Press 1 for English
 

I am wondering what other Pixies opinion is on the multilingual issue for the USA. I personally, am not confronted to any great extent with the topic until I pickup the phone and reach an automated callee. :hair:

My logistics have only brought me into contact with actual bilingual requirements/laws where I have no say. While I have a personal opinion, the legal language issue is a small part of that situation and the business of another country.

In my location, we have always had (and still do) strong pockets and neighborhoods of various cultures speaking many different languages, but have never been required to speak/read it personally nor has my local society as a whole. I VERY much envy and respect people that speak more than one language but I'm not sure how to feel about the 'demand' that one society or country adopt the language of another's.

Europeans have long had the exposure to many countries and languages on one continent with each maintaining their own language. This has also brought the inspiration to become versed in other languages but without forgoing their own.

I think it is very good for everyone to 'accommodate' new people within our society, but should we modify our society to theirs? Are we being slow to accept globalization? If so, what parts of the global smorgasbord do we adapt to our mixing pot? Do we base it on current migration trends? Is geographical distance the dictator of how we evolve? Should retro history be the deciding factor of what language is spoken in the USA or should it be regionalized? :rolleyes2

What are your thoughts about this You Tube clip?




*throws down the stick and runs from the pot*
:doorpeek:

* picks up the stick & chases after PF to beat him with it...

What I find more frustrating is after pressing 1 for English, I end up with someone who is speaking English but I can't understand them as their accent is not an American one. I recently had a horrible encounter with a gentleman who swore he was in Cleveland and I had to finally articulate that I understand what a power button, coaxial cable, and network cable are, but what I could not understand was his accent and that is why I continuously was needing him to repeat himself.

I apologized and said please pass me on to one of your co-workers who speaks as if they are born and raised in Cleveland please. He seemed none to pleased with me and I don't think he was in Cleveland either as I had to be put back through the automated voice prompt hell to get another live person.

I'm guessing that he was in Cleveland, India ;)

Maybe there is a Cleveland in the Philippines I don't know about. :rofl:

maddy maybe this was his problem http://pixies-place.com:81/forums/s...ead.php?t=31445

One of the major problems of out-sourcing is that they do NOT want you to know it has been out-sourced. Unfortunately, the individuals on the other end of our call are told to fabricate where they physically are located. Sheesh god forbid we call and can't decipher one of the "dead" languages and then get billed an enormous amount for the call as it went beyond the Scope of a Tier 3!!!!!

Didn't we work out once that the USA has no legal language, leaving it open to answer telemarketers in Swahili or other joyous japes?

Used to be people came to our country because they wanted to be a part of it ... not because they wanted to transplant their own national customs here. Not sure exactly when that changed, but, I must admit ... I wish it'd change back. :(

I didn't get to see the you tube but I live in a state with a very high rate of ESL. I have no problem with pushing 1 for English. I appreciate businesses that provide Spanish speaking assistance or options for the members of my community that need it. Otherwise I would be waiting in line for 9384573895739857397 days while the migrant workers in the front of the line try to make a transaction. Smart businesses provide faster service and making language accommodations so that can happen, is a great idea to me.

I think we worked out that it didn't matter what language they spoke at home, so long as they could communicate and embraced the freedoms and tolerance of the adoptive country.

I've always thought that if I were to move to another country that I'd want to make certain that I had a grasp on their language before I got there. It just seems like the common sense thing to do to help make things a bit easier for me to adapt to their culture.

The issue with calling a business for tech support or customer service and speaking with someone that speaks very broken English is a tough one for me. Having been a manager in a credit card call center it was of the utmost importance to me that the customers be able to understand what the representatives were saying to them. Very rarely would we have a primarily Spanish speaking rep working on the English speaking queue or an someone with a limited grasp of Spanish on that queue. That was simply to make the communication between customer and representative easier.

Interesting song though.

As a general rule, I am greatly in favor of providing non-english services within the country. However, there is one exception...

If you are going to obtain a job in this country wherein you must deal with the public, the majority of which speaks english, then you really should learn and use english.

A real-life example of why:

More then once, I step up to the counter at a sandwich place, and very clearly, in my native toungue, ask for a specific list of ingredients, an then gotten something that resembles nothing like what I ordered. Most often, not only does this provide a great inconvenience for me, but also includes stuff that will *actually endanger my health*. Even after I specifically and clearly enunciated that these ingredients would endanger my health, and that's why I wanted them omitted.

Oh, and BTW, if you're going to give me the standard "you, GG, are a typical arrogant american" rant, you can go fuck youself. I happen to speak three languages other than my native one, so I get to trump your spurious counter-aggument before you get to make it.

Someone once told me that if I feel threatened by someone else's culture, language or customs, thaen that makes me a bad person.

No, actually, it's that person's line of argument, which basically boils down to other people have a right to threaten me with their cutlure, language or customs, which makes them a bad person.

And the truth of the matter is, this is the only time that I do feel threatened by other languages. And other than that, I really don't care what someone's language habits are, or what their culture is, or what is often brought in as a somehow related (dont' ask me) argument: I dont really care about a recent immigrant's immigration status.

I was born into the common myth that there are two groups of countries in the world: monolingual and bi/multilingual. This changed after my family moved to Dar es Salaam, in the Tanganyika Territory, then a Crown Colony. English was the language of the elite, of any race, Swahili was spoken by anyone who needed to get things done, and Hindi was spoken by the East African Indians, who dominated the business class.

I sometimes hear at work people claiming that countries in the west are monolingual and the third world is riddled with languages and dialects making them multilingual. This POV is, I believe, based on the traditional proposition of “a race = a culture = a language”. But those claims do not hold up under scrutiny. Take England for example – from whence came our mother tongue. A community in which both Cockney and Standard English are understood can hardly be labeled a monolingual (or homogeneous) society. I cannot resist referring here to the good Prof. Henry Higgins’ “Why Can’t the English Teach Their Children How To Speak”.

Multilingualism is not only true through space, but also across time. Following the successful Norman invasion of England, French became the “prestige” language. Thus the very words that we use today – in English - to describe what we eat, are shot through with French! The Anglo-Saxon farmer might bring a “cou”, a “pigge”, and a “sheep” to market, but by the time the meat was presented to his French speaking Norman lord, it had become beef, pork, and mutton. In Medieval England, apart from the regional dialects, Latin, French and English were spoken by various groups.

My experience has been that multilingualism is and always has be the norm in the world, and monolingualism the exception.

I'm not fluent in any other language, but I understand and speak a smattering of 4 other languages. I enjoy multiculturalism - I want to learn about others' cultures and customs and I value the meltiing pot that is the US. Heck, I even have my own personal melting pot at home. ;)

Providing language assistance is crucial, and I am happy that more and more US businesses are doing so. My husband speaks a language which is the 6th or 7th most common in the world, and many of the immigrants from his region cannot get access to health care where their doctor can communicate with them. My MIL works as a translator for critical care issues.

I think it's sad - part of the American Dream is opportunity for all. Opportunity is hard to come by when you cannot communicate.

Yes, I believe that generally immmigrants should learn English - but if this is a gradual process, that's OK too. In th einterim, we need to support their integration into American culture with language services, as well as other services.