Spanish in Schools

[FrenchHen]

Also worth considering is that the Spanish had permanent settlements in what is now the United States before those areas were states. Therefore, the chronology is Native Language, Spanish, then English for much of the southern and western US.

 

[redhen]

But our actual United States (the place we live now..) was founded (1776)and built up by the English.

Also i have no problem with any Spanish speaking people..Actually i'm part Spanish (Spain)heritage myself.

But, i DO believe that if you live here you NEED to speak English. It IS our national language..no matter how people try to word things...English has always been THE language here in the USA. Period.

 

[michickenwrangler]

The fact that Spanish-speakers have been here longer than English speakers rankles quite a few Americans--especially those of the WASP variety here in da great white nort'.

I taught Spanish here in NE Michigan where the prevailing attitude was "I'm not leaving town. I'm taking over the family farm/business. I don't need to learn it." Most parents didn't even consider Spanish an important subject. Very frustrating.

Although, there is a lot of French ancestry so some students got into that.

When I taught in SE Michigan in a small town near Adrian (a city that has a large Dominican and Mexican population) the students were much more recptive to learning a foreign language, and the parents were too.

 

[Chickie Mamma]

Does anyone know if other countries "require" students to learn English? When I went to Italy, if I didn't have my little translation book, I was lost. No one in the shops etc. knew English. It didn't bother me, but I did tell someone she had nice meat. I meant to say she had a nice dog. Oops.. But seriously, They should "push" ALL languages!

 

[Hoosiermomma]

I actually prefer Latin. I took it during High School and that is what I would want my kids to take.

 

[Rosalind]

Quote:
Only New England and bits of the east coast. Where I grew up in PA, the place was founded and built up by Swiss and South Germans ("PA Dutch"). There was actually quite an extensive trading network and the US was once very densely populated by Native Americans--the various types of colonists actually re-built it after about 90% of the Native American population died of smallpox. If the Native Americans had been resistant to European germs, you'd be speaking Wampanoag now.

In other linguistic history, pre-Civil War through the late 1800s, black people and women actually spoke an entirely different dialect than white men. Wealthy white children were raised by black slaves (later, black domestic workers) and spoke the local Southern patois, which was a mix of French, Caribbean Creole, and some English. When they were old enough, they were sent to Northern "finishing schools" to learn to speak proper English for snobbery's sake as well as business purposes. Most of the South was founded and built up by African and Caribbean slaves, but we don't speak Haitian Creole or Kwa-Togo.

Trying to think of what was spoken by colonists in other parts of the US off the top of my head. Gaelic dialects in the Appalachians via the Scotch-Irish. Various Scandinavian languages in Minnesota. Chinese in California built most of the transcontinental railroad and were a big part of the 1849 gold rush--before which, much of the West was an inaccessible wasteland, too far away to bother with for mere farmland.

 

[FrenchHen]

We have some Russian communities in the PNW, as well as several tribes.

 

[michickenwrangler]

Most people in w. Europe speak French as a second language and many in e. Europe speak German as a second language.

Most people in Africa speak their tribal language as well as the colonial language of the European country that controlled them. Example, most people in Kenya speak Swahili and English. Minorities in China speak both Mandarin and their minority language. In Mongolia, many people speak Russian, Mandarin or English as a second language. Now that Peru and Chile do business with Japan, the younger people are encouraged to learn Japanese.

The US is one of the comparatively few places that speaks only 1 language.

I'm mostly Polish, raised in bicultural if not bilingual family and I've only lived in areas with a healthy Polish population--metro Detroit, Bay City, Pinconning, Arenac County. I applied for a few jobs in the western Upper Peninsula which is mostly Finnish and I always had this thought in the back of my mind, "Where am I going to get paczkis on Paczki Day?"

 

[RabbitMage]

It's interesting the attitude Americans have about their country and their language. Rather than seeing it as a beneficial attribute to know more than one language, so many people demonize it and refuse to learn it, when it's common in so many other countries around the world.

Makes me sad.

 

[Year of the Rooster]

I've taken two years of Spanish. I can't speak fluently, but I do know some words and basic sentences. This year, I am taking Latin, but what I really want to learn is French