Re: Bilingualism has ruined Canada but there is still hope.
rrhersh_at_acme.com
Date: 12/16/04
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Date: 16 Dec 2004 09:29:06 -0800
Dylan Sung wrote:
> "Mxsmanic" <mxsmanic@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:r7a2s05u59v6ljia6jl72dv5bi34msdl1g@4ax.com...
> > Dylan Sung writes:
> >
> >> For instance, I know all manner of wierd an wonderful technical
stuff to
> >> do
> >> with quantum physics and could bore the legs of a donkey about
quantum
> >> wells, wires and dots and the wave equations which define the
containment
> >> and transport of electrons, but have no equivalent vocabulary in
my home
> >> language. Am I bilingual?
> >
> > No.
> >
> >> Or are you saying, to be truly bilingual, both languages you speak
must
> >> be
> >> on the same exact level in terms of amount of vocabulary to
express the
> >> things you need for everyday existence?
> >
> > Right.
> >
>
> So, let me get this right. A bilingual person may only have exactly
the same
> vocabulary in both languages s/he speaks is that right?
>
> So if I have a fluency of n words in English, but only n-1 in French,
I am
> not a true bilingual, according to you. And if one of the languages I
speak
> does not have any inflection, but the other one does, how does this
affect
> the numbers of words. For example in Chinese 'kan' means see, seeing,
saw,
> etc, as Chinese isn't inflected. How do you account for one word and
three
> or more words in the other language?
>
There is also the interesting implication that if the two languages
don't have vocabularies that don't correspond to one another (if, for
example, your home language simply lacks the vocabulary to discussion
quantum physics) then it is logically impossible to be bilingual in
them if you possess the non-corresponding vocabulary of one. So if you
learned English before you learned quantum physics, you might have been
bilingual for a while. Then you went and got more education and
screwed it up!
Richard R. Hershberger
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