Wouldn't Spanish be a BETTER choice?

The main point of the comparison was, though, that said German-speakers ended up assimilating in the long run, language-wise, anyways, despite being in an environment in which they very well could have just remained German-speaking indefinitely, being the primary group in the area at the time, population-wise. Of course, though, there were some outside factors which pushed things towards assimilation, such as the shutting down of local education in German around the time of World War 1 and like, but even the things surrounding World War 1 were rather shortlived in themselves. Assimilation wasn't instantaneous in the least, considering that people were still speaking it around here during my grandparents' generation, and some old people are still around who speak it.

But even still, if they assimilated, and even in the circumstances they were in, I see little reason why Spanish-speaking immigrants today, who are not settling areas so that they become the primary group there, but rather are immigrating into a society which is heavily English-monolingual, to say the very least, would not end up assimilating language-wise in the long run. This is not about whether such is good or bad; I myself am not the biggest fan of assimilation linguage-wise, but I don't see anything that is likely to happen in this situation other than such at the present.

I'm from Minnesota, another state with a large Hmong population. The adults admittedly aren't great at English, but that makes sense since Hmong and English are vastly different. However, kids speak mostly English, even to their parents. And that's in two generations. Even if the Mexicans WANT to keep speaking Spanish, let them. How does it affect you? Either way, they learn English and soon forget how to speak Spanish. I know enough Mexican immigrants to know this. Even first-generation immigrants, if moved young enough, learn English and speak it to their parents while their parents speak Spanish to them. And here, too, there are many old Germans and Poles who speak their old language amongst themselves. No one complains, because no one cares.

DJW
>>Historia magistra vitae est? Does this mean "historia magister vitae est"? <<

No, honey, it doesn't, as "historia" is a feminine noun, and, therefore, has got to be a "magistra", not a "magister". N'est-ce pas?

I just noticed that my post about China being bound to become the next world superpower has disappeared without a trace.

I have no clue, but honestly, no clue what might have been offensive about it, especially in view of the very high volume of ranting, hyperoffensive posts on this forum.

Ved confused. Ved baffled.

what means Hmong?

They're an ethnic group, or more properly, a group of ethnic groups, from Southeast Asia which got displaced as a result of the Indochina Wars, including those in Laos and like, due to their siding as a whole during them with the US, and thus ending up on the losing side of the conflicts as a whole. They settled in various parts of the US, particularly California and the Midwest, amongst other places, after the Indochina Wars.

Travis

Thanks for your answer

There's a big difference between the German, Italian, Irish, etc immigration patterns of the past and the Spanish-speaking immigration occurring in the present. Back then, the immigrants came through Ellis Island or other ports of call and were registered with the government. Hence, their documented status. This allowed the U.S. government to establish quotas, permitting them to regulate the flow of immigrants into this country and keep a steady balance that did not disrupt the country's infrastructure. If I'm not mistaken, many of these immigrants, particularly the Germans, moved into regions that were sparsely populated.

Today's Mexican-Central American immigration is largely unregulated and ILLEGAL. And they keep pouring in in massive waves and into urban population centers that are already overcrowded. They are largely poor, uneducated, and unskilled immigrants. Schools in California, Arizona, and New Mexico are having trouble keeping up with this inundation and are being forced to teach strictly in Spanish in order to bring their educational level to national standards. You say that eventually, the later generations will be fluent in English – I don't doubt that. But as long as this illegal immigration continues to go unchecked, we'll have to keep contending with first generation non-English-speaking immigrants, and the cycle will keep repeating until eventually, you have a population where Spanish becomes the dominant language and English becomes secondary.

You need only visit a city like Los Angeles and see how in 10 short years, the face of the city has completely changed. All the chic shops and restaurants in my neighborhood have gone belly-up or have moved out, and in it's place are thrift shops, 99 cent stores and taquerias that cater to the poorer, Spanish-speaking population. Signs are in Spanish, billboards are in Spanish, radio and television stations are in Spanish, and commercials in Spanish are now being aired on regular network stations. You go to a shop or fast-food restaurant and you can barely communicate with the clerk or food server because their command of the English language is poor. I usually end up switching to my rudimentary Spanish so as not to get my order wrong, but do you think this is fair in an English-speaking country?

(I won't even go into how the wages are being driven down, social programs and the healthcare industry are going bankrupt, while the cost of housing has skyrocketed.)

<<Exactly, immigrants should speak the language, because English has been the established language in this region for the past 150 years at the least.>>

Sw yank, now I ask you seriously, do you speak any Native American languages? Because they were established in America LONG before English.

<<Imagine hundreds of thousands of Hmongs in your community, with the majority unwilling to learn English, and you've got a typical Southwestern city.>>

You are a Navajo. Imagine hundreds of thousands of white people in your community, with the majority unwilling to learn Navajo...

You act as if English is the native language of the US, as if it is somehow "entitled" to be spoken in the US while other languages are not.

This has turned into a political discussion with two sides: one favoring or being neutral and the other against immigration. I'm in the former because it's always happened, it's not the end of the world, and if you have a problem, move or learn the new language. If you aren't able to communicate because you can't speak Spanish, then you are the stubborn one not willing to learn the language, not the immigrants. And this is not and has never been a strictly English-speaking country. Besides, if not for the immigrants, then who would do all the lowly work of being janitors, fast-food workers, and slaughter-house workers? Would you want to do it? Thought not.

I myself do not see any reason why English is somehow "better" than whatever language said immigrants are bringing in, in this case Spanish. In this case, it seems like it's more an issue of one not being able to handle the thought of living in a society with other individuals who may not speak your language, that is, English, or at least speak it fluently. However, though, as we've said before, non-English-speaking immigrants, and in large numbers at that, are nothing new in American history, and also there is no reason why others "should" speak English just because you do, and thus their speaking English would be most convenient for *you*, especially because you presume a basically monolingual society as a whole. Of course, I don't see any reason why the descendants of Spanish-speaking immigrants born here in the US would not be likely to be primarily English-speaking, but then, that's not what this specific thing is about at this point.

As for the legality issue, well, that is simply irrelevant to the whole matter altogether, as we are speaking about language issues here, and nothing else. Same thing goes for any of the comments about how immigration in the Southwest is hurting wages, social programs, healthcare, or whatever.

>>From a non-Anglophone point of view, the'universality' of English is really relative, however much widespread this language may be.<<

What I said about English being more universal than Spanish was based on a subjective impression (I'm not a native speaker of English, by the way). I like Hispanic culture, and I do think it is in some respects more "universal" than the culture of any English-speaking country (I feel I can absorb more from writers like Marquez than any American writer, for example) . My point was strictly linguistic. At present I couldn't really imagine conversing with a non-Spanish speaker in Spanish, while I could readily do so in English, for example, with a Swede or a Russian or a Chinese, they are more likely to speak English than Spanish, if any of the two. Of course this may change, given, for example, the growing importance of Spanish within the US. Here in Europe, Spanish seems less prevalent, the general atmosphere here is still quite Anglo-centric, I'm afraid. If you like, Spanish is less cross-cultural than English at the moment, but of course that seems slowly to be changing as well.

>> This has turned into a political discussion with two sides: one favoring or being neutral and the other against immigration. I'm in the former because it's always happened, it's not the end of the world, and if you have a problem, move or learn the new language. If you aren't able to communicate because you can't speak Spanish, then you are the stubborn one not willing to learn the language, not the immigrants. <<

No. This is not about anti-immigration, it's about anti-ILLEGAL immigration. Unchecked, illegal immigration is taxing resources and overwhelming our infrastructure. I'm sure once you begin seeing the effects of illegal immigration in your neck of the woods, you'll think differently. There are many people waiting to immigrate to the U.S., and they're doing it by legal means, but must wait 10-20 years. How is this fair to them?

Oh yeah, the simple answer to everything -- "just move." I've been established in my neighborhood for 20 odd years, and now you expect me concede to the newcomers and just pick up and move, okay. Besides, I'm not saying I hate my neighborhood, all I'm saying is that it has completely changed. Also, I am learning Spanish and I do communicate with my neighbors in Spanish, but they in turn, should make an effort to speak to me in English rather than naturally assume I speak Spanish. Many times people have approached me asking for directions in Spanish or they knock on my door and immediately speak in Spanish.

>> Besides, if not for the immigrants, then who would do all the lowly work of being janitors, fast-food workers, and slaughter-house workers? Would you want to do it? Thought not. <<

This is the same old tired rationale that even our President is claiming to justify illegal immigration. It's bullshit. The only reason non-immigrants aren't clamoring for these jobs is because of the below minimum wages that these jobs pay. Bring it up to a sustainable living wage, and you'll see more non-immigrants in these positions. Your rationale only promotes the continued exploitation of unskilled labor.

Krikes, this is a forum about language issues, not a forum to rant about "illegal" immigration and whatnot; there are other places for that. And anyways, the "illegalness" of such things are completely arbitrary, fundamentally, and there's nothing inherently wrong or right about such things in themselves.

Lazar, actually they weren't established peoples. The majority of natives from the current United States area were nomadic tribes. They (including the Navajos) were in no way 'established'. And actually, Navajos have sovereign countries not subject to US law larger than the Netherlands. Caucasians are not allowed to live in the enormous areas. The current United States government is in English. I myself am not English at all, but I speak the language of the nation. Like I said, don't even talk about situations you don't know.

And Bill got it spot on.

Also, Arabic has more native speakers than Spanish, across a wider area.