In a message dated 2/9/2008 1:26:05 PM Eastern Standard Time, gerard.meijssen@gmail.com writes:
Hoi. When you speak multiple languages, there are things you can express really well in one but not in another language. The notion that all languages are equal is wrong. Consequently there are no "perfect" sub or supersets of languages. When you state that "we should" I would prefer that you speak for yourself because I do not feel included and I could not disagree with you more.
I have to agree with Gerard here, and I say that as someone who is completely bilingual, and who has translated for a living. There is a level of comfort and familiarity you have with one languages that you do not have with another., based on how and where you use the language. For instance, I can take apart a rifle in Hebrew, but I have no idea what the same parts are in English.
Nor is this just anecdotal. Linguists and social anthropologists talk about code-switching between languages, often mid-sentence, a phenomenon anyone who grew up in a bilingual home is familiar with. I once did work on a study of this among elderly Tunisian Jewish immigrant women in Israel--it was interesting because they came to Israel speaking both French (in formal, communal situations) and Arabic (in more casual, home-related situations), then added Hebrew to the mix--what the researcher tried to do was to identify the language shifts as the women gave oral histories of their immigration experience.
To quote from Wikipedia itself, "Even if someone is highly proficient in two or more languages, his so-called communicative competence or ability may not be as balanced." (see [[Multilingualism]]). Essentially, to identify bilingualism with equivalent linguistic competence is simply not based in fact.
Danny
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