
 some what an artificial case, perhaps the extreme, but yet relevant.
 Only a small percentage of the Americans regularly ventured off the
 base, and most of them that did could not converse with the natives
 in their language. When I say their stay was limited, I am talking about
 anywhere from 1 and a half years to 3 or 4 years. 
   A big reason they did not go off base is that off base was a foreign
 country. On base was America, meaning we used the American dollar as
 exchange, ate American food, went to see American movies, and conversed
 with each other in the American language. The problem is even worse now
 because of the exchange rate. When I went back in May it was a popular
 topic on Japanese TV.

>Yet if I were to move to one
>of those countries, I would welcome the opportunity to become *more*
>multilingual, that is, I would not *want* to give up my native language
>just because I was surrounded by a new milieu. Rather, I'd want to add to
>my experiences in *both* languages.

    I would argue that we ( you and I ) are different. I did regularly
 go off base, and I did learn Japanese. But I do not think it is fair
 to say that every one would. My parents went over to Japan in May.
 When it was time for lunch, it was time for a big mac attack. I think
 its fair to say that their was a good cross section of Americans on
 base, most prefered the "easy" way out, to speak and eat American.

>   (Of course, most of us could know any of the languages we happen
>to know better, again to our benefit. For example, illiteracy rates
>in the US are shockingly high, and quite a few of us have trouble
>with clear, simple, correct prose (not to mention spelling!) :-)

 I am glad you mentioned spelling and correct prose. My comments about
 spelling is the worst thing that happened to English is when they froze
 the spellings of words. Back in the good ole days the spelling of a
 word changed with the pronounciation. My opinion about prose is that
 I would like to sue my Junior High and High Schools for failure to
 properly teach me the rudiments of english. ( What do you think? Could
 I make millions ?)

 mark