Korean Job Discussion Forums

[mithridates]

I know there's no official language at present either, so I'm not talking about official bilingualism, but when will the common impression from both within and without the US become "the US is a country with two languages, English and Spanish"?

All I know are facts like the one below, but I've never been to the US so I don't know what it actually feels like there.

[Bulsajo]

Please define bilingual.
An amendment in the constitution acknowledging Spanish as the other offical language?
Mandatory Spanish classes (or mandatory English as the situation/location warrants) in schools?
A certain percentage of the pop declared to be fluent in both?

I don't know what a bilingual country is, except for those countries who self-identify as having two official languages (Belgium, Canada, Ireland[?], Wales [?], Algeria)

[Gopher]

[mithridates]

[Bulsajo]

Well, I mean, that's sort of vague, using that as a benchmark it arguably could have been anywhere from 5 years ago to 50 years from now...

I'm not trying to be argumentative just trying to help you define your terms. I think you need that if you hope to get meaningful answers.

[jinglejangle]

The only way I can ever see the US being bilingual is if we kill off all the Asians and French/Creole speakers and such.

As the OP knows, I'm currently living very close to the Mexican border. Any given time I go out in public, I'm probably 90% likely to hear Spanish. That's if I don't go to a Spanish speaking store. The only decent music radio station here is the Spanish love song station. At perhaps 33% of stores you have the option of whether to use English or Spanish with the store clerk.

There is also a smattering of other language groups here, to include Korean, Vietnamese, Chinese, Hopi, and Navajo. At least.

And this is a very small town. Back home in NC, far to the north and east, Spanish is becoming a major language as well. I also run into lots and lots of Africans and Pakistanis, Indians, and Mid Easterners there. There is also a sizeable and growing Korean population, and a Chinese population. None of these are trade languages yet except for Spanish, but they are a major concern for schools. So far the only "foreign" language radio stations I'm familiar with are spanish.

In California Asians of all descriptions are everywhere, both inside and outside Ethnic enclaves. As far north as Salinas Spanish is spoken in more homes than English. (over 50% in Salinas) My first weekend in San Fransisco, people spoke to me in at least 7 different languages. English, Spanish, Russian, French, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Arabic and Armenian. Two dialects of Chinese as well, so I guess the actual number is 10.

You can get by knowing nothing but Spanish in most of this country with little difficulty other than maybe school.

I guess this isn't well written, but those are some of my impressions.

[jinglejangle]

[Gopher]

[TheUrbanMyth]

[red dog]

[Porter_Goss]

[canuckistan]

I think the marketplace is/has been leading the way for quite a while. There's a big Spanish-speaking client base to be tapped--it would be dumb to ignore it, no?.....so...a lot of businesses around here have bilingual signage/advertisements.....and this is the land of free enterprise

[TheUrbanMyth]

[mithridates]

[Bulsajo]