Re: Tactics to bringing a language to life
- From: Lee Sau Dan <danlee@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 02 Apr 2006 18:57:28 +0800
"Herman" == Herman Rubin <hrubin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
Herman> My parents would not use any language other than English
Herman> at home unless they had guests who had difficulty with
Herman> English. Not all did this, but large numbers, and the
Herman> idea that the children should not be adept in English was
Herman> not at all common.
I have a friend whose both parents speak Cantonese natively. He grew
up in New York City and they speak English at home all the time. He
told me that his parents never spoke Cantonese to the children. He
thinks that his parents kept Cantonese among themselves as a "secret
language". (Maybe, that's the the parents' intention, but at least
that's this friend's impression.) As a result, this Chinese-looking
man speaks English fluently -- with an American accent, can speak a
little bit Mandarin which he learnt at school, but can't speak
Cantonese at all. (He wish he could! I think it's an identity
confusion for him -- a Cantonese descendant not speaking Cantonese.)
In a gathering where both he and his father are present, I could talk
to his father in Cantonese, without this friend understanding a word!
--
Lee Sau Dan 李守敦 ~{@nJX6X~}
E-mail: danlee@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Home page: http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~danlee
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