Re: Linguaphobia and Linguocentrism

Ben van Poppel wrote:
>
> Having spent only three weeks in the US, I'm not sure of how
> representative these first-impressions are, but I was struck at not
> only the linguaphobic phenomenon but also the simple ignorance of most
> people about language or indeed about other countries. Ok, so
> Australia's a long way away, but it's still a pretty big country, yet
> I was asked more often than I like to count if my parents knew
> English, or if I could teach X to say Y in "Australian". Then of
> course they wanted to know if I rode kangaroos and shot crocodiles. :)
LOL.  I've a similar story:  my father's side of the family is English,
and he and his family immigrated to the US in the 1960s.  My grandmother
told me that when she first arrived in the US, her new neighbors
complimented her on her good command of the English language, for a
foreigner at least!

Nicole