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I've never argued for forced assimilation and nor did "the man in the back row". And there definitely shouldn't be any group in charge with a power to decide th

I've never argued for forced assimilation and nor did "the man in the back row". And there definitely shouldn't be any group in charge with a power to decide that. What I'm arguing against is forced preservation in the name of saving some abstract entity called identity.

intopieces 12y ago
I'm not familiar with forced preservation. Which countries does it happen in, and what effect does it have on the people who it is put upon? Could you link me to some studies that show the negative effects of requiring majority language speakers to learn a minority language? My thesis for linguistics was the opposite - loss of cultural identity due to forced assimilation - and I never encountered the opposite.
- austerity 12y ago
  Ireland - everyone speaks English as their first language, but Irish is mandatory in schools Belarus - everyone speaks Russian, but Belorussian is mandatory in schools Ukraine - a vast number of people (maybe not majority but too many to be called a minority) speaks Russian as their first language but Ukrainian is mandatory in schools and all attempts to give Russian some sort of official status were meet with fierce opposition for no other reason than to preserve national identity Tatarstan (not so sure about this one, also not a country) - Tatar is mandatory in schools for all the same reasons Yes, all of these majority languages where once forced on the peoples of colonies by the empires. But all the people who were forced to learn them are now dead. So the current generations are forced to learn those original languages in the name of historical justice and other bullshit. And what studies do you need for negative effects? The time learning those languages involuntarily is obviously not spent doing anything else. Is that not negative enough for you?
  - intopieces 12y ago
    >The time learning those languages involuntarily is obviously not spent doing anything else. Is that not negative enough for you? No, it is not enough for me. The same could be said of any other school subject you don't have an interest in, a sort of grown up version of "When am I ever going to use trigonometry?" complaint you hear out of school kids. But since I'm a firm believer in "historical justice and other bullshit," I think we're at an impasse here.

intopieces 12y ago

I'm not familiar with forced preservation. Which countries does it happen in, and what effect does it have on the people who it is put upon? Could you link me to some studies that show the negative effects of requiring majority language speakers to learn a minority language? My thesis for linguistics was the opposite - loss of cultural identity due to forced assimilation - and I never encountered the opposite.

austerity 12y ago
Ireland - everyone speaks English as their first language, but Irish is mandatory in schools Belarus - everyone speaks Russian, but Belorussian is mandatory in schools Ukraine - a vast number of people (maybe not majority but too many to be called a minority) speaks Russian as their first language but Ukrainian is mandatory in schools and all attempts to give Russian some sort of official status were meet with fierce opposition for no other reason than to preserve national identity Tatarstan (not so sure about this one, also not a country) - Tatar is mandatory in schools for all the same reasons Yes, all of these majority languages where once forced on the peoples of colonies by the empires. But all the people who were forced to learn them are now dead. So the current generations are forced to learn those original languages in the name of historical justice and other bullshit. And what studies do you need for negative effects? The time learning those languages involuntarily is obviously not spent doing anything else. Is that not negative enough for you?
- intopieces 12y ago
  >The time learning those languages involuntarily is obviously not spent doing anything else. Is that not negative enough for you? No, it is not enough for me. The same could be said of any other school subject you don't have an interest in, a sort of grown up version of "When am I ever going to use trigonometry?" complaint you hear out of school kids. But since I'm a firm believer in "historical justice and other bullshit," I think we're at an impasse here.