Date:  Thu, 10 Apr 1997 09:48:27 -0400
From:  "M. Lynne Murphy" <104LYN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MUSE.ARTS.WITS.AC.ZA>
Subject: official english

in case you haven't seen this...

lynne


------- Forwarded Message Follows -------

From:      daily[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]chronicle.com
Date sent:   Thu, 10 Apr 1997 08:00:00 EDT
To:       daily[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]chronicle.com
Subject:    4/10/97 Daily Report from ACADEME TODAY

Academe Today's DAILY REPORT
for subscribers of The Chronicle of Higher Education
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MAGAZINES & JOURNALS

A glance at the April issue of "The Atlantic Monthly": Is
"official English" a threat to U.S. unity?

For centuries, countries around the world have been divided over
the disparate languages spoken by their citizens. Language as a
divisive social and political force is a concept alien to
Americans, but is that changing? asks Robert D. King, a
linguistics professor at the University of Texas at Austin. In
spite of many state and local laws designating English as the
"official language," and despite the conservative "English Only"
movement, "America is not threatened by language," Dr. King
 writes. Language is a potentially explosive issue in countries
like Canada and Belgium because it is the defining
characteristic of nationality, he writes. But countries such as
Switzerland, which has four official languages, and India, which
recognizes 19, are not divided over language because they have
strong national identities, Dr. King writes. In the United
States, issues such as immigration, the rights of minority
groups, and bilingual education fuel the English Only movement.
"I suggest that we relax and luxuriate in our linguistic
richness and our traditional tolerance of language differences,"
he writes. "Benign neglect is a good policy for any country when
it comes to language, and it's a good policy for America." (The
magazine may be found at your library or newsstand.)
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