Quote:
Originally Posted by Lindy
While what you say is true, I'm not sure how it relates to Spanish language TV commercials in the USA, which are a result of immigration, both legal and uncontrolled.
World wide traffic signs and European university classes taught in English result from the fact that in our time English is a 'lingua franca,' the defacto language of commerce, technology, scientific research, etc. So you find it everywhere, and should expect to. Air traffic controllers the world over use English to communicate with airline and military pilots who probably speak dozens of different native tongues.
A lingua franca is a necessity for international commercial and cultural intercourse. Of course, it certainly doesn't have to be English, it's just turned out that way.
A hundred or two hundred years ago the French language served that same function. Before that it was Latin. In the world-wide Catholic Church, it's still Latin.
I don't want to alienate them. And I don't dislike non-English commercials any more than I dislike the ones in English. I'm an equal opportunity commercial hater.  I don't want to force anyone to give up their mother tongue, either. Still, non-English speakers in the USA should learn the dominant language. And that is English.
For their sake, not mine.
Lindy |
My point wasn't to argue for equivalency, but to show wyodiver33 that the argument that the whole "If I moved to France I would learn French. If I moved to Germany I would learn German. But here in the US forms have to be in English, Spanish, and Creaol (Hatien.)" is false. That is, the idea that there is some sort of double standard where Americans have to learn foreign languages to live abroad but foreigners don't need to learn English to come here is false.
Of course, at the end of the day both cases are about the tolerance and use of a foreign language in every day situations (and not only those related to being a lingua franca in international trade and travel), even in cases where a nation has a distinct official language.