Dear Eric.<br><br><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0"><tbody><tr><td valign="top" style="font:inherit">
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<div>Your concerns are right and your plea is universal. All should strive for better understanding that transcends language.</div></td></tr></tbody></table></blockquote><div> </div><div>I am happy that we agree :-) </div>
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<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0"><tbody><tr><td valign="top" style="font:inherit"><div> But I must caution you on two matters of rationale.</div>
<div>1. It is illconceived to equate langurage learning as a disability. </div></td></tr></tbody></table></blockquote><div> </div><div>I think you misunderstood my intention. The example I was using was deliberately NOT referring to language learning skills, but to the situation of the person "disabled" by lacking ability in the language being used by the majority. I would be similarly disabled if trying to be part of a conversation where your deaf friend and his friends were using sign language.</div>
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<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0"><tbody><tr><td valign="top" style="font:inherit"><div>Some are more talented and more skilled at multilingualism and others are not so gifted. But the normal is one language well. You do my deaf friend an injustice to equate my ignorance of Navajo to his inability to hear as you and I do. Those of us who struggle to understand a foreign additional tongue are not to be afforded the same dispensation as a person with a challenge of disability.</div>
</td></tr></tbody></table></blockquote><div> </div><div>With the greatest respect - why not if the overall objective is communication and some may be "disabled" by lack of a language? </div><div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
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<div>2. Anger at Anglophonia is misplaced. </div></td></tr></tbody></table></blockquote><div><br></div><div>I'm not sure where this comes from. I have re-read what I wrote and I cannot see how you could interpret it as anger. Like you I see what you call "Anglophonia" as simply a state of affairs. However if we can find means to prevent the "state of affairs" from disabling some people then I believe we have a responsibility to try to do this.</div>
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<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0"><tbody><tr><td valign="top" style="font:inherit"><div>No one designed that. No one conspired that. You must treat it as a "just is" ASEAN is a wonderful organization (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) and it "just is" that their most common language is English and so it is most used.</div>
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<div>But we speak of contributions to this list. All must be ready to help to understand. Those who generally do not speak up -- have a very wonderful gift of an opportunity to help translate. They can dive right in and contribute in their own lingua. Sometimes we must elevate our ability to work here from a right to a responsibility. In every endeavor there are places for contribution and places of demand to receive. We have found over the years that the best of breed for multilingualism comes not from demand to get but from willingness to contribute. I will fight and die for your right to be included and have your rights, but I cannot and will not do the same for your right not to contribute and not to learn new ways.</div>
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<div>(in my southwest American home it is not unusual for my wife and that side of the family to try to leave me out by speaking French and Vietnamese - My side we use Spanish some Native American and a Shockabro Jive. And the best part is that we all are learning new tongues at all times but more importantly new ways to look at things and new ways to incorporate and include cultures and traditions)</div>
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<div>Multilingualism must be a positive lifting up or it is a division.<br></div></td></tr></tbody></table></blockquote><div> </div><div> I agree, but this involves negotiation on all sides of any multi-lingual situation.</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0"><tbody><tr><td valign="top" style="font:inherit"><div><br>--- On <b>Fri, 1/15/10, Deirdre Williams <i><<a href="mailto:williams.deirdre@gmail.com" target="_blank">williams.deirdre@gmail.com</a>></i></b> wrote:<br>
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<blockquote style="padding-left:5px;margin-left:5px;border-left:rgb(16,16,255) 2px solid"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br></span></span></blockquote>
</td></tr></tbody></table></blockquote></div>-- <br>“The fundamental cure for poverty is not money but knowledge" Sir William Arthur Lewis, Nobel Prize Economics, 1979<br>