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I have zero idea whether your ancestors did or did not. STATISTICALLY I find it funny that many chest thumping the loudest had ancestors that did not speak English worth a darn.
Take a look at the 1910, 1920, 1930 and 1940 census.
Their ancestors also were not accommodated in their native language in court and in every other way, but were forced to assimilate and join mainstream society.
Link? That is actually not true at all. The various neighboring languages in close proximity in places like Europe and Asia do not bleed into each other much at all. A speaker of French who has never studied German cannot understand the latter. A speaker of Korean cannot understand Chinese.
A nation-state should have one language that is universally used and those that have been balkanized such as, well the former Yugoslavia or the former Austro-Hungarian Empire always had massive internal strife.
I understand you wishing that your views be true, but they are not.
No, he/she is correct. Languages are vanishing rapidly.
I think the Democrats would be smart to give up on this social justice, diversity racket and focus on economic issues if they want to become a dominant party again. One has to pick his battles, and choosing the current course of action as a party has resulted not only in widespread minority status, but has hurt their historical message of economic justice.
I think the Democrats would be smart to give up on this social justice, diversity racket and focus on economic issues if they want to become a dominant party again. One has to pick his battles, and choosing the current course of action as a party has resulted not only in widespread minority status, but has hurt their historical message of economic justice.
Courts providing interpreters to litigants and witnesses is a Democratic crusade for social justice? That's quite a stretch.
Link? That is actually not true at all. The various neighboring languages in close proximity in places like Europe and Asia do not bleed into each other much at all. A speaker of French who has never studied German cannot understand the latter. A speaker of Korean cannot understand Chinese.
A nation-state should have one language that is universally used and those that have been balkanized such as, well the former Yugoslavia or the former Austro-Hungarian Empire always had massive internal strife.
I understand you wishing that your views be true, but they are not.
Nah, you are still thinking in time scales of decades/centuries and I'm referring to time scales of millennia or more. In human lifespan (decades) time scales languages are much less fluid than they are at much longer time scales. Because of geographical isolation in the past languages had the ability to both consolidate and fragment over time, global communication effectively removes the geographical isolation aspect drastically reducing the ability of languages to fragment and enhancing their ability to consolidate.
In reference to the discussion we're having on this thread, that is irrelevant. English and Spanish and every other major language are not vanishing quickly. Minority languages all over the planet, including Native American languages, minority languages in China, etc are indeed vanishing as those speakers begin to speak the dominant language of that country. Those languages in those countries, where they've existed for thousands of years should be preserved.
The discussion here has nothing to do with that, however. The discussion here is whether, when moving to this country, speakers of languages should learn the de facto language of the country in order to be able to prosper and join society. People moving here speaking Afrikkans or say a minority language of the hills of Vietnam should learn English and adapt to our society, not the other way around.
In reference to the discussion we're having on this thread, that is irrelevant. English and Spanish and every other major language are not vanishing quickly. Minority languages all over the planet, including Native American languages, minority languages in China, etc are indeed vanishing as those speakers begin to speak the dominant language of that country. Those languages in those countries, where they've existed for thousands of years should be preserved.
The discussion here has nothing to do with that, however. The discussion here is whether, when moving to this country, speakers of languages should learn the de facto language of the country in order to be able to prosper and join society. People moving here speaking Afrikkans or say a minority language of the hills of Vietnam should learn English and adapt to our society, not the other way around.
Actually, the discussion here is whether the New York judiciary supplying interpreters for non-English speaking litigants and witnesses should prompt outrage, as manifested in the OP.
Nah, you are still thinking in time scales of decades/centuries and I'm referring to time scales of millennia or more. In human lifespan (decades) time scales languages are much less fluid than they are at much longer time scales. Because of geographical isolation in the past languages had the ability to both consolidate and fragment over time, global communication effectively removes the geographical isolation aspect drastically reducing the ability of languages to fragment and enhancing their ability to consolidate.
That isn't what you said in your first post. You said in a 'few hundred years.' Last time I checked, that means centuries. The languages that I references are thousands of years old and have not blended in any spectacular way. There are of course cognates, and similarities within language families with regards to syntax, morphology, semantics, etc - such as German and English. However, that is a classic example of how a once common language has split into several others over time.
At any rate, this is not what is being discussed in this thread. The question is whether speakers of various languages, should come to a country, where English is the de facto language and expect that their language be accommodated indefinitely. We are not discussing whether languages are blending within our court system and our language is certainly not blending with any other language within the next 500 years or more.
So, should we simply wait until all the languages blend together in some hypothetical future before questioning whether we need 29 languages spoken in court?
Courts providing interpreters to litigants and witnesses is a Democratic crusade for social justice? That's quite a stretch.
I'm not surprised you see it that way. It is indeed a part of a social justice crusade towards diversity.
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