[governance] PLEASE RESPOND - draft statement on reform of the

[Deirdre Williams]

Dear Eric.


> Your concerns are right and your plea is universal. All should strive for
> better understanding that transcends language.
>

I am happy that we agree :-)

 But I must caution you on two matters of rationale.
> 1. It is illconceived to equate langurage learning as a disability.
>

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.

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.
>

With the greatest respect - why not if the overall objective is
communication and some may be "disabled" by lack of a language?

 2. Anger at Anglophonia is misplaced.
>

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.

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.
>
> 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.
>
> (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)
>
> Multilingualism must be a positive lifting up or it is a division.
>

 I agree, but this involves negotiation on all sides of any multi-lingual
situation.

>
> --- On *Fri, 1/15/10, Deirdre Williams <williams.deirdre at gmail.com>*wrote:
>
>
> --
“The fundamental cure for poverty is not money but knowledge" Sir William
Arthur Lewis, Nobel Prize Economics, 1979
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