On May 26, 2005, at 8:17 AM, David Monniaux wrote:
[Offtopic]
Come on. All official sites, all political debates, all major news etc. are in English.
Not true. See Telemundo, Univision.
Yes, there are channels catering to latinos. Similarly, there are channels catering to Arabs in Paris. These channels are not "mainstream" in the sense that you do not have a Spanish edition of a major newspaper like the New-York Times. This is not the same as having a multilingual country.
So, "France sucks".
But Why?
There are only "non-mainstream" channels in France, and the USA? What an odd argument.
Can a latino legislator do a speech in Spanish in the Capitol US? I doubt so; at least, I doubt it could happen in practice.
Why? Many ami's are bilingual, if not more. Even the shrub speaks spanish.
Well, it hasn't happened so far. This is not like in countries like Belgium, where legislators speak in several languages.
I think you might be confusing terms.
Most americans speak in many dialects
Do they? Most Americans speak English, period.
Den you not up on dat.
Point made.
I mean, radios, newspapers etc. for immigrant communities also exist in Europe. Go to Paris, you'll see Chinese and Arabic newspapers, Arabic radios.
Visit more of the US. We have the same.
Yes, I know. That's exactly what I was pointing to. You were making a spurious distinction between the US and European countries.
As the US grew, so will the EU. Many new languages and dialects will be a result.
You lived in tri-city Texas, IIRC, which is like saying "I lived in Nice, therefore, I have seen all of Europe".
Actually, the SF bay area and NYC. And, yes, non-English content is mostly geared for poorer immigrant communities. It's actually evident from the fact that, say, public transportation in the south bay (mostly used by the poor and ethnic minorities) has subtitles in, say, Spanish and Vietnamese, while mostly everything catering to the higher classes of society is English only.
My friends pulling in 120K a year, while riding public transit, might disagree. There might be a different way of thinking involved.
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