Live data from Hacker News

Every American Is Bilingual

justevilenough.com

1–10 of 38 posts

Re: Every American Is Bilingual

#3
> Latinate is the language of expertise. One might even say the language of the elite.

Shoutout to those who survived Ovid through the Aeneid in HS Latin I-IV.

Re: Every American Is Bilingual

#4
“Latinate” vs “Saxon” is a word-origin story, not two languages. etymology doesn’t equal meaning. His pairs aren’t true synonyms anyway: “terminate a contract” vs “end a movie,” “encounter errors” vs “meet a friend,” “manufacture cars” vs “make dinner.” That’s normal register, not a second tongue. And lots of everyday English doesn’t fit cleanly in either bucket, so the two-bucket premise falls apart.

Re: Every American Is Bilingual

#8
American is in the title, but really, it's saying every English-speaker is at least bilingual.

If you're already n-lingual with English as one of them, you can bump it to n+1 :)

Re: Every American Is Bilingual

#9
There is this joke in Europe...

What do you call a person that speaks 2 languages? A bilingual.

What do you call a person that speaks 3 languages? A trilingual.

What do you call a person that speaks 1 language? An American.

Re: Every American Is Bilingual

#10
Not an American, but a Spaniard and I noticed that because we have many common Latin words between English and Spanish, some people from Spain prefer to use the Latinate versions of the words when speaking in English, even if they do not feel the same. But it's easier for us to remember.
Post reply on HN