Re: CHAT: language and politics (was CHAT: conlangs and mentalillness)

Danny Wier <dawier@...> wrote:
>=20
> Mexico, as far as I know, doesn't give much legal status to Nahuatl, Ma=
yan,
> Zapotec and other indigenous languages, which is a shame because they a=
re
> spoken by millions, and there is strong ethnic pride among these people=
s.
>=20
I don't know what the legal situation is exactly like
in Argentina regarding minority languages. Practically
everybody speaks Spanish (in very different fashions
sometimes), but there are some native comunities with
their own languages (particularly Guaran=ED, Quechua and
I think Mapuche). Right here in Rosario, and moreover,
at about 10 blocks from my house, there's a neighbourhood
formed by immigrants from Chaco, a northern province, of
the Toba ethnia. I work in a community center there, and
I'm told that some of them speak their own language fluently
and have some trouble with Spanish... The law says that they
should be guaranted bilingual education, but the very poor
education they get doesn't include bilingual teaching,
because there are no bilingual teachers -- they'd need a
degree for that, and there's nobody to test them in the
first place.


--Pablo Flores