Comments on: SACRE BLEU! FRENCH CNN TO BROADCAST IN ENGLISH

By: pneumonomus

pneumonomus — Fri, 17 Mar 2006 17:40:05 +0000

France is the perfect example why english only in the US is a good idea. Forcing immigrants to assimilate will prevent situations like the french have with moslem immigrants who fail to integrate and live in isolated conclaves and want to make them independent of the rest of the country.

By: Ogre

Ogre — Fri, 17 Mar 2006 16:01:04 +0000

And the banning of non-English in government publications can also be a matter of economics — it costs a lot less (in so many ways) to print instructions in English instead of 20 different languages.

By: Rick Moran

Rick Moran — Fri, 17 Mar 2006 15:30:57 +0000

Sorry, I don’t think your analogy washes.

This is question of targeting usage and definition - not language as a whole. By choosing to ban certain words - not an entire language - the kultural krazies target English and especially, America because most of the banned words are part of American lexicon.

It would be like us banning the use of the thousands of French words like “restaurant” and “cafe” while coming up with substitutes like “out to dinner places.”

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Fri, 17 Mar 2006 15:23:52 +0000

It’s been a long time since French was regarded as the international language of diplomcy and commerce. If France had a strong economy and a broad cultural influence, the French government wouldn’t have to waste it’s time trying to stamp out foreign words.

That being said, is this any different from efforts by conservatives in the U.S. to make English our official language? The English-only movement is motivated by fears that the U.S. might someday be balkanized into Spanish and English language areas. Given the surge of Muslim immigration into France, enforcing the use of French makes some sense.