What do you know about muslim languages ?

Bob   Saturday, June 11, 2005, 20:56 GMT
<<It is very differnt from the American system that force the people to be in a community - with no (or not much) interaction with others.>>

What do you mean by this, bernard? How is the French system different from the American one? Immigrants to the US are expected and encouraged to assimilate into the dominant Anglo-American culture and many of them do. If you go to any of the major cities in the US you'll find people of different races and nationalities working and living side-by-side with one another. What disrupts this harmony is when immigrants refuse or make little effort to assimilate. This is what angers people about the new wave of immigrants who turn established communities into mini versions of their country of origin with no consideration for the ways of the established community. I don't think this is just an American problem but one that exists everywhere. And it seems that in the US, any attempt to enact or enforce laws designed to encourage assimilation are immediately branded as racist. For instance, unlike France, we don't have a federally mandated official language. People who espouse English-only laws claim a single official language will unite of all Americans, but opponents counter that this is simply anti-immigrant.

I think what actually divides us are socioeconomic factors that cut across racial differences.
Sybille   Saturday, June 11, 2005, 21:20 GMT
Bernard, you seem very optimistic, I hope you're right
greg   Saturday, June 11, 2005, 22:59 GMT
bernard : "I live in a country were 10% of the population is muslim".

No, you don't. According to estimates there are 5 million people of Arab descent, 70 % of whom are atheist or non-observant.
Bob   Saturday, June 11, 2005, 23:46 GMT
"If you go to any of the major cities in the US you'll find people of different races and nationalities working and living side-by-side with one another. What disrupts this harmony is when immigrants refuse or make little effort to assimilate. This is what angers people about the new wave of immigrants who turn established communities into mini versions of their country of origin with no consideration for the ways of the established community. I don't think this is just an American problem but one that exists everywhere."

Its a verh hard and senstive topic that one. I can see the point of both sides but it must be awfully hard for an old migrant to pick up a new culture. I often wonder if you stuck an American, Australian etc in another country with a very different culture, what would happen?
bernard   Sunday, June 12, 2005, 01:23 GMT
No, you don't. According to estimates there are 5 million people of Arab descent, 70 % of whom are atheist or non-observant."


Greg I agree with you. It is what I said in my post - that we often call "muslisms" people who are from a north african origin - who were raised with the"muslism" legacy of their parents/grandparents/... but a lot of them don't practice the religion or are atheists. so technically are not muslisms.
The fact is that 5million is about 10% of French population.

But it is the same when statistics say that 80-90% of french population us catholic. In fact only about 30% really are. (not me, I'm not catholic even if I am of "catholic" cultural background)



<<It is very differnt from the American system that force the people to be in a community - with no (or not much) interaction with others.>>

What do you mean by this, bernard? "

In USA, the population is divided in different "ethnicities" - your "ethnicty" is writed on your passport. you are obliged to mention it, you canno't say "I'm American, that's all". You must be necessary be "white, black, hispanic (wich has nothing to do with a "race"), indian, etc... Not even "mixed" : if you are born in black community you have to live in it, marry a black women, etc... Even if you marry a white woman your children will be "black" ("one drop rule"). The urban life is organized in fonction of those so-called "etnicities" - with its schools, its malls, etc...
Each community have its TV shows, its kind of music, even sometimes its own language at shcool or in public services (english or spanish)
Of course people also interact together, but they rarely melt to form one people. there is not even a word to speak about mixed people (metissage, mestissaje, etc... but in english I don't know)
Us, in France we all are metis (metis of Gauls with Romans, Francks, Greeks, Vikings, Spanish, Italians, Polish...)
Bob   Sunday, June 12, 2005, 01:44 GMT
Yes it is a hard and sensitive topic, other Bob. I don't expect older people to suddenly adapt to new ways because I understand it becomes harder to learn new things in one's advancing years. But there are many immigrants in their 20s, 30, and 40s who've been in the US for at least a decade who haven't yet assimilated into the dominant culture, and from their standpoint, they don't need to because they can get by (to an extent) without having to.

With regards to learning the English language, I understand there's probably a host of reasons why some immigrants haven't learned it (e.g. language education costs, too busy trying to make ends meet, etc.). But I wonder, if I decided to migrate to France without any working knowledge of French, how long would I survive in my new country? How long will the French people tolerate having me as a neighbor with my severly limited French language skills? This is why I asked bernard to clarify what the French goverment does differently from the US government that makes their system work.
Bob   Sunday, June 12, 2005, 01:45 GMT
Sorry, bernard. I didn't refresh.
Bob   Sunday, June 12, 2005, 02:03 GMT
<<Not even "mixed" : if you are born in black community you have to live in it, marry a black women, etc... Even if you marry a white woman your children will be "black" ("one drop rule"). The urban life is organized in fonction of those so-called "etnicities" - with its schools, its malls, etc...>>

Whoa! Hold on a minute, bernard. Miscegenation laws were ruled unconstitutional back in the 1960s. People are free to marry whomever they want, and they often do. If their community frowns upon the mixing of races, then that community has a problem. Our public schools and colleges are heavily integrated, and we can live and shop wherever we want. We don't live in an apartheid society.

Like I said before, what divides us is socio-economic status. We live in segrated communites based on income, not on race. But because it is traditionally the blacks and new Latino immigrants who earn low incomes, they are "forced" to live in neighborhoods separate from the higher income earners.

Of course, this is all based on my experiences living in a major city. There are some areas of the US interior that probably still hold backwards views about races, but your portrayal of life here in the US is not wholly accurate.
Ved   Sunday, June 12, 2005, 03:02 GMT
Mandy Saturday, June 11, 2005, 17:10 GMT
"Yes, Bosniac, Croatian and Serbian are official languages, they have both different spelling and grammar norms, and different lexic, and are separate languages (see ethnologue.com), although they share SOME dialects

Croatian - official language of the republic of Croatia
Serbain - official language of Serbia and Montenegro

Bosniac, Serbian and Croatian - official languages of the republic of Bosnia & Herzegovina


Danish and Norwegian are much closer than Serbian and Croatian. "

Excuse me for having to insist, but as a native speaker of these "three languages", I can assure you that they are one language. The difference between standard Croatian and standard Serbian are no greater than those between standard American and British varieties of English.

Danish and Norwegian are not more similar than either Serbian and Croatian or UK and US English. In fact, standard Serbian and Croatian are even more similar than the two standard Norwegian varieties.

I have no problem with people calling their languages whatever thay want, but the fact remains that a person from Belgrade, Zagreb and Sarajevo can undertand each other perfectly well. Just like a Londoner a Sydneysider and a New Yorker.
Ved   Sunday, June 12, 2005, 03:03 GMT
the difference ---> the differences
Ed   Sunday, June 12, 2005, 04:53 GMT
<<That's why we Jews are so adamant about not intermarrying, because the marriage in Jewish tradition is about the meeting of two Jewish souls.>>

I've heard about that, too.
Ed   Sunday, June 12, 2005, 04:55 GMT
And about Serbian, Croatian, and Bosnian...

The Serbs claim that Serbo-Croatian is one language, The Croats say they are completely different, while the Bosniacs don't care (well, I'm not sure about the last one, but it seems to me that that's the case).