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Old February 15th 07, 03:21 PM posted to rec.aviation.piloting
Jose
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Default Iowa Aviation Weather...en Espanol

A "foreign language" in the context of the United States of America
(and in the context of this discussion) is a language that is not
spoken by the majority of people since the country's inception.


Fair enough. (Note - this isn't the only reasonable definition, but
I'll use it in this context)

Since every major founding document, every major newspaper, and (to
bring this discussion into the 21st century) every major American
website was/is published in English, we consider every language other
than English to be "foreign".


1: =You= consider... not =We= consider...

2: The statement does =not= follow, in any case, from the definition
you gave above, which does not refer to founding documents or websites.
It refers to "not spoken by the majority...". I'm sure you can recall
examples of countries where the language of official documents is
different from the language commonly spoken by the majority of the
population. In fact, early England comes to mind.

Your example of such indigenous languages as Lakota and Spanish


It wasn't my example.

They were never considered to be official languages of
the United States, and may therefore be defined as "foreign", both in
fact and in the context of this discussion.


Again, this does not follow from the definition you gave above, which
does not refer to official languages, only to "not spoken by the
majority..." (which, btw, leaves open the question of whether "not
spoken" means "not commonly spoken" or "not able to be spoken")

You get to define the words, but then it is upon you to use those words
according to your own definition.

Jose
--
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