In article om,
"Jay Honeck" wrote:

Hamish (for whom American English is definitely foreign :-))

So, let me get this straight:

You're saying that Spanish is *not* a foreign language in the United
States, simply because a large portion of people here are originally
from Spanish-speaking countries?

I'm not saying anything of the sort (forgive me for asking, but is
English is a foreign language for you? That might explain a few things
about this exchange...).

Let's review your stance. You've said that one of the indigenous native
languages of the United States -- Lakota -- is a foreign language in the
US. You've claimed that Spanish, the native (first, and, in some cases,
only) language for millions of natural-born citizens in this country, a
language whose native use predates that of English in large parts of the
US, and whose history in many parts of this country as a first language
is long and unbroken, is a foreign language in the US.

So what *do* you mean by "foreign language"? Do you mean "not the
official language"? If so, why not say so (while keeping in mind that
the US doesn't have an official language in the same sense that, say,
France does, or the Soviet Union did)? Do you mean "language spoken by
foreigners or immigrants?" If so, why not say so (while bearing in mind
that I'm both a foreigner and an immigrant here, and since English is my
native language, by those rules that would make English a foreign
language here...)? Do you mean "dominant language"? If so, why not say
so (but does that mean you believe that Scots Gaelic is a foreign
language in the United Kingdom, or that the hundreds of Aboriginal
languages in Australia are foreign languages there)?

As a native English speaker and a long-time resident of the United
States, your usage baffles me -- maybe you can spell out precisely what
makes a language "foreign" in your mind, and how your definition
compares to more traditional, conservative definitions that talk in
terms of (for example) languages not spoken by the indigenous people of
a certain place.


By that definition, German is not a foreign language in Iowa and
Wisconsin. Neither is Italian. Or Irish.

If you say so (I certainly haven't said so).

Or have you come up with some intellectually gymnastic limitation on
your theory, like "it's only not a foreign language if the speakers
have not been here more than 'x' generations..."?

The gymnastics seem to be yours -- but again, before I get too impolite
about your reading skills, is English perhaps a foreign language for
you? That might excuse your strawman argument in the paragraph
immediately above.


Honestly, you guys are hilarious!

Well, I wouldn't laugh too hard -- the joke seems to be on the person
who believes that a country's indigenous languages are somehow foreign
in that country...

Hamish