Machjo

Nunavut 4.

When you say graduates, are you referring to university graduates, or high school graduates. Either way, I'll believe it when I see it. I live in Ottawa, the Capital of our country, and I meet local English-speakers daily who can't speak French! And believe me, I've tested people at times just out of curiosity. We'll see if New Brunswick can pull it off where the Ottawa-Carleton Schoolboard has failed.

Fair enough. I guess in some ways the failure of Provincial Ministries of Education even reinforces the argument in favour of the need for Official Bilingualism I suppose. It's just a shame though that the argument in favour of a federal government policy should be based on the failure of provincial government policies, which just shows how little interaction there really is between governments to co-ordinate their efforts along a common goal. So as inefficient as Official Bilingualism is, and inasmuch as the need for it results from a failure on the part of provincial Ministries of Education, we can';t deny that as long as that failure at the provincial level continues, so will the need for Official Bilingualism.

Actually, if Official Bilingualism has been so successful, why don't we carry on this discussion in French? I'm ready for it.

And you'd be hard-pressed to prove that François Vaillancourt and Olivier Coche, who'd presented this for the Fraser Institute, are anti-French bigots. And what about François GRIN (http://www.fraserinstitute.org/commerce.web/product_files/OfficialLanguagePolicies.pdf)? Though his study was on adifferent topic (a comparison of the economic impact on the EU of various second-language learning policies), it was similar in that it had identified many inefficiencies in the system which could be remedied via alternative systems. So is he a racist bigot too? By the way, may own mother tongue is French too, and I speak to my mom in French all the time whenever I speak to her. So I guess I hate my own language too?

A-tu une meilleure source alors?

Neither was Bahasa Indonesia until the Indonesian government decided to promote it. Before that, it was but a trade Pidgin. It's only after the government decided to promote it actively that it has since gained a native-speaking population in its more cosmopolitan centres (and even today, most don't speak it as a mother tongue, Bahasa Indonesia not being used much within individual communities, reserved mainly for inter-linguistic communication only). Also, until the government got involved in it, though the Pidgin was widespread, it was used exclusively for basic commercial transactions. It's only owing to government invovlement that it acquired the vocabulary necessary for industrial, military, legal, scientific, literary, political, religious, philosophical, academic, and other pursuits. According to your logic, the government should take an exclusively reactionary approach to policy, and should never become pro-active; it should always wait for something to becomes successful on its own before finally acknowledging it, but should never take steps to make things happen. Had Indonesia followed the same logic you are, Bahasa Indonesia would likely only be starting to become more developed today, and would likely not have seen the success it has until another generation from now.

Since the idea is to adopt an auxiliary language, it doesn't matter if it is used in daily life. What matters is if it is used in an inter-linguistic context between people who have no common language. On that basis, Esperanto has proven very successful in that various conferences on various subjects are available in thelanguage, again considering how little government support there has been for it. And as for requiring a learning environment, tht's not ture. If the language is easy enough to learn, then we can dispense with the need for a learning environment, something we can't do with English or French. As for reality, tell me, what barrier is there beyond simple public opposition? That aside, it would prove more successfult than English or French simply owing to its ease of lerning.

I'm just asking these questions to emphasize just how segregated Canada really is. If you can't function in the language, then you essentially cennot know anything about French Quebecers' minds except what is translated into English, and not all of it is. On the one hand, it's not important if we can just each live our lives and ignore each other. On the other, what's the point of being a nation if that's how we're going to be? Symbolically, it is significant. There is no point in being one nation if we don't even feel like compatriots. Most English Canadians on a French-language site would likely feel not like compatriots, but foreigners.

Well, could you function in a typical French-language internet discussion forum from Quebec?

Mais je suis curieux; connaissez-vous le français? Nous pourrions discuter ce thème en français si vous le pouvez.

It's a non-issue that threatens Canadian unity too. Generally speaking, unilinguals on both sides are less likely to support federalism than bilinguals on either side. With Bill 101, the rate of bilingualism in Quebec among native French-speakers has been declining, which will likely cause the sense of disconnect from English Canada to grow. Of course we might survive as some highly decentralized federation, but then we'd be almost like two separate nations altogether/ Then again, you might be right. We do act like separate nations already anyway.

Based on your idea that numbers are all that counts, you're saying that failure to learn French or English is more useful to a person than success in Esperanto.Without a doubt success in English or French is more useful than success in Esperanto, but then you're fialing to consider success rates too. Clearly we have to count that in the equation too. Looking at it that way, one has a greater chance of putting his Esperanto to use than his English or French. Une autre question pour vous, Smallc: connaissez-vous le français?

There are varying statistics on it. But let's look at it this way: Alternative 1: 1.3 billion people speak Chinese, so all of Canada decides to learn Chinese. We get a small percentage who actually succeed in learning it while the rest just managed to create jobs for teachers and publishers with not much to show for it, generation after generation. Altenative 2: We allow pupils to choose their second language in shcool, but the government also takes action to encourage Eperanto among those pupils who lack the necessary aptitude to learn difficult languages, as is done in Italy already. As a result, the government support guarantees jobs for Esperanto teachers for years to come. So even if few shoud speak it, it would still have an economic benefit in the teacher job market. Later, as it continues to grow, ever more English Canadians and French Canadians could start to use it for business, and lo and behold, some Europeans, Asians, Africans and South Americans decide to exploit this new market too. Don't you think this would promote further growth in those countries too? At that point, the spinoff effect would lead to a cycle. As long as the govenrment continues to encourage it, along with parallel encouragement contuning in italy (I can't imagine Italy would cease this policy if Canada then joins in), eventually it would become beneficial especially for English-French business across the Ontario-Quebec border. Sure French-English bilinguals like myself could continue to use French and English, but as the new population grows, Esperanto could eventually eliminate the need for high government spending in official bilingualism and finally allow for real grassroots dialogue between Canadians. So not ony would there be an economic beneift, but also a political one in promoting more national unity.

Let's not forget too that if a language like esperanto has shown such success without government support, for Canada to support it would certainly promote reaction abroad too. Why shouldn't Canada take a leading role in this? According to Francois Grin ot the University of Geneva, the EU could save at least 25 thousand million euros a year if Esperanto could replace English in European international communication owing to its precision and ease of learning. So not only would Canada benefit from this, but it would even be doing other nations a favour at the same time... without even having to give any of its money? Talk about killing two birds with one stone. We'd be benefitting ourselves and others simultaneously. What more could we ask for? Even the UN General Assembly spends about 12 million dollars a year just on General Assembly interpretation alone! Htis does not even count all other interpretation and translation at the UN.

And if Esperanto has proven so successful, I'm sure the smae could apply to any other easy-to-learn language.

No one? You can buy thousands of books, CDs, etc. published in Esperanto on the following site: http://katalogo.uea.org/ Scholars publish research in Esperanto through the following academy: http://www.ais-sanmarino.org/respondoj/en.respondoj.html Vatican Radio, China Radio International, Radio Polonia, etc. broadcast regularly in Esperanto. There is even a CD industry for music lovers: http://katalogo.uea.org/katalogo.php?titol...a+reta+katalogo And as you can see from the site, there are at least 17 pages of CD's to browse through. Publishing on such a scale ain't cheap. Where do you think the money comes from? Were you aware too that there are Esperanto organizations for just about everything, be it religion, science, commerce, tourism, etc. Again, maintaining so many such organizations cannot be done with just a few people. That alone is proof that there is enough of a market to maintain an Esperanto pubishing industry... and that's with little to no government support. And that brings us to another issue: Now a few countries have recognized Esperanto in their school system more recently, so that's bound to expand it even further. The only limit is our own will to make it happen.

Then let me give some examples: 1. Pronunciation: Try to teach to a Quebecer the pronunciation rules necessary to read the following poem: I take it you already know Of tough and bough and cough and dough? Others may stumble but not you On hiccough, thorough, slough and through. Well done! And now you wish perhaps, To learn of less familiar traps? Beware of heard, a dreadful word That looks like beard and sounds like bird. And dead, it's said like bed, not bead- for goodness' sake don't call it 'deed'! Watch out for meat and great and threat (they rhyme with suite and straight and debt). A moth is not a moth in mother, Nor both in bother, broth, or brother, And here is not a match for there, Nor dear and fear for bear and pear, And then there's doze and rose and lose- Just look them up- and goose and choose, And cork and work and card and ward And font and front and word and sword, And do and go and thwart and cart- Come, I've hardly made a start! A dreadful language? Man alive! I'd learned to speak it when I was five! And yet to write it, the more I sigh, I'll not learn how 'til the day I die. In Esperanto, there are 28 letters, each with their own pronunciation, along with the basic rule that there can be no more nor less than one vowel per syllable in any word, and that the stress always falls on the penultimate syllable. There, now you know all the rules of Esperanto pronunciation even better than those of English. Again, can you rationally explain in as succinct a manner the rules for the poem above? 1. word formation Never is there an exception to a rule. To change from a noun (-o) to an advective (-a) to an adverb (-e): sun solar in a sunike manner suno suna sune moon lunar in a moon-like manner luno luna lune monkey siman in a monkey-like manner simio simia simie brother fraternal in a brother-like manner frato frata frate Now could you teach me the rule for changing a noun into an adjective or adverb from the examples above in English? Probably not. For Esperanto? You don't even know the language yet, yet you probably can teach me the rule already. This also means that you don't need to learn each and every word in the language. Once you know the noun, just change the ending, and you know you're right 'cause there are no exceptions. masculine feminine In Arabic, we simply add the ending -atun to many words to make them feminine. Esperanto follows a similar concept with -in-, only without exceptions, unlike in Arabic: father mother patro patrino ox cow bovo bovino brother sister frato fratino For any of these words, you could replace the -o with -a or -e to change from noun to adjective to adverb. By the way, what's the rule in English to change from masculine to feminine? Direct opposites: bona malbona good bad for an infinitive verb, add -i fermi malfermi open close all words can be used to create new words in compounds. to take some examples: sano = health sana = healthy ulo = person, fellow ejo = place malsano = disease sanulo = healthy person malsanulo = unhealthy person malsanulejo = hospital You can see how, unlike in French and English, the child's vocabulary would grow exponentially in Esperanto because he can reuse morphemes ad infinitm as long as it makes logical sense, which he cannot do with Engish or French. One last example. How do we form the plural in English? ox oxen bovo bovoj sheep sheep ŝafo ŝafoj aircraft aircraft flugmaŝino flugmaŝinoj fish fish or fishes fiŝo fiŝoj mouse mice muso musoj child children infano infanoj from the examples above, can you tell me the rule for the English plural? Good luck. For Esperanto? Easier, isn't it?

I'm sorry, but I wouldn't get very far with a unilingual Chinese if all I could do were to discuss about the language in English. As for persons possibly wanting to continue their language education in future, that's fine. But seeing how divers the future of a graduates could be, how do we know which second language will be most useful for him in future? In Vancouver, it might be Chinese. Oh, yes, and many Canadians emmigrate too, a term not often heard or read in the media. Add to that that not all will have a chance to go on to university. So if we're looking at a non-elitist education systme, we need to ensure fluency in the second compulsory language before the end of compulsory education. A language like Esperanto could achieve a number of objectives here that French or English cannot: 1. it has a higher propaedeutic value than most languages (http://www.springboard2languages.org/documents/springboard_rationale.pdf). This could thus help pupils after highschool to learn a second language if they wish. 2. It is learnable within the time it takes to finish compulsory education (http://www.internacialingvo.org/public/study.pdf). This way, it serves all pupils. For those who can go on to university, it serves as a foundation for further language learning. And for those who can't, it serves as a complete language in its own right. With English or French as compulsory second languages, in most cases it can only benefit those fortunate enough to be able to learn the language outside of school, hardly the ideal universal and democratic system of education we ought to have. 17% is quite elitist if I may say so.

thorium = torio (http://eo.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torio) isotope = izotopo (http://eo.wikipedia.org/wiki/Izotopo) So we could say torio-izotopo or tori-izotopo, the hyphen being optional for clarification's sake only, and the -o being an optional nominal ending at the end of the root tori, optional owing to the compound. Next challenge?

And besides, if Ataturk could change the script of the Turkish language; and if Indonesia could rationally develop a national language capable of communicating anything under the sun from a simple Pidgin; and if the King of Korea could, based on the science of linguistics of a few centuries ago, could create a rational script allowing for Korea to have among the highest rates of literacy today, why would it be beyond Canada to reach as high? Are we any less capable or advanced in our ability to exploit the modern linguistic sciences at our disposal to achieve universal literacy and univeral bilingualism within our own borders, or is that to be restricted to certain Asiatic nations only?

Esperanto. Bear in mind though that when I propose the rational efficiency of an international auxiliary language, I'm not proposing Esperanto per se, but the idea of a language, any language, based on the same principle of a logical grammar, designed to be easy to learn.

I don't see any educational value in failure. If the majority is failing to learn English or French as their second language, I can only see two rational courses of action: 1. The option presented above, or 2. No longer make a second language compulsory in school. Of course the second option would further limit our ability to communicate with one another, but at least it would not have wasted our time for nothing. If a school can't guarantee a reasonable rate of success, it's only rational not to make a second language compulsory anymore and focus on other arts and sciences instead. Going back to the topic of official bilingualism, there is no point in forcing pupils to learn a second language AND provide bilingual government services. After all, it's only rational to conclude that the objective of second-language education ought to be to eliminate, or at least greately reduce, the need for bilingual gevernment services in the first place. And it's only rational to conclude that if we intend to provide bilingual services, then there is no need to waste mony on second-language learning. Rationally, the objective of one negates the need for the other. Big waste of money. So why not aim at either one or the other? If we insist on keeping official bilingualism, then let's not waste money on compulsory bilingual education with such a dismal rate of success. Or inversely, if we insist of compulsory bilingual education, then let's find a way to ensure a reasonable chance of universal success so that we can eventually eliminate the need for official bilingualism. One rationally negates the need for the other.

I speak one.

And while you're mocking that option 2, what about the more 'normal' option of making all learn English and French, with a 17% rate of success? Are you really satisfied with that kind of education? is this really what we see as a ratioal policy of having everyone learn while knowing that the vast majority will fail, to set most up for failure? is that the epitome of Canadian language education? Let's stop following like sheep, admit that the current system is a complete failure, and think... wait for it... outside the box. Obviously we've tried all the options in the box and they havent' worked. Does it make sensse to keep looking within the box just out of fear of being ridiculed?