Aside from calling immigrants illegal, the second strongest irritation I feel in the immigration debate is the whole question of "They Should Just Learn English™".
More below the fold....
There have been diaries about why the English learning debate is boiling at this particular point. One is here. I'm not even going to embed the ad by the stupid wannabe governor who started this whole part of the conversation. He doesn't deserve the clicks, even, let alone votes. The above diarist has his/her heart in the right place. But then, there was one little line that kind of hit on one of my pet peeves. S/he said "I believe that if you want to make a successful go at it here, it behooves you to learn English." (Extra points for saying behoove.) I'm not really trying to bust the diarist's chops over this, but it does illustrate, that even among the well-intentioned, heart-in-the-right-place, bleeding-heart-do-gooder liberal, Satan-worshipping Kos community, there are some intrinsic misunderstandings about language acquisition. Those of course, are widely held misunderstandings, and they throw aluminum powder in the puddle of the immigration debate (fyi, wet aluminum powder explodes. I can speak hazmat too.)
So if you'll allow me, I'd like to wander through the briar patch of language, language acquisition, and so forth.
There is the world of 'SHOULD' and the world of 'IS'. As a died-in-the-wool pragmatist, I live firmly entrenched in IS while keeping my eyes on SHOULD.
In SHOULD, every immigrant speaks the language of their new country within a year or so of arrival. In IS, many direct immigrants never do. But their kids do.
Why is this? A number of reasons.
First
There is a lot of debate among linguists about the optimal age for language acquisition, some argue that the maximum optimal age is 10, others say there is none, at least except for accent. But there's little disagreement that for any number of reasons, it gets harder (if not impossible) to acquire language with age. There are other 'optimal ages' for other subjects of learning, but for language, if there is such a thing, the general concensus is it seems to be around 10. This means, an adult's brain simply doesn't have the functioning to efficiently/effectively acquire another language. Are there exceptions? Yes. I'm one. But it's possible that I have an auditory processing disorder (maybe if I have insurance again some day, I'll have that tested) which made it easier for me to learn a second (with excellent accent) and third language past the age of 15. This seems counter-intuitive, but that's another story.
Should we limit immigrants to those with the specific kind of auditory processing disorder which allows them to learn English more readily?
Let's think about Henry Kissinger here. A favorite demon. Regardless of his politics, we'd have to agree he's a very well educated man. He immigrated to the US in 1938 at the age of 16. about half of his education was in the US, at the best schools. Seventy-ish years later, his German accent is unmistakable. Add Dr. Brzezinski to that column. He was only 10 when his family moved to Canada Hm. Maybe this language learning thing isn't so easy after all.
"Well, it's just an accent" you say. Ever go to another area of the US and have trouble understanding the local dialect? Countless times in my life, I've had monolingual American speaking people shove a phone or a person at me saying "I CAN'T understand this person" just because that person speaks with some (or a heavy) accent. Why iz dat Amurikkan speaker teh stoopid? (snark) I can understand that person just fine. Hm. Maybe this whole language thing isn't so easy after all.
Second,
Many poor immigrants lack literacy skills in their own language. Why cultures in different countries are so different regarding the value and role of education is way too complicated for this diary, but in IS, some people come here looking to improve their economic realities may have 3rd or 6th grade educations in their country of origin. They may be literate in Language 1 (L1). They may not. In literacy terms, they need to learn L1 before they can hope to start becoming literate in L2.
Should we say that the poor people can't come here because among many other things, they will most likely never be able to obtain proficiency in English? We already do. That's why they're here 'illegally'. AKA without documents.
Third
is it just the brown people who are too stubborn, stupid and lazy to learn English? No. Uhm. Not really. My visually indistinguishablee, white northern European great-grandmother lived in the US for 70 years (just like Kissinger) and never learned any more English than shee needed for her transactions with the street vendor. My great- grandfather was a little bit better at it, but not by much.
Why don't these crappy immigrants just learn friggin' English!?
Because, like my great-grands did, when they immigrate, they start off living with other folks from their country of origin who have immigrated before them. My grand's immigration record showed they went to live with one of Opa's brothers. When immigrants get established with work, and move out on their own, they get a place near their family. So enclaves develop. In the enclave, people don't need to learn the 'outside' language. Speaking L1 makes them feel less strange, less alone, less like they don't belong. The women may not work, so they REALLY don't have the need or opportunity to learn English. That's what happened with my Oma.
A Thought Experiment
Ever find a webpage in another language, so you run it through the google translator, or babelfish, and laugh at the outcome? Ever flip the translation? Yep. High hilarity, and probably high incomprehnsability too. Goofy translation engines. Why can't they get the stuff right? IN a diary I was commenting on last night, someone linked to correspondence from the great German poet Rainer Maria Rilke.
The first paragraph of his letter (in its original language) said:
SEHR GEEHRTER HERR,,
Ihr Brief hat mich erst vor einigen Tagen erreicht. Ich will Ihnen danken für sein großes und liebes Vertrauen. Ich kann kaum mehr. Ich kann nicht auf die Art Ihrer Verse eingehen; denn mir liegt jede kritische Absicht zu fern. Mit nichts kann man ein Kunst-Werk so wenig berühren als mit kritischen Worten: es kommt dabei immer auf mehr oder minder glückliche Mißverständnisse heraus. Die Dinge sind alle nicht so faßbar und sagbar, als man uns meistens glauben machen möchte; die meisten Ereignisse sind unsagbar, vollziehen sich in einem Raume, den nie ein Wort betreten hat, und unsagbarer als alle sind die Kunst-Werke, geheimnisvolle Existenzen, deren Leben neben dem unseren, das vergeht, dauert
Here's what Google's translation engine works that out:
DEAR LORD
Your letter reached me only a few days. I want to thank you for his great and dear confidence. I can hardly. I can not comment on the nature of your verses, for me every critical intention is to far. With nothing can touch a work of art so little as with critical words, it always comes out to more or less happy misunderstandings. Things are all not so easily defined and speakable, when we usually would have us believe, most events are inexpressible, are carried out in a space that has never entered a word and ineffable than all the art works, mysterious existences, whose lives next to ours that passes takes.
Here's what a human translation did with the original German:
My dear Mr. Kappus,
Your letter arrived just a few days ago. I want to thank you for the great confidence you have placed in me. That is all I can do. I cannot discuss your verses; for any attempt at criticism would be foreign to me. Nothing touches a work of art so little as words of criticism: they always result in more or less fortunate misunderstandings. Things aren't all so tangible and sayable as people would usually have us believe; most experiences are unsayable, they happen in a space that no word has ever entered, and more unsay able than all other things are works of art, those mysterious existences, whose life endures beside our own small, transitory life.
Ever wonder how come it is, that computers can do math just fine, but trying to automate language translation gives results like Google Translate? Could it possibly be that language is a much more complex system than multi-variable calculus? Why yes. Yes, it is. Hm. Maybe this language learning thing isn't so easy after all.
How easy is it to learn any language, really?
Back when I was in college, my friend's fiance was an English TA teaching remedial composition (to Americans). A few times, I saw some of the papers he had to grade. They were virtually unintelligible as English, and this from students who had grown up in the US and attained university admission.
The Ugly American
Why is it that Americans don't speak 3-5 languages like most Europeans do? Are we collectively stupid, arrogant, lazy, or all combined?
None of the above. In Europe, schools start teaching English in kindergarten (before that 10 year old thing). A couple years later, another language is added, and a couple years later, there's often a third, so those kids are getting their language learning at the optimal time.
Here? MAYBE a kid takes a language starting in HS. And then, the instruction may be of abysmal quality (as was my daughter's case). So. Monolingual Amurrikkkan person gets a reputation for being stupid rude and arrogant when they go abroad expecting, anticipating, hoping, depending, that everyone speaks English to make their vacation or business transactions easier.
Years back, I helped a friend make some vacation arrangements in Guanajuato Mexico. Lovely colonial town if it doesn't get your historical irony indignation going. When she came back, she asked me "Why didn't you tell me that no one in Guanajuato speaks English?" How the heck would I know that? When I go to Mexico, I -- get ready for this -- speak Spanish. But the expectation is there. Whether it's in the US, or in another country, people should speak English to make monolingual American English speakers' lives easier.
Like almost all other thorny issues, the question of language acquisition among immigrant populations is extremely complex, and just saying 'They should just learn English™', is a demonstration of (not putting this kindly at all) ignorance.
Further reading
NSF
Citing Steven Pinker
Beverly A. Clark
Steven Pinker. Read anything he writes about language. It will give you a headache. In a good way.