The costs and wastes of official bilingualism

[cybercoma]

Uh...the first settlers followed the receding glaciers over 15,000 years ago. Nordic settlers predated froggy by quite a bit. By your standard, our official second language should be Inuktitut.

Native languages should be official languages and so should ASL and LSQ.

[?Impact]

Lots of good potential tangents we could start up in other threads

Had they been taught to think, one quick recollection of high school history would make it dawn on them that intelligently designed concrete structures have been standing just fine for more than two millenia.

You are confusing compressive and tensile strength. Yes, concrete naturally has great compressive strength but that doesn't help too much if you want to build great spans across wide rivers, and many of the other engineering challenges of today that were never conceived 2000 years ago. Perhaps a technology thread on ancient vs modern construction.

One of my kids stopped teaching at nearby U as soon as her research was complete. Reason? You guessed it: sick of kids in her classes who had no interest in learning. My experience is that European schools do better at this, and Asian schools lag behind even North America.

Many tangents here. Higher education, preparation for higher education, the teaching vs. the research professor, etc.

Most people are just workers. It doesn't matter what education they have. Only the rare few are inspired outside-the-box thinkers. These are the ones with the knack, with the drive, with the ideas, and it really doesn't matter if they have a wide grounding in the arts, music and law while they were attending computer engineering courses. They'll be constantly thinking of ways to improve things because that's the way they're made.

Yes, there are many examples of people with little education that have changed the world. There are plenty more examples of people with lots of education that also changed the world. Yes, you can teach yourself nuclear physics or brain surgery but most of those leading in those and other fields have extensive education credentials. Perhaps a thread on the benefits of education both formal and informal.

Edited July 4, 2016 by ?Impact

[cannuck]

You are confusing compressive and tensile strength. Yes, concrete naturally has great compressive strength but that doesn't help too much if you want to build great spans across wide rivers, and many of the other engineering challenges of today that were never conceived 2000 years ago. Perhaps a technology thread on ancient vs modern construction.

You can rest assured that I don't confuse compressive with tensile loading. The fallacy is that bonded rebar will carry tensile loads, and that is only true for pre-stressed tendons (or of course unbonded post tensioned tendons) before they cause tensile failure of the concrete (which they will, 100% guaranteed). They only carry tensile loads of a failed structure. Intelligent tensile re-enforcement relies on bonded tendons with Young's modulus that does not result in the tensile strain load being routed through the concrete, without such great affinity to corrode in a flash (and place concrete matrix in tension when it exfoliates as well as creating a corrosion cell to accelerate failure of the entire tendon) and has similar co-efficient of thermal expansion.

Edited July 5, 2016 by cannuck

[-TSS-]

I'm glad that English is the leading world-language rather than German or French. I don't think German would have become the dominant language even if Germany had won the war. German is far too complicated to be a world lingua franca.

I enjoy peeving off the British by telling them that English being the leading language has really nothing to do with the British but everything to do with the Ameticans. Of course I don't myself think that is entirely true but their reactions are worth it.

[Bryan]

Native languages should be official languages and so should ASL and LSQ.

ASL road signs would be interesting.

[cybercoma]

Signs are already "signs" and names, such as street names, are often fingerspelled so there would be no difference.

[?Impact]

German is far too complicated to be a world lingua franca.

German is simple to read and pronounce, although yes it is difficult to write.

English on the other hand is a nightmare. Have you ever read The Chaos by Gerard Nolst Trenité? Read it aloud, or better still get someone with English as a second language to try. Just one of many examples it provides, say: gush, bush, steak, streak, break, bleak.

Edited July 8, 2016 by ?Impact

[Bryan]

Signs are already "signs" and names, such as street names, are often fingerspelled so there would be no difference.

Exactly.

Virtually all government business is also written down too. Almost anyone that a deaf person might meet for official business would also be able to write down what they were trying to communicate. Email, text, and other modes of electronic communication would also already cover it.

[-TSS-]

If English weren't the first language of the world then French would. No doubt about it.

Therefore I'm beginning to have less sympathy for the Canadians' whinging about bilingualism as the situation opposed to us in Finland couldn't be starker; We in Finland speak a dwarf-language spoken and understood only in Finland and our bilingualism-language is Swedish which is spoken and understood outside of Sweden perhaps in Norway but not very much in Denmark.

In Canada you have the chance of learning a real useful global language.

We in Finland have this our bilingualism because our elite are still Swedish-speaking. Therefore let's teach every kid a language nobody understands anywhere outside Scandinavia.

I bet you in Canada would imagine that because of our geography in Finland a lot of people in Finland would know Russian.

I wish it were so but in reality it is very rare to come across a Finn who could string a sentence in Russian. Thanks to the effing Swedish.

Edited July 8, 2016 by -TSS-

[-TSS-]

To think of it, I can count 1-10, tell my name and where I'm from in German, Spanish, Russian and

Swedish but no such hope in French.

[Bryan]

I bet you in Canada would imagine that because of our geography in Finland a lot of people in Finland would know Russian.

Yes. If I lived there, Russian would be the language I would think would be very valuable to know. Are you saying it doesn't give you any advantages to know Russian, or just that hardly anyone makes use of them?

Edited July 9, 2016 by Bryan

[Machjo]

A friend of mine is a manager in the public service, has been for five years now. She had to be bilingual, of course, to be a manager in Ottawa. Despite the fact she never uses it at work. She's not alone.

I remember when we hired her, and spent thousands on training to get her bilingualism up to snuff - for her to never use it. Now she's with another agency, and never uses it. Unfortunately, as happens in these situations, she's let it lapse. So now she's going to have to find time (and the government will pay for that time and her teacher) to get her rating back up to snuff. All managers in her building have to be bilingual you see, even though, well, they never use it. Her building is in Ottawa's southwest. Most Francophone public employees here live in Quebec. Those that don't, live in the east end. They don't want to work in the West, so there are few Francophone employees there. Doesn't matter, of course. And of course, none of the managers in her building have any contact with the public.

I support bilingualism, like, I think most Canadians. Unlike most of them I know what it means. It doesn't just mean that when a person calls the government, or drops into a government service centre, they can be dealt with in the language of their choice. It means that all those Francophone employees have to be able to be dealt with in the language of their choice, too, in house, by messengers, bosses, clerks, etc. Because of this, all managers and senior executives in Ottawa have to be fluently bilingual. Sixty percent of the staff in Ottawa are bilingual.

The rough cost of this has been pegged at about $1.5 billion, but I believe that underestimates things. It only counts the cost of training, or the cost when we send an executive off on full-time language courses. It doesn't count all the time those people spend on government time, studying and learning the other language. It also doesn't count the simple fact of promoting incompetents, or the barely competent, into the senior ranks of the public service. When you screen out 95% of potential candidates for language, after all, you're screening out most of the best candidates. When I worked for the government I knew many, many employees, managers and executives, both English and French, who never would have gotten hired were it not for this. And 95% of them never have any contact with the public in any form. It leaves us with a sort of ruling elite drawn from certain bilingual regions who's talents are mainly in growing up in a bilingual milieu, and not so much in administration, planning or leadership.

http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/barbara-kay-of-course-justin-trudeau-wants-bilingual-judges-hes-the-product-of-bilingual-privilege

http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/j-j-mccullough-bilingualism-is-the-demand-of-canadas-linguistic-aristocracy

What we need is official unilingualism in the dominant local language maybe.

This would mean Federal offices in Ottawa would operate unilingually in English, and those in Gatineau unilingually in English.

It's not the government that should be bilingual, but the citizens. The Inuit visiting Ottawa has no right to service in Inuktitut in Ottawa, si why should the French Canadian in French? Same with the unilingual English speaker in Quebec city.

And in the modern world, of what use it it?

I remember participating at an IRB bond hearing by phone in Ontario. Hearing the accent, I responded in French. The judge asked me to switch to English because there was already interpretation between Chinese and English. Given that the accused enjoyed the right only to the balance of probabilities, I was not about to argue over some hypothetical Constitutional right to service in French.

The world has become too complex for official bilingualism, especially where translation and interpretation is concerned.

[Machjo]

I can understand letting a second language lapse in most of Canada, but there is absolutely no excuse in either Montreal or Ottawa. There are countless opportunities each and every single day, both at work and in the community to use, maintain, and perfect your second language skills. Nobody who was educated at their employers cost in a second language in either of these cities should be allowed to let it lapse, that should be 100% on the employee. They have responsibility to maintain their skills, and that should be a condition of their continued employment. Nobody who let this happen should ever be promoted.

Trust me. When I'm in Ottawa and I don't know the person's language, I default to English just as I default to French in Gatineau. Imagine how tiring it would get to ask at the beginning of each encounter what language a person speaks.

Then there"s the matter if interpretation. I know one case of a French-speaking CBSA officer who's interviewed a person in broken English since no French-Chinese interpreter was available, and botched it all up and misunderstood everything, probably because of the language barrier between the officer and the Chinese-English interpreter. At a bond hearing, a judge asked me in a French accent to address her in English because interpretation was already going on between English and Chinese.

The fact is, that on the job, fédéral workers sometimes have to use the language that best allows communication, not the one in which he's weakest for practice. He can do that at home, but at work we want him to use the language that will best suit the circumstances.

[Machjo]

I have to say a lot of people in Ottawa feel there is a double standard in the public service when it comes to bilingualism and testing. I've run across innumerable Francophones with really, really poor English that is barely understandable. But the Anglos have to speak much better French. No, I don't have evidence, but it's the standard gossip in the public service, and not really denied by the Francophone colleagues I worked with. There is a saying among Francophones that "Their ears hurt" when they hear badly accented French. This is one of the reasons Anglos have a problem keeping their French up, even in Ottawa. There were a lot of Francophone where I worked but they would invariably switch to English if anyone addressed them in less than perfect French.

Proof. I'd read a CBSA statement in broken English and could even identify the conclusions as false. She's misunderstood everything. Not only was she allowed to work in English, but even through an English interpreter!

[Machjo]

Argus, given Brexit, it is time to rethink "federalism" and "government".

====

IMHO, people working in a federal civil service should be able to speak all languages of the federal/region area. With that said, bureaucrats in Brussels are not required to translate all documents into Norwegian.

Why is Norway separate?

Norway is an EEA country, not an EU member.

[Machjo]

It's absolutely silly that Canada talks up bilingualism without actually being a bilingual country. Every kid should be fluent in French and English by the time they graduate.

Every school should be "French immersion".

Ridiculous. English and French are too difficult for that. Plus what if the child or parent would prefer Cree, ASL, or Arabic instead?

Maybe Esperanto, five times easier to learn than English, as a common second language. But given the prejudices against that, the next best thing is English Canada and French Canada, each officially unilingual.

[WestCoastRunner]

Ridiculous. English and French are too difficult for that. Plus what if the child or parent would prefer Cree, ASL, or Arabic instead?

Maybe Esperanto, five times easier to learn than English, as a common second language. But given the prejudices against that, the next best thing is English Canada and French Canada, each officially unilingual.

It wouldn't make sense in BC to push French immersion. It's more like Mandarin immersion.

[Machjo]

It works very well. It teaches French.

I am saying the country should be truly bilingual. Teach everyone a 2nd language. We would all be better off for it.

That's the problem. If the state is bilingual, then everyone learns just those two languages, so we end up with shortages in ASL, Chinese, etc.

If the state is officially unilingual, then everyone can learn a second language of his choice, so instead if duality, we have unity in diversity. The state should be unilingual and the people bilingual, not the other way around.

[Machjo]

It wouldn't make sense in BC to push French immersion. It's more like Mandarin immersion.

Agreed.

[Machjo]

It's easy to regain your ability to speak it if you've already learned it.

So the whole point of learning a second language is to relearn it more easily the second time around?

[Machjo]

I am always impressed by Euro kids who come out of B School speaking four or five languages fluently. Without those skills, they are relegated to a very short career path in the EEC. In the world of business, when you start crossing borders, you really need to know the other language(s). Now, since Canada's myopic view of the world features only the USA, in particular Wall Street, it would seem more useful for kids to be taught Spanish or Hebrew than French, but the preponderance of business that is handed whilly nilly to Quebec from our massively bloated government really means they need to have French as well. I agree with the previous posts, though: if you raise your children with the goal of being a Walmart greeter, they can get by with English just fine.

My wife is the educator in our clan (one of several, but the leading light). When we were wee tykes, she took the trouble to explain to me what skills achieved in learning language (and music) mean to a child's future abilities with science and math. So, when we got married and had a family, our kids were raised with French as a first language and a very heavy music curriculum going back to infancy. We are genuine Anglos,.so it took a bit of effort.

To those who learned French and can't be bothered to continue to speak: ANYWHERE in Canada, there is great access to print and video in French. Our grandkids watch French TV, internet sites and read French books living in the middle of a Mennonite community. I laugh at that, since one of my Uncles who worked in Foreign Service after retiring from the military picked up new languages before his assignments by buying comic books (as most were written for kids in those days). Even a linguistic ignoramus (such as myself) can stumble through just about any language at a very basic level with not too much effort.

BTW: our kids speak: eldest - French/English/Math/Music (yes, the last two are "languages" in character), youngest fluent in French/English/Spanish/Ukrainian/music and conversant in German/Greek/Swahili. They spent a long time (21 years) studying mostly sciences and use their language skills regularly. Little kid recently applied for a super-plum position and was immediately moved to the short list - and they cited her genuine fluency in language rather than stumbling ineptitude of other applicants. It is anything but a government job. I guess the point I am trying to make is that adding a language (or more) to a child's education can be a key part in teaching them to love learning - and THAT IMHO is the ultimate goal.

So, while I may be somewhere right of Ghengis Khan in most views, I will gladly pay the bill for language instruction for other people's kids, as it makes them a far better student and contributes to making Canada a better country.

Hate to bust your bubble, but statistically only about 43% of Europeans learn a second language well, and only about 6% learn English well.

[Machjo]

Just to be clear, I'm fluently trilingual and semi fluent in a fourth language. However, I can make a distinction between personal multilingualism and language policy as public policy.

[WestCoastRunner]

Hate to bust your bubble, but statistically only about 43% of Europeans learn a second language well, and only about 6% learn English well.

What about Canadians?

[Machjo]

What about Canadians?

Stats Can: about 17% can hold a conversation in both official languages Canada-wide. This does not count unofficial languages.

Furthermore, 49% of Canadians (and around 60% on reserves) between the ages of 16 and 65 is functionally literate in neither official language! I'd say functional literacy should be more of a national priority than official bilingualism.

Edited July 9, 2016 by Machjo

[Machjo]

However, Canada has invested crazily in promoting official bilingualism compared to even Europe.