Date: Sun, 2 Nov 1997 10:46:45 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199711021546.KAA14778@locke.ccil.org> Reply-To: Robin Turner Sender: Lojban list From: Robin Turner Subject: Re: bilingualism X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: John Cowan In-Reply-To: <199711021504.RAA03280@firat.bcc.bilkent.edu.tr> X-Mozilla-Status: 0011 Content-Length: 2289 Lines: 53 At 10:05 02/11/97 -0500, Andrew Sieber wrote: >John Hodges wrote: >> I also considered the politics of Esperanto, the goal of a "universal second >> language", ideally sponsored by all the world's governments. One major >> source of resistance I saw was the fear that the second language would usurp >> the first, as it would be spoken more widely and would therefore be more >> useful; I thought perhaps this fear could be overcome if the sponsoring >> governments made it AGAINST policy/law to teach it or speak it to anyone >> under the age of (12, 14, 16, choose.) It would then NOT be a "language of >> the home", it would be a language you learned in your first year of "Foreign >> language" study in the schools. Children could/would learn any other >> langage(s) in the home, but Esperanto would thus be prevented from ever >> being anyone's first language. >RANT-ON >If my government ever has the arrogance to try to prevent me from >teaching any particular language to my child, I can guarantee that there >will be SEVERE consequences. >There are some people who are more in favor than other people of >governmental intervention in social issues, and indeed there are some >truly radical interventionists (who just happen to have gained >significant power in the United States over the past few decades) who >want governmental control of which organizations you financially >support, which "poor" people you give money to, how you invest for your >retirement, what you may eat, what you may drink, smoke, inhale, inject, >marry or have sexual intercourse with, but I have NEVER heard of someone >advocating that the government take responsibility for deciding which >language a child is allowed to learn. This reeks of the concept of >"Newspeak" in the book _1984_. >RANT-OFF > >I normally don't introduce any political ideology into my postings to >non-political mailing lists, but I simply must object to John's idea. > >--Andrew >absieber@eos.ncsu.edu > Governments are always trying to mess around with language - just take a look at the Balkans. See my essay "Who is a Native Speaker?" for some examples. Robin Turner Bilkent Universitesi, IDMYO, Ankara, Turkey.