Monday, August 21, 2006

Do You Speak Canadian? Um... Aye?

I was looking through our local paper when a letter to the editor caught my eye. It was written in response to another letter from a fellow who thinks the children in our country should be taught other languages. Having not seen that other letter, I'm assuming he was saying our children should be fluent in something other than English. The person responding had an interesting idea, but I couldn't get past the sentence I bolded:
To the Readers’ Forum:
I’d like to comment again on Mr. Simon’s commentary
on trying to encourage kids of today to speak
other languages. He states that the European nations
speak two, three or four different languages. I wonder
why. So many different countries/cultures under one
continent about the same size as ours. You wouldn’t
expect a Canadian to speak Canadian here, because
their primary languages are French and English.

Mexico is the same way, with the exception that their
primary language is Spanish. My problem with this
way of thinking is this: If you are going to encourage
speaking different languages, why not encourage kids
to learn sign language or Braille? I may not need to
use French or German in my life as many people
probably aren’t, but did you ever stop to think that
you could lose your sight or ability to hear, things we
take for granted? I don’t think it is fair to learn a language
spoken with the mouth but not one spoken
with any other sense of the body. Kind of discriminatory
is it not?

6 comments:

TM said...

I'm trying to decide between withering sarcasm, literal counterpoints or a kick to the head. Decisions, eh?

Luis Baars said...

Um uh...I have no idea what he's talking about. I didn't think there was anything other than English or French being the main languages used in Canada. I also take issue with his argument for learning sign-language. It seems that he thinks it is more likely for a person to be suddenly struck blind or deaf rather than running into someone who speaks primarily Spanish, French, or German. I'm not trying to discredit learning ASL since I think it is very valuable, I just don't agree with the ascertion that learning one particular language is better than another...especially for the reasons he is pointing out.

Well, he probably drunk some of that tainted Elsinore beer...eh.

Anonymous said...

I weep for the future. :(

Anonymous said...

*cringes* oh gawd! Is that why canadians think Americans to be stupid or in the least very VERY ignorant? *cringes again* I'm so embarrased *hangs head and walks off in shame*

Anonymous said...

Shut up retarded Canadians. =\ You're not superior to anyone, you're ignorant people too not just America.

Julia said...

Looks like that last commenter didn't bother to read the post. Typical. I only un-moderated it because sometimes you have to.

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