Why do US schools promote foreign languages without ever any education in native languages …

[Anonymous]

Because college curricula is based on an old tradition. Scholars originally learned Latin and Greek. You needed two languages (one being German) for certain degrees like art history because the scholarship was mostly in German (see Theme-Becker, I think it's called) and some English majors learned old and midle English. It's still mostly based on needs for scholarship because academics are scholars and colleges and universities are in many ways really for them. Of course this has changed but I think that's where the tradition comes from.

Computer code is a kind of language.

[Anonymous]

Have you seen the state of English language instruction? Maybe we should focus on fixing that first.

[Anonymous]

Minneapolis and St. Paul have a few Dakota and Ojibwe immersion options in public K-12, as well as Somali, Hmong and some other languages that are common in the region but not widely spoken everywhere.

[Anonymous]

They are very difficult languages. I wouldn't even attempt to look into them as my 8th and 9th language.
People can't even remember to go from blue car to car blue in Spanish and you want them to start with Navajo.
I know a linguist who attempted. He was on tv to explain us what's happening in many native languages. I was thinking to myself, 'yeah, not going for that one'.

[Anonymous]

Language is not a boutique interest. It is either a matter of heritage (which is why native speakers of these languages tend to concentrate their time on learners from those communities—the supply side) or a life skill.

Do you want a life skill that enables you to interact with a small population or a much, much larger one? That’s the demand side.

[Anonymous]

It would be cool if they taught Hawaiian, Creole, or Navajo....but there just aren't enough teachers. Maybe AI could fill in eventually.

Whether or not it is of practical/economic use doesn't matter..using that argument, schools shouldn't teach German, French, Italian or Portuguese either. Most Americans will never use it outside those countries.

Learning something like Japanese, Korean, or Swahili is also interesting, but there's just not enough teachers. Add in Native languages too, it'd be neat.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:… like Hawaiian or Navajo or any number of other native languages? You’d think in the present day, we’d have children learn some at some point in their educational career.

Welcome to DCUM.

Please locate Hawaii and Navajo on a map.

Draw a line from there to DC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Navaho is remarkably difficult to learn...
Spanish is the second most spoken language in the US
The US language education is third rate anyway, kids should start learning languages in elementary school

Sorry, Spaniards were colonialists. Spanish is not a Native American language. Stop trying to marginalize their minority status more than it already is. It is an ugly look.

I think rare languages are cool, but what on earth are you talking about? The vast majority of people in Latin America speak Spanish, and if you want to travel there knowing an indigenous language isn’t going to help you too much in urban areas.

[Anonymous]

You can do it on Duolingo.

Where I grew up in Arizona there is tohono language radio but that’s probably funded through npr and so likely will be cut. I think they also might teach it at the community college.

I speak decent Spanish but not fluent and my observation from traveling the Spanish speaking world is that Americans are definitely NOT learning Spanish in HS. People are always astounded at how good my accent is and how well I speak and I’m really pretty mediocre. The bar is so low for Americans.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You can do it on Duolingo.

Where I grew up in Arizona there is tohono language radio but that’s probably funded through npr and so likely will be cut. I think they also might teach it at the community college.

I speak decent Spanish but not fluent and my observation from traveling the Spanish speaking world is that Americans are definitely NOT learning Spanish in HS. People are always astounded at how good my accent is and how well I speak and I’m really pretty mediocre. The bar is so low for Americans.

Completely agree on the failure of HS to teach foreign language. The problem is almost certainly an over reliance on English in foreign language classrooms and lack of practice with native speakers. A high school student who practiced 3-5 hours a week with a native speaker and read the news in the target language would probably be one of the best students in a teacher’s entire career.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For the same reason that France doesn't teach Brittany Gaelic, Occitan or Basque to its schoolchildren.

The whole point of organized school is to prepare children for contributing to the economy, which includes building diplomatic and trading ties with other countries. This isn't about reviving minority languages.

Actually, Spain’s local government does teach Euskadi in the Basque Country. And I personally, find the idea to be divisive and unnecessary, as it 1) it breeds unhelpful contempt for the “colonists” despite them being part of said colony, 2) it is only “useful” in one region of Spain, and 3) it is difficult to learn and honestly doesn’t serve ANY point to learn in mass. Maybe, it is an interesting hobby for someone, but why systematically teaching a niche language that won’t help you in life? I’d rather my kids learn something that has useful applications in the world — outside of a handful of reservations concentrated in one part of the US.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Language is not a boutique interest. It is either a matter of heritage (which is why native speakers of these languages tend to concentrate their time on learners from those communities—the supply side) or a life skill.

Do you want a life skill that enables you to interact with a small population or a much, much larger one? That’s the demand side.

^ well said and totally agree with this…

[Anonymous]

I think in a few years AI and some chips will make it easy for people to communicate with each other in all languages. Some kind of universal interpreter, which will be cheaply available.

I think language education should start from birth or elementary school and students should be made to learn at least 3 languages to become polygots - English, Spanish, native language of the student. And attempts should be made to preserve all the languages by creating a huge database and recording the rare languages, dead languages etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We can come up with $$$ to study the language of young white men today, but not the languages of people we conquered and marginalize.

I don't know what you are referring to, but that's what happens when people are conquered.

The people living in the United States are overwhelmingly descendants of Europeans, so those are the languages that we study. What would be the point of learning Navajo?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We can come up with $$$ to study the language of young white men today, but not the languages of people we conquered and marginalize.

I don't know what you are referring to, but that's what happens when people are conquered.

The people living in the United States are overwhelmingly descendants of Europeans, so those are the languages that we study. What would be the point of learning Navajo?

My mother in law speaks an indigenous language and also Spanish. I wish that she'd spoken the indigenous language to my wife growing up, but she didn't. My wife's grandfather was very against his kids using the indigenous language at home, which was sadly common for the time. While my mother in law is proud of her language she also seems to have some residual shame associated with it and only speaks it with her generation. It's a shame that the language has been lost, and I think my wife's grandfather was foolish and domineering in this manner. However, that doesn't change the fact that Spanish is the only language that everyone in my wife's family speaks, and because of that fact our priority is for our daughter to speak Spanish.