Re: multilingualism

Jay Lemke (JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU)
Sat, 16 Sep 95 00:15:36 EDT

Well, Angel, by and large I agree. North America, except for a
certain elitist Anglophilia, is a very isolationist culture in
global terms. When you're the best, and all of history has just
been leading up to Us, why worry about all the blind alleys and
wrong-turnings that led to the Others? Let'em all learn English!
and act like we do!

Mike mentions the limited vision and limited resources of American
scholarship (not counting the emigres who brought their European
learning here in various periods). Who reads Russian and Chinese,
or Hindi and Sanskrit (even)? Who _cites_ references not in English?
Mostly specialists in the _other culture_, not those working in
philosophy, psychology, linguistics, education, etc.

I happen to agree that the language is usually the best gateway
to the culture (so do younger, serious anthropologists), and
a visit in person helps, too. Personally, I've spent a little time
in Japan, and in Taiwan, and studied Nihon-go and Putonghua for
several months before and for a year or so after the trips. I think
I learned more about American culture by seeing how it was imitated
and transformed in Japan, than I ever did here (Australia and England
helped a bit, too). But the hardest teacher was the sheer culture-
shock, the _uncomfortableness_ of being in an alien culture and not
in my own. I was trying, and I enjoyed most of it enormously, but
I was also in a kind of constant pain from it. Cultural barriers
are not just matters of insularity, they are bodily and tangible.
JAY.

JAY LEMKE.
City University of New York.
BITNET: JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM
INTERNET: JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU