On Wed, 14 Feb 2007 11:54:36 -0800, Sylvain wrote:

ktbr wrote:

I don't believe it is any good for freedom either. It makes things more
complicated and increases the requirements for more government.

you probably think this way for having grown up in a mostly
unilingual society and cannot comprehend that things can work
just fine otherwise; I grew up in a country of fewer than 6 million
people; yet manages to have 4 national languages (3 of which have
official status, i.e., used for all official documents -- the
fourth, spoken by fewer than a few tens of thousands counts five
main dialects, and the main official language counts more dialects
than one might care to count, but I digress :-) -- and this, without
counting broken-english has its fifth neither national nor official
yet widely used language. Furthermore, it is one of the most cosmopolitan
country there is, with a very high proportion of (exotic languages
speaking) foreigners. And you know what? it has been working just fine
this way for longer than USA has been in existence. And there are quite
a few other countries like that with more than one official languages
actually. Surely if tiny countries can pull this off, USA might
have a shot at it too?

With a little tension, no? My primary flying instructor, from
Lausanne, had a few amusing anecdotes about having to speak German at
engineering school in Zurich. "Cracking Coke" (as in distilled coal)
was how he translated the francophone students' description of
conversing in German.

(His Karma was to spend most of his career working for Swissair, in
Zurich and to be married to a Dane.)

Don