About bilinguilismlametigerApril 14 2008, 17:44:32 UTC
Excuse me for double-posting, but I felt this was better as a separate comment entry because it deals with a separate line of thought. In December 2006, I returned (for the first time since a child) to South Africa, the land of my birth. It was interesting when traveling around to find (African) natives that spoke different European languages in addition to their various tribal languages, depending on where they had grown up. Even if they also knew English, natives in some parts of the country were more comfortable conversing in Afrikaans than in English. I did not, however, detect (at least among the people I met on my rather short stay) a sense of competition between the two languages. On the other hand, among the whites, I suspect I would have found more linguistic chauvinism. On the whole, I feel that SA does as good a job as most countries with multilingualism. With majority rule there are now something like 7 official languages (I don't remember offhand exactly, and don't want to take the time to look it up) but the two colonial languages coexist as languages of trade and intercommunication.
In personal anecdotal mode, I still remember when we moved out of the city of Kimberley, where the medium of instruction in the West End school was English, to the small farming community of Ronaldsvlei, where my brother and I were suddenly studying in Afrikaaans. It was not quite total submergence learning--the teachers did explain to us as necessary, more so in the beginning than later on--but close to it. I heartily recommend the same practice for Spanish-speaking immigrant children in the US.
In personal anecdotal mode, I still remember when we moved out of the city of Kimberley, where the medium of instruction in the West End school was English, to the small farming community of Ronaldsvlei, where my brother and I were suddenly studying in Afrikaaans. It was not quite total submergence learning--the teachers did explain to us as necessary, more so in the beginning than later on--but close to it. I heartily recommend the same practice for Spanish-speaking immigrant children in the US.
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