For once, you are right on the ball.

I wrote many articles on this topic, near and dear to me, though I did not raise my own kids on this theory. They know more than one languages but not as a result of speaking from the beginning. In the beginning, they learned the language of the land, community and the neighborhood as I felt that non native speech may hamper their progress in American schools. They turned out OK and feel cheated as they cannot compete with me, neither can they converse with me in many of the Indian languages I speak to smaller or greater extent.

Bilingualism is a bogey created by the selfish interests, both on the side of red neck Americanism and the depressed community whose mother tongue happens to be one or the other variety of Spanish. The southern states on the border thought for a while to make the children of the immigrants more amenable to learning by encouraging them to learn in their native language, Mexican version of Spanish. There is another dialect of Spanish, Puerto Rican, mostly found in the barrios of major cities of the north such as New York, Boston, Philadelphia and as far west as Chicago.

The political pressures and the vote banks made it possible but in the end, it was observed that such separate educational institutes have not done any good for the hapless half wits who insisted that the real education has to be in the mother tongue or no votes. It is a political bottomless bucket. More and more recidivists have apparently made a big deal on this spect of education.

Personally, I feel that older American standards of keeping it simple, using the language of the land had more benefits than the so called bilingual bonanza. Bilingualism is good, every person must learn at least one additional language to complete his or her education but the medium of instruction must not be bilingual as it deters the weak ones from pushing all they could in their new homelands.

The language is a cultural aspect of growing and book learning of a language takes an awfully long and arduous course. We all know that as college education for four years does not suffice in speaking fluently and writing clearly in such languages acquired at college levels. Immersion is the only way one learns the finer aspects of any language, though these days schools and colleges in America strive to make this immersion aspect up and close in their curriculum.

In my school days I met some kids who did not learn their mother's tongue and wanted to remedy that situation. They were as good or as bad as I was in learning the language where strict rules made it impossible to make mistakes and still learn. Some of my recently migrated relatives' kids have learned the British English and American English in less than three months and have no fear of speaking as they do not get spanked for making mistakes as I did in college.

Make some point, my good brother, this carrying items with no personal observations or a two cents of commentary, typical Yashwant Malaiya style bothers me. Show some of your home grown, "Cowbeltwalla," progressive assertion, it hardly hurts.

http://www.ncbe.gwu.edu/links/biesl/

Sid Harth..." To be or not to be a bilinguist is not a question, it is an answer, to learn more is equivalent to earn more and bilingualism helps a lot."

yashwant@my-deja.com wrote in message news:84ulse$7q6$1@nnrp1.deja.com...

From an article by Gail Rosenblum

"Bilingual youngsters may have an edge over monolingual children when it comes to learning how to read. In a recent study, 137 four- and five- year-olds were divided into three groups: The first group spoke only English, the second group spoke English and French, and the third group spoke English and Chinese. After presenting two tests to each group, researchers found that the bilingual children had a clearer understanding that written words can stand for spoken language. "Children who can recognize the symbolic relation between letters and sounds are well on their way to learning how to read," says Ellen Bialystok, Ph.D., professor of psychology at York University in Toronto. .."

From ctw.org

Bilingualism is good, Archana is right, so am I. To learn culture is to learn a language of that culture. Sid My dear Archana Harit, More power to you sister. I did get your e-mail reply. You must understand that the original post decides where the answers go. I have replied fittingly to Yashwant's post which lacked substance. I tried to be folksy, not my best attempt, I guess. The purpose of the newsgroup you subscribe to, I don't may be anything on the paper. You have to learn to adjust to the posters' intentions. You have no power to stop, neither do I have it anyone from posting whatever they feel is right. I am for the bilingualism, multilingualism and frankly, I did not like your attitude blaming me for my children learning just one language. They are happy about it as they have no desire to be "Indian." They are born American and wish to remain so, language, culture and patriotism all rolled into one. As far as I am concerned, I know twice as many languages as you do, perhaps thrice and they are not all of Indian variety either. So you are barking up a wrong tree. By the way do you know any of the south Indian languages, the 'cowbeltwallahs' apparently stop dead before they think in terms of multilingualism. For them north Indian "Aryan," language group is the desi languages and south Indian languages are bunch of "andugunduthandapaani." By the way since when Gurumukhi became a language? In that case Roman must be one of the languages you know but failed to mention. As for your comment on "Cowbeltwallah," my dear, you are one, look at the mirror to find how it looks like. Be smart sister, life is short and the journey is long. Qu'st-ce que c'est mon ami? Parlez vous l'Arabe vous? Peut-etre que non, peut-etre que oui? Sid Archana Harit archana@interchange.ubc.ca wrote in message news:3874CA95.7912BCF8@interchange.ubc.ca... Sid Harth wrote: I wrote many articles on this topic, near and dear to me, though I did not raise my own kids on this theory. They know more than one languages but not as a result of speaking from the beginning. In the beginning, they learned the language of the land, community and the neighborhood as I felt that non native speech may hamper their progress in American schools. They turned out OK and feel cheated as they cannot compete with me, neither can they converse with me in many of the Indian languages I speak to smaller or greater extent. Dear Mr. Harth, Since you did not practice what you preached how can you relate to the children who had to undergo the process of learning their mother tongue, the native language and the community language. Did they not teach you in school that a child can learn as many as 5 languages at a given time. I for myself personally learnt - Hindi, English, Gurumukhi, Bengali, French, and some other dialects in school. I do not think "Bilingualism is a bogey created by the selfish interests" on the contrarary I think bilingualism was created to help understand multiculturism. I would be interested in further hearing your opinion on this. Please do not reply based only on NA. Further more, Please remember this newsgroup is for Hindi.:) and not for discussing Politics.:). Btw, I would like to know what is the purpose of this newsgroup? Hindi text? Kavita? Indian Politics or Hindi Language itself? By the way I never heard this expression"Cowbeltwala" what exactly does it mean care to explain that here. Thanks. Regards, © 2000 Sid Harth Back to the top