The Cellar - View Single Post

Guyute · 05-22-2006, 09:22 PM

You guys are lucky. Here in Canada, the Feds made Canada officially bilingual, and Quebec responded by passing provincial laws restricting English, or banning it all together. Then the Fed Gov't laid back and didn't say STOP. Imagine having to write the government to request forms in English when 70% of Canada considers it their mother tongue. Or getting fined because your phone's "hold" music is not French. That crap was part of the reason I moved back to Nova Scotia. And the Federal Gov't continues to do nothing.

If you Americans don't get a hold of this problem soon, you're in deep doo-doo, because if your gov't is anything like ours, they won't intervene. They will vacillate, say that it isn't really happening, that the media are overblowing it, then the next thing you know you're fucked. "others" will exercise THEIR right to limit communication in the predominant language. Why learn English if I don't have to, right? English-speakers lose because traditionally us "English-speaking whites" are too kind and have no backbone to stand up and say "If you can't read the damn road signs then get out of the fucking car!" If the nation is primarily English-speaking, and road signs and stuff are in English, you'd expect it to be common sense that an immigrant have working knowledge of ENGLISH! Once again it is the case of the minority dictating to the majority.

05-22-2006, 09:22 PM	#12
Guyute Gamehenge Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: Halifax, NS Posts: 168	You guys are lucky. Here in Canada, the Feds made Canada officially bilingual, and Quebec responded by passing provincial laws restricting English, or banning it all together. Then the Fed Gov't laid back and didn't say STOP. Imagine having to write the government to request forms in English when 70% of Canada considers it their mother tongue. Or getting fined because your phone's "hold" music is not French. That crap was part of the reason I moved back to Nova Scotia. And the Federal Gov't continues to do nothing. If you Americans don't get a hold of this problem soon, you're in deep doo-doo, because if your gov't is anything like ours, they won't intervene. They will vacillate, say that it isn't really happening, that the media are overblowing it, then the next thing you know you're fucked. "others" will exercise THEIR right to limit communication in the predominant language. Why learn English if I don't have to, right? English-speakers lose because traditionally us "English-speaking whites" are too kind and have no backbone to stand up and say "If you can't read the damn road signs then get out of the fucking car!" If the nation is primarily English-speaking, and road signs and stuff are in English, you'd expect it to be common sense that an immigrant have working knowledge of ENGLISH! Once again it is the case of the minority dictating to the majority. __________________ It's Really Plain and Easy To See, The Family grows like fungus on a tree.