Comments on: Leave Los Niños Alone! The Mental Costs of Linguistic Assimilation

By: Joaquin C. Armendariz

Joaquin C. Armendariz — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 00:03:29 +0000

Many years ago researchers in many countries had documented the many I.Q., cognitive, learning, creativity, empathy for others, etc. advantages and benefits that bilingual/multilinguals posses. The best kept secret in education is that children who acquire and then learn two or more languages are sifnificantly more Intelligent than Monlinguals!!!!The research is there. The problem is that in this country everyone is an expert in learning and schooling and educational policies are forced down the throats of school districts and teachers by politicians who are unqualified in the educational sciences, ignorant philanthropists/mayors like Bill Gates and Rahm Emmanuel who feel they kmow how to fix our schools that are overwhelmed with the social problems students bring to class and the masses of “ignoranti” with racist/nativist agendas that elect their kind to local school boards. Bilingual/Multilinguals are a national competitive and security resource- the 9-11 attack would not have happened if there had been good quality English-Arabic Bilingual programs in this country which would have greatly improved the rate of “chatter” translation. However, the nativists saw to it that this was not to be! Ain’t KARMA A BITCH?

By: Adam

Adam — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 23:09:17 +0000

I’ve heard a great deal about the advantages of bilingualism, but that brings up the question, why does it die out in successive generations so quickly? Growing up bilingual I have many memories of (and scars from) incessant fights over going to Saturday Chinese school instead of watching cartoons.

I believe the fact that children are so quick to drop their immigrant legacy is that cultural fluency is a competition for social status. I hope you will accept that there is a continuum from linguistic fluency to cultural fluency. Even in language acquisition there are finite resources, I don’t believe bilingualism comes for free. In my example above I could either learn more about my parents’ culture or about American pop culture. The relative merits may seem obvious to most readers here (I’m guessing most of you are parents) but let me ask you how you think this choice affected my social status on the playground.

Nothing comes for free. Fluency in the dominant culture doesn’t stop at competence. As a bilingual I am all for elevating our status in the dominant culture. But everything happens for a reason.

By: Mary

Mary — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 19:45:05 +0000

Multilingualism is great, and I envy those who can easily switch from one language to another. But this article doesn’t address the real reason that so many people object to the plurality of languages in our society: the cost to the taxpayers. Millions of taxpayer dollars are spent on providing forms and services in languages other than English every year. And as Scribbler noted, everyone needs to speak the same language when working in dangerous environments. Serious accidents happen when danger warnings shouted in English cannot be understood by everyone on site. So it’s great that so many people in our society can speak more than one language, but in the interest of saving lives and taxpayer dollars, everyone also needs to be fluent in English.

By: floodmouse

floodmouse — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 16:59:47 +0000

Knowledge is power. It’s silly to throw away what is essentially “free knowledge,” out of some outmoded sense of patriotism. Historical perspective teaches that the children of immigrants will be fluent in English. Global strategy implies it would be useful to have them be fluent in other languages too.

By: Joe McVeigh

Joe McVeigh — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 09:10:57 +0000

As the father of a bilingual (English and Finnish) three-year-old, I’m wondering what the research has to say about getting them to shut up.

Just kidding. Great article, Julie. Looking forward to more.

By: Alison

Alison — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 05:00:01 +0000

I would have grown up as an English speaking monolingual if I hadn’t grown up over seas where my parents worked. English speakers sometimes think that their language is best, and since everyone else is learning English, they don’t have to learn another language. They are missing out. To learn another language and be bilingual is such a mental advantage, and I get sad and angry when “english onlyers” purse their lips and expect everyone else to assimilate.

This is why I am going to be a Spanish teacher.

By: Sian Lloyd-Webber

Sian Lloyd-Webber — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 03:05:48 +0000

Of course language is fun : the more the merrier; coz it opens a window into a nation’s culture and psyche too. But all those psychological trick tests may be too dubious to draw generalised conclusions! Around 300m (of 1bn) Indians are trilingual (like, speaking Tamil, Hindi, English); whereas most of 80m Japanese are essentially monolingual. But that didn’t seem to put Japan at an innovative disadvantage? Similarly, Alzheimer’s etc may be more related to a population’s food habits than tackling language challenges — there’re plenty of other challenges in life, not to worry.

By: Jo

Jo — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 23:08:18 +0000

I grew up monolingually, with my father choosing not to share his mother tongue with us. I’m past the resentment stage now, and I understand his reasons: it was an uncommon language that my mother didn’t speak, he had little contact with his family and worked long hours. But I feel a great sense of loss for the culture I can’t access, and for the family I can’t communicate with.

I’m now married to a German man and we’re bringing up our son bilingually. I expect him to speak later than average, which is surprisingly relaxing: while friends are beginning to compete for their children’s first words, I find myself excused from the comparisons. It’s wonderful to think he might have neurological advantages, but the fact that he’ll have first-hand access to two cultures, two countries, two literatures, is for me a truly marvellous thing. He has a privileged background (two educated, professional parents), so it’s a different situation to many immigrant families, but bilingualism in all its forms seems to me to be fundamentally enriching.

By: Justin

Justin — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 22:54:49 +0000

I grew up going to french school in a french household but immersed in an English environment. Being fully bilingual by the age of four, I found that even though my formal education in English only started in grade 4, there was no perceptible difference in the quality of englsih between myself and those attending English school. The key is that when immersed in the environment (radio, TV, conversing w/ friends in English), it does not matter that the school attended is of another language because you can’t help learning the language fluently.

By: Richard

Richard — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 04:21:08 +0000

Julie Sedivy essay is about the intellectual advantages of being bilingual, not the necessity, or demonstrating acceptance of a society by speaking only the language of a particular enviroment. Keep cool Englishmen and Americans, a foreign language is not going to topple you! English is slated to pervade because it has so simplified language grammar and syntax for the masses, all without sacrificing the interchange of knowledge.