This isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t going to be a discourse on the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153English Only\u00e2\u20ac\u009d movement, which is gaining momentum in many areas. Expressing my opinions on the monolingual approach would take far more time and space than is available here.<\/p>\n
But I once fell victim to a virulent e-mail forwarder from Deming. She sent to everyone in her address book a treatise by a congressman whose take on learning any language but English seemed \u00e2\u20ac\u201d at least to me \u00e2\u20ac\u201d bigoted. The politico\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s dictum was: English is what is spoken in the U.S.; if you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t like it, leave.<\/p>\n
Yet, as I promised, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not what today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s column will be about. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll come later.<\/p>\n
On what side of the argument do you fall? After many y\u00c3\u00a5ears of teaching, I believe I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve heard every argument for and against the learning of a language other than English. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve all heard about kids who were punished for speaking Spanish on the playground; and we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve already memorized the litany of reasons for English only, the chief of which is that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The way to get ahead in the U.S. is through English.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
How many of you got short-changed because of the fear that learning Spanish (or some other non-English tongue) would prevent you from concentrating on English? My childhood ironically de-emphasized the learning of Spanish.<\/p>\n
Like millions of people in the Southwest, I am certain our folks spoke Spanish to each other but English to us.<\/p>\n
The result, predictably, is that we grew up understanding our parents\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 language, but we didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t speak it, at least not very well.<\/p>\n
When it came to grandparents, well, forget it! They spoke only Spanish, which we understood a bit, but in broken Spanish, our replies sometimes didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t register.<\/p>\n
But rather than make this a discussion on the problems, perils and puzzlements of coping with two languages, let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s discuss the belief by some that there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a kind of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153interference\u00e2\u20ac\u009d when one tries to handle two languages. My experience, being brought up in an eastside barrio, where most of my neighbors spoke Spanish, was intimidating.<\/p>\n
Once, I asked Mr. Pe\u00c3\u00b1a, our across-the-street grocer, for a package of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153cigarros,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d because, after all, Dad had sent me to buy him a Rio-Tan cigar.<\/p>\n
I was laughed at. A couple of neighborhood kids in the store practically made my error part of David Letterman\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Top 10 list. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Did you hear what Mannie said at Pe\u00c3\u00b1a\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s store?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
That practically became the cause c\u00c3\u00a9l\u00c3\u00a8bre in our little world on Railroad Avenue. You see, I not only botched the pronunciation of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153cigarro,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d with my inability to roll my r\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s, but I used the wrong word. Old Man Pe\u00c3\u00b1a must have laughed himself to sleep that night, over the crime I committed in calling a cigar a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153cigarro\u00e2\u20ac\u009d instead of a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153puro.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Another barrier many of us faced was the unadulterated, unmitigated ability for elders to laugh at our efforts to pronounce certain Spanish words.<\/p>\n
These adults, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m quite convinced, liked to set us up by asking us a question they knew we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d struggle with, then laugh at us. The laughter didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t subside until everyone within earshot got a load of our butchering of the King\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Spanish.<\/p>\n
That was by no means a confidence builder.<\/p>\n
At the time that I was struggling with both the mechanics and the pronunciation of Spanish, I was careful never to criticize the way my critics spoke English. No, that wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have been fair, because youngsters must always be respectful toward their elders.<\/p>\n
So I learned what I could off the streets and really benefitted by a couple of semesters of conversational Spanish taught by the greatest teacher at Immaculate Conception School, Sister John Dennis, whose expectations were strict but fair. During my senior year of high school, I needed to make a decision: How much stock do I put into what I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d heard all my life about language interference?<\/p>\n
The theory was simple: If thou darest attempt a language other than English, thou shalt fail miserably at both. And in a college English course, the professor lectured on evolution, emphasizing three life forms among animals: terrestrial, arboreal and aquatic. So he asked the class the meaning of these words. No volunteers.<\/p>\n
Then it hit me: We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re talking about three words whose roots relate to Spanish and Latin words we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve used for years. In order, they refer to the earth (tierra), trees (arboles) and water (agua). The concept became clear, especially to those with a background in Spanish.<\/p>\n
Perhaps that was just a mini-lesson, but it convinced me that rather than interfering with, or competing with, English, Spanish serves to enhance our knowledge of English.<\/p>\n
I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve taken coursework in German; I dabble in French and hope to take a course in Russian this fall at Highlands. True, false cognates (words that are spelled the same but mean something different) give me fits, but I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m old enough not to let it bother me.<\/p>\n
When people stop speaking the language of their grandparents, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an indication that the language is on a downward spiral, and this phenomenon most commonly occurs when the numbers of speakers are small. And we have to wonder whether and to what extent today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s children brush aside opportunities to learn languages because of the fear of being ridiculed.<\/p>\n
As for me, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve become voracious when it comes to attempting some of the major languages of the world. Will language interference be a factor? I doubt it. And if people laugh at how I sound, so be it.<\/p>\n
I can take it. And besides, I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t smoke puros or anything else.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t going to be a discourse on the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153English Only\u00e2\u20ac\u009d movement, which is gaining momentum in many areas. Expressing my opinions on the monolingual approach would take far more time and space than is available here. But I once fell victim to a virulent e-mail forwarder from Deming. She sent to everyone in her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1096"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1096"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1096\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1101,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1096\/revisions\/1101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}