its not language that matters so much as communication...

Ok blog #10, here we go!

I agree with Betty Bimer’s point of view: Spanish does not threaten American English. Look at this statement:

“English is in no danger of disappearing any time soon; it is firmly established both in America and in countries throughout the world. In fact, no language has ever held as strong a position in the world as English does today. Some people worry when they see Spanish showing up on billboards and pay phones, but in a neighborhood with a high Spanish- speaking population, it makes perfectly good sense for public information and instructions to be printed in both English and Spanish. This doesn't mean that the English language is in danger.”

In John Miller’s piece, English is Broken Here, the issue I think he should be addressing is not about whether or not we should allow ballots to be printed in other languages, or whether or not ‘English is broken here.’ His only arguments that held any validity for me were about all the money being wasted on printing ballots in other languages. I personally think that printing translated ballots is the right thing to do. No matter how much the cost our government is securing the rights of its people by giving them voting materials in the language they can understand. The real issue (once you get rid of fear, prejudice, and stupid anger that Miller wastes most of his essay on) is money. At the end of his article he does finally bring forth a solution I could stand listening to: he said: “ maybe we should expand the use of ethnic newspapers in preparing for voting season, or maybe we should let them take an English-speaking friend into the voting booth with them (like with blind voters). I would suggest that maybe one solution would be to make the English on the ballot easier to understand. Even I have a hard time understanding the language on the ballot and I was born here!! I believe that this move would make it easier even for those with broken English.

That website was wacky!! I wasn’t sure if it was joking some of the time. I mean, German almost won becoming the official language of the U.S.??—to me that seemed to say ‘look no need to worry about what the ‘official’ language is , even house of representatives knows that no matter what they say English will still be the one used all over the united states, it won’t change what choices people make.” I guess I just didn’t get it. They were trying to scare people, about how ‘English is threatened’ ooooh! The site also bothered me because I assumed that readers were already, or would soon be on their side of this ‘debate’ (I’m with Ali Mae, this is a debate?? Who cares? Is it a debate?) But on the other hand, it does make itself look very respectable and says over and over that the only effect there would be would be in government dealings. If it’s really not such a big deal then why the website, why the ‘debate’ at all? Why are they arguing? I don’t get it.

Dennis Baron’s article and the comic in the book were the best comic relief, for me! I loved them. This whole issue is just ridiculous, so, Baron went and wrote a ridiculous paper about it. I particularly liked his use of logic: “Chinese is too hard to write” and “In the end, though, it doesn’t matter what replacement language we pick, just so long as we ban English instead of making it official. Prohibiting English will do for the language what Prohibition did for liquor. Those who already use it will continue to do so, and those who don’t will want to try out what has been forbidden. This negative psychology works with children. It works with speed limits. It even worked in the Garden of Eden.”

I guess my main conclusion is who cares? So what if the language changes? As long as we can communicate, does it really matter? I figure that as problems crop up that truly impede communication, we’ll fix it. We’ll find a way through our problems. I would hope that, with language change and transformation we, as a society—as a people, will retain the language we have had, keeping respect for the past but always looking forward to the future.