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The context for this being that someone is going off on people who come to the States without learning English and, apparently, preferring it for all their daily needs, as the response to, "What's wrong with wanting a Spanish-language copy of Dudley Do-Right?" was, "The Rio Grande is that way."
Given various peoples on my friendslist posting on the subject of the tetchiness of language and the weirdness of ethnic filing and . . . stuff . . . and the fact that I'm feeling a little ranty, I copy it over here.
There's a limit to how much a reasonable human being can be expected to sacrifice in order to fit in, to get along; there's a limit to how much any group of people has a right to horn in on what gets done in private homes.
Language is one of those terribly fraught things, too, because the way the words fit together says a lot about the way the brain goes together, and in some places the way the brain _can_ go together; there are things that I've not been able to think clearly, emotions that I've not been able to distinguish usefully, until I found a word for them. I've started on learning languages sometimes because they seemed to have the potential to give me words in places where I'm whistling in the dark. (I suspect I'd do better with Sanskrit if I could just get a handle on the alphabet. Which probably means more practice.)
If there are people who want to see things, hear things, communicate in their own native language, it is entirely reasonable that they should do so. To choose to watch Spanish-language television has about as much moral value as having a favorite shirt. There is no sin in providing Spanish-language television to those places that have a market for it, any more than there is a sin in putting up billboard in Portuguese if there is enough of a Portuguese population to recoup whatever is recouped from the expense of billboards. (My major issue with Portuguese-language billboards is that I stare at them for several long moments before I realize, "Portuguese! Portuguese! Not Spanish!")
There exist native-born speakers in the United States whose first languages are not English. Shall they be told that they're unreasonable for moving somewhere they were born without mastering the language?
How many people in this community have been told off for not "talking like normal people", anyway?
There are limits to what a person needs to do to fit in, and where they should have to sacrifice, and language goes deep in all sorts of weird ways. I've seen people argue that other people should change their religion to what other people in their areas practice, so as not to offend, so as to get along better, so as not to be subject to discrimination, so as to be able to gather in co-religious groups. I have seen people argue that people should suppress their sexual orientation in order to make life easier for their relatives. I have seen more things like this, some milder, some more severe, all of them trying to change how people exist in their private lives to smooth away all of the differences between people that make people actually interesting.
Nobody should have to shape their private lives so they're identical to the people around them; burning the books in one's native language when one crosses the border is not reasonable. Never conversing in one's native language is not reasonable. Never looking for the native-language telly or the native-language radio or native-language videos is not reasonable. Some people may choose those courses, but those courses are things I cannot condone seeing mandated.
It doesn't steal anything from me for there to be foreign-language broadcasts, recordings, books. I own a number of them (not counting translation dictionaries, I have texts, most of them English/Othertongue texts, in Quechua, Greek, Sanskrit, Arabic, Spanish, Hebrew, and Latin, and I may be missing some). Setting aside all the multi-language DVDs, not all of which are anime, though anime tends to be watched either in native language or with native-language subtitles, oh the horror.
Nobody should have to give up the home of their soul; for some people, language is that home. Learning happens, additional places to go can be built, but there is a limit on what anyone can reasonably expect, and I think that limit can only be compressed as far as the front door.
Given various peoples on my friendslist posting on the subject of the tetchiness of language and the weirdness of ethnic filing and . . . stuff . . . and the fact that I'm feeling a little ranty, I copy it over here.
There's a limit to how much a reasonable human being can be expected to sacrifice in order to fit in, to get along; there's a limit to how much any group of people has a right to horn in on what gets done in private homes.
Language is one of those terribly fraught things, too, because the way the words fit together says a lot about the way the brain goes together, and in some places the way the brain _can_ go together; there are things that I've not been able to think clearly, emotions that I've not been able to distinguish usefully, until I found a word for them. I've started on learning languages sometimes because they seemed to have the potential to give me words in places where I'm whistling in the dark. (I suspect I'd do better with Sanskrit if I could just get a handle on the alphabet. Which probably means more practice.)
If there are people who want to see things, hear things, communicate in their own native language, it is entirely reasonable that they should do so. To choose to watch Spanish-language television has about as much moral value as having a favorite shirt. There is no sin in providing Spanish-language television to those places that have a market for it, any more than there is a sin in putting up billboard in Portuguese if there is enough of a Portuguese population to recoup whatever is recouped from the expense of billboards. (My major issue with Portuguese-language billboards is that I stare at them for several long moments before I realize, "Portuguese! Portuguese! Not Spanish!")
There exist native-born speakers in the United States whose first languages are not English. Shall they be told that they're unreasonable for moving somewhere they were born without mastering the language?
How many people in this community have been told off for not "talking like normal people", anyway?
There are limits to what a person needs to do to fit in, and where they should have to sacrifice, and language goes deep in all sorts of weird ways. I've seen people argue that other people should change their religion to what other people in their areas practice, so as not to offend, so as to get along better, so as not to be subject to discrimination, so as to be able to gather in co-religious groups. I have seen people argue that people should suppress their sexual orientation in order to make life easier for their relatives. I have seen more things like this, some milder, some more severe, all of them trying to change how people exist in their private lives to smooth away all of the differences between people that make people actually interesting.
Nobody should have to shape their private lives so they're identical to the people around them; burning the books in one's native language when one crosses the border is not reasonable. Never conversing in one's native language is not reasonable. Never looking for the native-language telly or the native-language radio or native-language videos is not reasonable. Some people may choose those courses, but those courses are things I cannot condone seeing mandated.
It doesn't steal anything from me for there to be foreign-language broadcasts, recordings, books. I own a number of them (not counting translation dictionaries, I have texts, most of them English/Othertongue texts, in Quechua, Greek, Sanskrit, Arabic, Spanish, Hebrew, and Latin, and I may be missing some). Setting aside all the multi-language DVDs, not all of which are anime, though anime tends to be watched either in native language or with native-language subtitles, oh the horror.
Nobody should have to give up the home of their soul; for some people, language is that home. Learning happens, additional places to go can be built, but there is a limit on what anyone can reasonably expect, and I think that limit can only be compressed as far as the front door.
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