Re: Connglish

Den 19. nov. 2006 kl. 18.56 skrev Sally Caves:
>
> After I admit that I know nothing about this subject, I'm amazed
> that Europeans would object to a bilingual upbringing as Daniel
> described. Perhaps this is a Central European opinion thirty years
> ago?  Or is it an opinion expressed by educators in Western Europe
> as well?  Europe has always seemed to me to be tolerant, for
> social, political, and geographical reasons, of bilingualism.  Non-
> bilingualism seems to belong more to Americans in their linguistic
> isolation.
Ho! Although the situation has improved greatly the last generation
or two, Europe has a unique long and violent history of
monolingualism, particularly if you include Turkey. Any national
state of any size seemed to give a very high priority to keeping or
making its population linguistically pure, as if their motto was: One
Nation - One Language. Only some places where the minorities were
strong, like Switzerland and Belgium, were forced to show some
(reluctant) tolerance. But even in Belgium linguistic war has been
prevalent at times. The whole thing is mind-boggling, shaming the
name of our species in my opinion.

LEF