Iowa Aviation Weather...en Espanol

On Tue, 13 Feb 2007 15:56:58 -0800, Jay Honeck wrote
(in article .com):

I sincerely doubt that. Yes, English is more dominant now than it was when
you were born, but now it is losing a little of that dominance. You need to
get out of Iowa once in awhile. Visit Washington, D.C., or New Mexico, or
Puerto Rico. We have managed to hold this country together for more than two
centuries despite the fact that so many languages are spoken in it. I
suspect
it will continue for a few more.

We have never before in our history had a government that REQUIRED
bilingualism. We have always tolerated multiple languages, because we
are *all* immigrants -- but the difference now is that all of us are
being forced to pay for another set of immigrants who are apparently
incapable of comprehending English.

You must believe that America has become weak indeed if it can no longer
tolerate what has been the situation since its inception.

See above. We have never had governement-mandated bilingualism.
Ever. What bilingualism existed was like Milwaukee (German) or San
Francisco (Chinese), and was paid for BY THE IMMIGRANTS THEMSELVES.

Huge difference.

Well, not really. I think they have always spoken Spanish in Puerto Rico. New
Mexico had a bilingual law in their original constitution. Come on, Jay. This
is KKK stuff you're spouting. And I know you don't believe in that.

This is a freedom issue -- free trade and free men. Walls and restrictions
have never been good for business. The country hasn't had this much
protectionist sentiment since the Smoot/Hawley Tariff Act. We don't want to
revisit that again, do we?

If it helps to keep money flowing smoothly and makes life a little easier for
some people, I really don't have a problem with multi-lingual weather
briefings. Really, Jay, this is a business asset. It makes it easier for
people who don't speak English to visit Iowa, stay at your hotel, eat your
food, and so forth. Are you really telling me you don't have anything to
offer them, that you can't make a buck off this?

--
Waddling Eagle
World Famous Flight Instructor

On Tue, 13 Feb 2007 09:34:03 -0800, Montblack wrote
(in article ):

("Bob Noel" wrote)
How many citizens can only read/write Spanish?


Citizens.

Trick question! :-)

Not really. As I said, about 14 million, including the Puerto Ricans, all of
whom are US citizens. The same surveys show that of those *citizens* who
speak Spanish at home, another 15 million or so are able to speak some
English, whether it is a few words or fluently.

As for aliens, both legal and illegal, they are hard to count, but most
reliable counts indicate about 11 million who speak only Spanish. That would
be a total of 40 million Spanish speakers in the US.

I am disturbed by the apparent assumption that any Spanish speaker must be an
illegal alien. The vast majority of Spanish speakers in the US are citizens.
A lot of them are descended from people who were living in what is now the
USA long before the Mayflower ever got here. It really is ignorant not to
know that.

--
Waddling Eagle
World Famous Flight Instructor

On Tue, 13 Feb 2007 15:23:02 -0800, Jay Honeck wrote
(in article .com):

WTF does this have to do with piloting anyway.

Nothing. Again, you have wandered off into a bitter rant.

This thread is about foreign language weather websites being paid for
with US taxpayer dollars. This all-too-typical government
wastefulness is especially disturbing in an era when we're being
threatened with "user's fees" due to "budget shortfalls".

You can rant all you want about Spanish not being a foreign language
in America, but you will be both irrelevant and wrong.

But you don't mind using tax dollars to post your Hispanic-bashing, eh?
Because, make no mistake, Usenet was created with tax dollars.

--
Waddling Eagle
World Famous Flight Instructor

On Mon, 12 Feb 2007 13:40:36 -0800, Jay Honeck wrote
(in article .com):


http://www.crh.noaa.gov/forecast/Map...=121&map.y=125


(or http://tinyurl.com/39s8j5 if that URL wraps...)

Does anyone else find it disturbing that the National Weather Service
in the United States is paying out taxpayer money to a government
employee to create a foreign-language web page?
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"


Nakakapagbabagabag.

--
Waddling Eagle
World Famous Flight Instructor

On Tue, 13 Feb 2007 17:10:40 -0800, Peter Dohm wrote
(in article ):

Amazing. So in what country is Lakota a native language?

The country or area in which the natives speak it. But if it is not the
predominant language in the country, it's still a foreign language.

There is no definition of "foreign" that makes it synonymous with "non-
dominant". You've simply added a new definition to an existing word for
personal reasons.

According to Wikipedia, Lakota is one of the Sioux languages.

BTW, this is a great example of what irritates me, and possibly others with
regard to MX.



The Filipinos have a word that is perfect for that sort of thing:

Nakakapagbabagabag. The root word is "baba" meaning "down" or "lower." Thus,
getting onto an elevator one might use the query marker, "ba" in this way:
"Ba baba?" (Going down?) and the affirmative reply might be "Baba baba,"
indicating down and down -- emphasis to say yes it really is going down.
Sounds like Bah-BAH, like sheep. :-)

Adding suffixes and prefixes to the root word changes it to a sort of verb
that implies it is a feeling being imposed on you, states that the listener
is doing this, and that the listener is doing it to you. Literally, "You are
doing something that makes me feel a little low," but the intended meaning
is:

"Something you are doing is annoying me."

Heh, heh. Tagalog is very expressive. I like this word. Now, if only I could
pronounce it properly. Filipinos like to say it for no reason other than that
it is a tongue-twister. It is pronounced like this:

nah-KAH-kah-pahg-bah-BAHG-ah-bahg

In Taglish, considered a dialect of English rather than Tagalog, the root
word would be English, but it would have all the Tagalog construction, as in
"Nakakapagsickbagabag," meaning "you are doing something that is making me
throw up," a fine phrase to use on student pilots. :-)

Now you have something to mutter under your breath, and nobody but you and a
Filipino will have any idea what you just said. :-) And you could claim it is
English, because it is!

--
Waddling Eagle
World Famous Flight Instructor

This is purely anecdotal, but so is everything else on this thread.
Where I used to work in Raleigh, North Carolina, we had a fairly heavy
immigrant Spanish speaking only population that we served. We had in
house 24/7 interpreters (as opposed to translators, there is a
difference I learned), and I asked one of them about the paperwork we
handed out that was in Spanish. Could they even read it? The consensus
was that most of them were illiterate in Spanish, which was eye
opening to me as we had a fair bit of money invested in software that
could spit things out for printing in either language....
Food for thought.

Ryan in Madison

In article ,
"Morgans" wrote:

"Hamish Reid" wrote

None of that really answers the question: in what sense is Spanish a
foreign language in the US? As several people have pointed out, it
predates English in these parts by a long way, and has been spoken
continuously 'round here by immigrants and native-born citizens alike
for all of that time.

Now you are being silly. English is the official language in the US, and is
the only language of record. That says it all.

Now, it those who refuse to speak it want to sit back in the corner and be
quiet, fine with me.

So, once again, what makes Spanish a "foreign language" in the US? I'm
guessing that for you the phrase "foreign language" means something like
"non-official language", or "non-dominant language", or "language I
don't speak", or "language some foreigners use", rather than what the
phrase might mean to many of the rest of us, something like "a language
not spoken by the indigenous peoples of a certain area" (to steal a
definition from somewhere else)?

Your definition is, almost by definition, a little odd don't you think?

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

In article . com,
"Jay Honeck" wrote:

Would you call Lakota a foreign language in the US?

In the context of modern-day America, and this conversation, of
course.

Amazing. A language spoken continuously by indigenous US citizens in the
US and that long predates the use of English in the US is "foreign"? As
with Jim M., I'm guessing that for you the phrase "foreign language"
means something like "non-official language", or "non-dominant
language", or "language I don't speak", or "language some foreigners
use", rather than what the phrase might mean to many of the rest of us,
something like "a language not spoken by the indigenous peoples of a
certain area" (to steal a definition from somewhere else)?

Yours is a very ... *odd* ... definition of foreign language, to be sure.


Really, I don't care WHAT language is mandated. Hell, let's use
Sioux, if you want.

If we used Sioux in the United States for that purpose would it suddenly
make English foreign in the US?


But one must be decided upon and adhered to, officially, or America is
doomed to become Yugoslavia.

What an ironic thing to say...

Hamish

"JH" == Jay Honeck writes:
JH Yes, but do Puerto Ricans care what the weather is in the Quad
JH Cities?

Does ANYbody care what the weather is in the Quad Cities?
No.
--
If you define cowardice as running away at the first sign of
danger, screaming and tripping and begging for mercy, then yes,
Mister Brave Man, I guess I am a coward.
- Jack Handey

"mx" == mxsmanic writes:

mx C J Campbell writes:
Plenty of countries without a common language have been around
for a lot longer than we have.

mx And just about everyone of them has suffered with interminable
mx internal conflicts as a result.

Of course, having English as a common language prevented our Civil
War. War Between the States. Whatever.
--
Microsoft: "You've got questions. We've got dancing paperclips."