Language

http://www.arthurhu.com/index/language.htm

@@Language

Hispanics least likely to speak english well, but Asians aren't far behind. Roughly half of Asians in SF and California do not speak english well, about one-quarter barely speak English, which may explain stereotyp of Asians who can't speak English well. @@Canada \clip\97\29\canlang.txt The complete report on Canadian languages, discussed below, is available at: http://www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/971202/d971202.htm TORONTO, Dec 2 (Reuters) - New census data released by the government showed that in 1996 almost 5 million Canadians, or 17 percent of the population, had a mother tongue other than English or French -- Canada's two official languages. This compared to 15 percent in 1991 and 13 percent in 1971. @@cantonese \priv\96b\04\canton.txt Return-Path: Date: Mon, 24 Jun 1996 20:07:54 -0400 Colonials Wrestle With Cantonese To Improve Staying Power - Cantonese words mean different things depending on the tone in which they are spoken. Cantonese has nine tones, compared with just four in Mandarin, the lingua franca of China. @@child rearing \doc\95\12\judgord.txt "Judge orders mom to speak English to child" Seattle Times August 29, 1995 p. a6 @@Chinese Chinese is the worlds most commonly used ideographic language. The characters have also been adopted by Japan and Korean cultures, though supplemented by alphabetic characters. Cantonese use modified "standard" characters, the mainland Communist government implemented "simplified" characters. All dialects, Japanese and Koreans use essentially the same written language even though the sounds are very different. Common character may be reason to not standardize the spoken lanaguage. Latin was used to unify Roman empire. %%Cantonese walter_lee 3/8/01 Cantonese cannot be liken to a mere southern drawl of Mandarin - Cantonese pronouciation has seven( 7) tones as oppose to four (4 ) tones of Mandarin. Cantonese grammer also different from Mandarin grammer. Cantonese has region variations but Hong Kong Cantonese believe themselve to be the standard bearer of Cantonese Cantonese tones Cantonese Pronounciation [1] by walter_lee %%Computer Peter Schaeffer Subject: RE: ASCII vs. Unicode vs. Code Pages Date: Sun, 17 Jun 2001 00:55:44 -0500 Real Chinese/Japanese/Korean Kanji character sets are quite small. Typically around 2000 characters. The best demonstration of this is how many Kanji Japanese kids must learn through Junior High School. The number is 1945. Of course, the complete set of current Kanji is much larger, roughly 30-40K. Unicode combines similar Chinese/Japanese/Korean characters into a single set of code points via "Han Unification". Originally, the number of Unicode Han characters was 20,902. Of late, more have been added. The total number of historical Kanji is quite large, perhaps as high as 100,000. The Unicode specification includes two reserved ranges of 1024 characters that can be combined to form 1M surrogate characters. That should be enough for a while.\ %%Foreigners degoratory chinese terms for aliens might translate to... white demon/ghost smelly big nose barbarians turtle headed people dog demons (1) Yang Guei Zi (Devils from the Sea) (This is in Mandarin) (2) Ang Mo (Red Haired) (This is in Hokkien) @@computers "France vs. the Internet" US News and World Report April 21, 1997 France passes a law require all web pages based in France to be available in French. \clip\97\11\french\french.htm http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/970421/21lost.htm Languages on the internet 1. 90% English 2. 5% French 3. 2% Spanish \clip\96\01\asiasurf.txt Date: Wed, 31 Jul 1996 From: NewsHound@sjmercury.com (NewsHound) ASIASURF FIRST SOFTWARE PROGRAM TO ALLOW WEB BROWSING, E-MAIL IN FOUR ASIAN LANGUAGES -- KNOCKS DOWN LANGUAGE BARRIERS ON THE WORLD Dynalab creates way to adapt US email and web browser to all major Asian character standards. @@English Only english first/only Should English Be the Law? Atlantic April 1997 http://www.theatlantic.com/atlantic/issues/97apr/english.htm \clip\97\10\english\english.htm Language is tearing apart countries around the world, and the proponents of "Official English" may be ready to add America to the list. by Robert D. King \priv\95\15\usengl.txt - bill proposal for US @@idiom \doc\95\07\longtime.txt Long Time No See is literal translation of Chinese @@Immigrant 80% OF IMMIGRANT CHILDREN PREFER ENGLISH, 61% OF MEXICAN CHILDREN \clip\98\11\langpref.txt Immigrants tend to embrace, not avoid, English language http://www2.nando.net:80/newsroom/ntn/nation/082598/nation27_ 16800_noframe s. html Immigrants tend to embrace, not avoid, English language By KEAY DAVIDSON, San Francisco Examiner. Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service. @@learning \priv\95\06\secdlang.txt - 2nd language best learned before Puberty. Children learning two languages lag in vocabulary @@Korean Korean is not closely related to any other modern language @@speaking [source: Asians and Pacific Islanders in the United States: 1990, (CP-3-5), US Census Bureau] Over half of all foreign-born Asian and Pacific Islanders reported that they "do not speak English 'very well'" and almost one third were in linguistically isolated households (where no adult in the household speaks English very well). These figures were 60 percent and 41 percent, respectively, for Asian and Pacific Islander immigrants arriving in this country between 1980 and 1990. @@discrimination \clip\96\02\denylang.txt Date: Fri, 9 Aug 1996 01:18:23 -0400 Language Controversy at Denny's Heats Up By Ellen Forman, Sun-Sentinel, Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Woman was disciplined for speaking spanish by Denny's supervisor, but corporation does not have an english-only policy. @@driving test ACLU ATTACKS ENGLISH ONLY DRIVING TESTS Z47\clip\2001\01\driveng.txt http://www.vdare.com/mcconnell_sandoval.htm she couldn’t pass the driving test, which in Alabama is given - following an Official English statute passed ten years ago - only in English. @@Hebrew Biblical Hebrew only has 3000+ words excluding proper names compared to 4M in english @@home \priv\94\20\calfcen3.txt LANGUAGE SPOKEN AT HOME For persons 5 years and older CALIFORNIA SAN FRANCISCO Speak a language other than English 31.5% 42.4% Do not speak English very well 16.1 23.5 Percent 51.1 55.4 Speak Spanish 20.0 11.0 Speak Spanish, but do not speak English very well 10.8 5.6 Percent 54.0 50.9 Speak Asian or Pacific Island langage 7.0 24.4 Speak Asian or Pacific Island langage, but do not speak English very well 3.9 15.5 Percent 56.0 63.5 NOTE: Numbers may not add up to 100 in some cases due to rounding. d:\doc\calflang.wk1 - Language in California San Francisco Chronicle 1993 Source: US Census Bureau, Chronicle Research Additional analysis by Arthur Hu Speak Languages English: Spanish Asian Other Pct Speaking 29.2% 10.1% 6.5% Pct of Race 113.2% 105.2% Speak Languages English: Spanish Asian Other Pct Speaking 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% Very Well 45.9% 44.6% 67.7% Well 21.6% 29.7% 21.5% Little 32.5% 25.7% 10.8% @@teaching \priv\95\19\techlang.txt - college grad students who teach but can't speak english well. @@white \doc\95\06\welfwoe.txt - poor whites sometimes need to know spanish to get a job in rural washington state