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92 Comments
- iDoraemon, on 06/16/2009, -11/+70What do you call someone who speaks three languages?
Trilingual.
What do you call someone who speaks two languages?
Bilingual.
What do you call someone who speaks one language?
American. - huertanix, on 06/16/2009, -1/+45Mirror?
Espejo? - regularsteven, on 06/16/2009, -4/+36I didn't see American???
/s - Homerr, on 06/16/2009, -1/+28Site is dead.
- iamnobody8614, on 06/16/2009, -0/+27Well, Americans speak a different dialect of English than Britons, but that doesn't make it a different language.
- doublefelix, on 06/16/2009, -1/+19One could get awfully lonely speaking Navajo in Northern California.
- mccartyba, on 06/16/2009, -1/+19lol, even the mirror is down.
- tazabi, on 06/16/2009, -4/+20http://rorr.im/
- Rivfader, on 06/16/2009, -2/+16Damn right I only speak one language, its because I don't want to sound like a godless heathen speaking in them other vile tongues that Satan invented. We all know Jesus spoke American.
- stubear, on 06/16/2009, -6/+19Actually it does. When government services are required to be designed, produced, printed, etc. in two different languages the costs increase significantly. What I don't understand is how it is xenophobic to make English the national language of the U.S.? When I travel abroad I don't expect people to speak english. It's nice and certainly helps a lot but it's not expected of me. When people come to my country I expect them to speak english. When they flat out refuse and expect my country to cater to their language needs I say go f... yourself.
- slayernine, on 06/16/2009, -1/+13fail site is fail
- mocob, on 06/16/2009, -6/+18DEYY TOOK OUR JIIIIIIIRBS!
- jaybol, on 06/16/2009, -1/+12postmodern linguists with a big win when mla.org can't handle digg traffic! no more rules!
- greatfloat, on 06/16/2009, -1/+12That wasn't nearly as interesting as I anticipated.
- JCEEZ, on 06/16/2009, -0/+10comedy fail
- teemingvoid, on 06/16/2009, -0/+10While this is unfortunately true, the perceived need to learn other languages in the United States is not nearly as large as it is in many parts of the rest of the world (ie Western Europe, as many people use as their example). As a people, the US stays relatively sedentary in the sense that we don't visit outside of our own states very often, or at least not out of the country (our neighbor Mexico is too turbulent for most Americans to feel safe crossing the border right now, so we don't spend much time with them, and French Canada seems to be adopting English at an accelerated rate). If Europe is perceived to be like the United States, as economists like to do when they talk about the European Union, going outside of one's "state" necessitates a different way of conversing, because more likely than not, your neighboring state speaks a different language. Many countries in the world learn English, not because they love America or GB especially, or want to emigrate, but because it is a common language with which they can communicate with one another, hence a heightened emphasis on multilingualism in their schools over those in the United States.
Personally, I am part of a small percentage of trilingual individuals in the US (I fall under the category of having an immigrant father, daimposter). I'm rationalizing all this (at least from my perspective) because I think individuals are too quick to associate multilingualism with intelligence, and just pass off the United States in its entirety as a nation of half-witted, bumbling retards, which ironically I think is a sign of ignorance in its own. Just my 2 cents :) - JCEEZ, on 06/16/2009, -1/+11but like we um have the awesomest economy in the world
- jonkdavis, on 06/16/2009, -8/+18I kept changing the languages and it seemed like Los Angeles County had the most speakers of the most languages in all the U.S. What a melting pot (and damn proud of it)!
- yournightmare, on 06/16/2009, -4/+13When I lived in Germany I made it a point to learn the language as quickly as possible. I bought books and had my German friends speak to me in German (of course they'd help when I didn't understand something). But I damn sure didn't sit on my ass and expect everyone to bend over backwards for me because I refused to learn the language of the country I was living in.
I also don't get why Americans get so much ***** for only knowing English. English has become the de facto international language, there's no reason to learn any other language besides English, other than to satisfy intellectual curiosity (or get a specialty job as a translator/foreign language instructor.) - strictnein, on 06/16/2009, -1/+10I'd rather be proud of a low murder/crime rate, but that's just me. Congrats on all the languages though.
- kwasmosis, on 06/16/2009, -1/+10This site is busted. Too many diggers, not enough bandwidth.
- dse78759, on 06/16/2009, -1/+8Klingon? I'd expect the bay area and that's it.
- Animan351, on 06/16/2009, -3/+10 If I were to move to any other country I would learn to speak the common language of that country, at least to a descent extent before I moved there and would consider it to be lazy, stupid, and disrespectful to the people of the country I've chosen to live in to do things any other way.
I live in U.S, Missouri with German Great Grandparents on my father's side that learned to speak English and Italian Grandparents on my mother's side that learned English. They didn't expect the rest of the country to change for them. - strictnein, on 06/16/2009, -0/+6http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_English
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_English
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiberno-English
Yes, those are dialects. An interesting note though: Two thirds of native English speakers speak American-English. - DarkBlueAnt, on 06/16/2009, -2/+8In hell, where it belongs.
- aussiejan, on 06/16/2009, -1/+6@apcfreak - Dutch and German ARE different languages. English in the United States and England is the same language. Only the accents are different and a few idioms. You don't need to take language lessons to travel to the UK.
- Oztog, on 06/16/2009, -7/+12Where is Leet Speak?
- sexybobo, on 06/16/2009, -2/+7I don't care if they speak fluent English when they arrive as long as they learn it when they are here. There are to many people i deal with on a regular basis that don't try to learn English even after they have lived here for 4 or more years.
- TallestSkil, on 06/16/2009, -3/+8Exactly. You can't expect anything but a white powder when you ask for "craic" in the U.S.
- Xplorer, on 06/16/2009, -0/+4Leet Speak is just a figment of the news media's imagination.
- CrazyDEX, on 06/16/2009, -0/+4I'm surprised it's not Queens, NY. I've read multiple places that Queens is the most diverse county in the united states.
- kingnova, on 06/16/2009, -0/+4Site is not fluent in TCP/IP
- dse78759, on 06/16/2009, -9/+13Why /s?
The 'English' we speak is not the same as what they speak in London and definitely not what they speak in Dublin. - inactive, on 06/16/2009, -2/+6Does this Hmong-speaking neighbor have a job? Is his job to deal with only other Hmong speaking people, or does he mainly have to interact with people who don't understand him? Should we all learn Hmong and every other language so we can talk to these people who don't know or aren't willing to learn the most common language of the country they reside in?
- Ozzimo, on 06/16/2009, -0/+3Seems to me i'd move to a new country and try to learn with the native speakers there, Its quicker to learn that way and I get to move faster. Just my opinion though.
- puxxor, on 06/17/2009, -0/+3stubear - I've been to the southwest a few times. Regardless, it doesn't matter which part of the country you're talking about. There are Spanish and other foreign languages spoken all over the place.
Let's say it only costs the government $500k to push through some special document that says, "English is now the official Language."
The real question is, what is going to change as a result of this "English is the official Language" document? Not a lot. That's why I believe it's waste of money. - gotcheaprice, on 06/16/2009, -0/+3That's because Hawaii isn't on there :P
- tedfa, on 06/17/2009, -0/+3Soon there will be more English speakers in China than the US, if not already.
- Thumper13, on 06/17/2009, -0/+2"What" ain't no country I've ever heard of. They speak English in What?
What?
English, *****, do you speak it?" - inactive, on 06/16/2009, -1/+3Oh MLA. You decide how we speak yet now you're unable to express yourself.
- Y0tsuya, on 06/16/2009, -5/+7If neighbors can't communicate then things like neighborhood watch can't function properly.
- wolfing, on 06/16/2009, -4/+6la site esta abajo, ay caramba! cerveza culo si!
- teemingvoid, on 06/16/2009, -0/+2best thing i've read all day (mirror please?!)
- Animan351, on 06/17/2009, -0/+1I wouldn't consider myself thinking "you know what. I'm going to move to Germany next week" at the drop of a hat and doing it. Otherwise I may just learn how to say "where is the bathroom" first and then be on my way to use your method. But outside of you having a very unusual job, no one should do that.
I would plan my move at least a few months ahead of time and familiarize myself with the language. Thing is. many of the Hispanics that come here are fully content on not bothering to learn English and only hang out or go to the "Spanish" places outside of work and when/ if they have kids, even when born in the U.S they're not very exposed to English very much until they enter schools. This is creating a large hindrance on teaching due to requiring teachers to speak both languages and spend double time explaining to them and the English students anything. - DrJG, on 06/17/2009, -0/+1Interesting, yes, how accurate it is one doesn't know really. NY city has more variety all by herself.
- daimposter, on 06/17/2009, -0/+1I agree with much of what you say. But even other English speaking countries appear to have a higher % of people who speak a 2nd language. Canada, Australia, Britian.
Although everything you say does rationalize a lot on subject, it's not the only reason for the lack of other languages. We Americans are very self involved. We know much less about world history than most industrialized nations. We focus almost all our history on American history, which to be frank is not much history compared to other countries. We as a general population are less involved in world affairs. Our news focuses almost entirely on the US. I've been to UK, France, Italy. I see a lot more world news, even non-european news, in newspapers and tv.
Part of the reason we don't learn other languages is because we are very self centered. It has nothing to do with intelligence. - daimposter, on 06/16/2009, -0/+1lythium: *still have...the whole world also went down the *****
- inactive, on 06/16/2009, -1/+2I don't believe so.
- H4n90fThur5D4y5, on 06/17/2009, -0/+1So you speak Cherokee, then? Cool!
- yaosio, on 06/17/2009, -1/+2This is amazing, the numbers add up the the total population of the USA. I thought some people knew more than one language but boy was I wrong!
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