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

[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.

[Anonymous]

Maybe we should also teach our kids whatever languages cavemen (and of course cavewomen) used. Kids could probably become fluent fairly quickly because there weren’t a lot of words or complex sentences. Just stuff like, “Me cold,” “Me hungry,” and “I wish someone would hurry up and invent f’ing matches.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These languages are not widely spoken. Spanish is. Spanish is also, arguably a native language of the US as when the US was formed and expanded it took over Spanish territories.

Florida, Texas, most of the Southwest (New Mexico, Arizona, large swaths of California), Puerto Rico, and others were taken from either Mexico or Spain via war. Many people already living there were descended from Spanish ancestors.

Though by this logic we also should count Dutch (New Netherlands), Swedish (New Sweden), and French (the Louisiana Purchase, even if that was from Spain) as "native" languages.

Just FYI - there weren't "many people" living in former "Spanish territories" (except Puerto Rico) when the US took them over, and even fewer who were descended from or spoke Spanish. Spain (and Mexico) never had real sovereignty over this land, as the number of people were so few. There were some missions, a few trading settlements, etc. Otherwise, mostly native Americans, some Germans, Mormons, etc.