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.
-Bop
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