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New Mexico is losing a form of Spanish spoken nowhere else

nytimes.com

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Re: New Mexico is losing a form of Spanish spoken nowhere else

#91

Post by Dalewyn »

satvikpendem wrote: post #90
SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was having a related discussion with my wife about why our nephews weren’t taught Spanish as a first language (we live in Texas, their dad is bilingual). Frankly, having English as your first language gives you a much higher advantage in life in the current zeitgeist. There’s no incentive to learn RandomLanguage first, but there is every incentive to learn English first.

Nope, learning multiple languages from the beginning has been shown to have many benefits. I speak both my native language and English at native levels, simply because I learned my language at home and English in school. Only teaching English is really a waste when you live in an English speaking country, as the child will automatically pick up English through school and friends.

>Nope, learning multiple languages from the beginning has been shown to have many benefits.

More to the point: Speaking multiple languages expands your ability to express and describe everything, which leads to having more variety in your lines of thought. Different languages have different ways of thinking, thus speaking multiple languages nurtures an open mind.

Source: Me, native English and Japanese speaker.

Re: New Mexico is losing a form of Spanish spoken nowhere else

#92

Post by watwut »

SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #69
thequadehunter wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly all too common even with popular languages. I ask my dad why he never taught me Spanish and he just "didn't really think about it". Such a wasted opportunity for free goods.

I was having a related discussion with my wife about why our nephews weren’t taught Spanish as a first language (we live in Texas, their dad is bilingual). Frankly, having English as your first language gives you a much higher advantage in life in the current zeitgeist. There’s no incentive to learn RandomLanguage first, but there is every incentive to learn English first.

You can have two first languages. A kid is able to grow up multilingual.

Re: New Mexico is losing a form of Spanish spoken nowhere else

#93

Post by watwut »

LudwigNagasena wrote: post #61
sdrothrock wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a heads up: "crypto Jew" is also an antisemitic buzz word, which is why I suspect the linked article says "hidden" instead.

That is getting so tiring. How are normal people supposed to navigate in this world where normal words[1] and expressions are constantly being re-analyzed as fascist dogwhistles? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto-Judaism

I heard crypto-jew as insult to pro-jew (read anti-anti-semitic) fairly frequently and did not heard it in any other context.

It is not "reanalyzed" as such. It is that antisemitic use it as such.

Re: New Mexico is losing a form of Spanish spoken nowhere else

#94

Post by watwut »

decremental wrote: post #86
maxbond wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, it's the fascists and bigots who appropriate words and employ ever shifting rhetoric to avoid being labeled as fascists or bigots and to try and conflate their ideology with as many pre-existing ideas as possible who are to blame for this linguistic treadmill, and not the people who point out that dog whistles are real. In the same way security researchers are not responsible for security vulnerabilities, but…

The vast majority of it is just to rustle the jimmies of people who use terms like fascist. The more butthurt people get about it the more you'll see it happen. They're not actually fascist dog whistles. It's them signaling to each other that they're not one of you.

That is not true. They use these terms among themselves to denote things. Their opposition is not intended audience at all.

Moreover, when unopposed, nazi and antisemitism do not die out. Instead, they get stronger and larger in numbers. It is an actual ideology and those who believe it are actively trying to spread it.

Re: New Mexico is losing a form of Spanish spoken nowhere else

#95

Post by MisterBastahrd »

Reminds me a bit of Louisiana French (technically two closely related dialects of Cajun French and Louisiana Creole). French was the dominant household language in the state until the 1920s when it was banned from being the primary language in public schools by the state government. This ultimately started the first in a slew of segregational choices by parents with regards to their kids' schools: some were incensed that they were being stripped of their heritage and sent their kids to French speaking Catholic schools. People were urged to "speak White," which was code for "speak proper English." In turn, the Catholic schools stopped teaching the local dialect in favor of Standard French. When the state also demanded that the Catholic schools teach English, students couldn't understand their teachers and were often beaten for failing to make progress in class. The state ended up with half a generation of children who could barely understand what they were being taught. As a result, parents stopped teaching their kids to speak their native language, which was replaced with English. Today, most of us from the area speak English but will mix in language from the old Cajun / Creole dialects of the past.

Did you know that the X-Men's Gambit has pronounced the word "cher" incorrectly every single time he's ever used it in mass media? From Shreveport to Grand Isle, we pronounce it "sha." Usually used as a term of endearment for a male to a female, we also use it when we agree with anyone with the phrase "Mais yeah, cher!"

Re: New Mexico is losing a form of Spanish spoken nowhere else

#96

Post by watwut »

JoeDaDude wrote: post #19
fzvqq wrote: post #3

[flagged]

Native Spanish speaker here, giving two observations. First, it's not unusual to aspirate the "s" sound in Spanish spoken in the Caribbean countries, particularly if it precedes a consonant, hear several examples in [1]. While this is reserved for informal colloquial speech, it is not an indication of social class. Second, I realize there is a gray divide between what constitutes a dialect and what is just regional a…

Dialect does not have to be unintelligible. When it is unintelligible, it would be close to whole another language.

Re: New Mexico is losing a form of Spanish spoken nowhere else

#97

Post by chaostheory »

Bjorkbat wrote: post #68
chaostheory wrote: post #57

I don’t feel that this is a bad thing. Not being able to speak and understand each other’s languages just helps increase conflict due to less empathy. While there are cons to less spoken languages, overall the world would be better off with less spoken languages.

Language is pretty foundational to culture. When you lose a language you lose more than a way of speaking, but also the subtleties and emotions behind the "shape" of certain words, not to mention those words that reflect something so unique to that culture that you can't really translate them. The death of a language is the death of a world. Saying there should be fewer spoken languages is frankly a very unempathetic…

Saying there should be more different languages shows an ignorance to both history and psychology.

Having less major cultures has the same effect on potential conflict

Re: New Mexico is losing a form of Spanish spoken nowhere else

#98

Post by chaostheory »

arthurofbabylon wrote: post #77
chaostheory wrote: post #57

I don’t feel that this is a bad thing. Not being able to speak and understand each other’s languages just helps increase conflict due to less empathy. While there are cons to less spoken languages, overall the world would be better off with less spoken languages.

A language is a map to reality. More languages means more maps, more conceptual models, more strategies of existence. Consider this: each additional language improves humanity's capacity to evolve and shift, a particularly valuable trait considering the pace of environmental and socioeconomic change. More languages increases the likelihood that humanity will continue to survive and maybe even thrive. (Reality one hun…

That only applies imo if the same individual learns multiple languages; not even half the world is bilingual. The cons that come with increased conflict outweigh the benefits imo. It is way too easy to “other” strangers if you don’t share the same language and general culture. It’s already bad enough when people do share the same language and main culture.

Re: New Mexico is losing a form of Spanish spoken nowhere else

#99

Post by watwut »

ars wrote: post #82
guywithahat wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although I agree in that there's certainly room for debate, it's a fact Israel has strict immigration laws, many of these laws are focused around keeping local Muslim populations out while bringing global Jewish populations in, and when Israel was founded millions of Jewish people from the neighboring countries (namely Egypt and Saudi Arabia) moved to Israel. They could have spoken a local language or even a European…

There was no such thing as a "local language" there. They spoke a very wide variety of language - one article collected 40 different languages spoken there. Mandatory Palestine was not a country at that time, and had nothing unifying it. The reason all those migrants switched to Hebrew is that it was the only common tongue among all of them. Why in the world would they pick a European language? If anything maybe Yidd…

The migrants moved there with explicit plan to create dominance. The dominance did nit happened through kumbaya happy agreement of everyone that one language is known by all.

Re: New Mexico is losing a form of Spanish spoken nowhere else

#100

Post by decremental »

watwut wrote: post #94
decremental wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vast majority of it is just to rustle the jimmies of people who use terms like fascist. The more butthurt people get about it the more you'll see it happen. They're not actually fascist dog whistles. It's them signaling to each other that they're not one of you.

That is not true. They use these terms among themselves to denote things. Their opposition is not intended audience at all. Moreover, when unopposed, nazi and antisemitism do not die out. Instead, they get stronger and larger in numbers. It is an actual ideology and those who believe it are actively trying to spread it.

[flagged]
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