[KS] Re: Mori's cockamie ideas

[Richard C. Miller]

REPLY sends your message to the whole list
__________________________________________

>There was some confusion about that, it was Dutch they opted for, since 
>Dutch and Deutch sound so similar, people later tended to think it was 
>German people opted for.
>-----------------------------
>Henny  (Lee Hae Kang)

Sorry, Henny, I guess I conflated local & national in that paragraph a
little too much. It is true, in the earliest period of the States, the
debate was English v. Dutch, thanks to a large Dutch presence in New
England (Knickerbockers and suchlike). No official national language was
selected at that time (or at any time, actually; the US has no official
language). My home state (Wisconsin) was well past the frontier at that
time, nominally claimed by the French. After 1848, when my home state was
established, so many immigrants were German that in many parts of the
state, English was a rarity. In the late 19th century enough other
immigrants (Swedes, Norwegians, Poles, etc.) showed up that the non-Germans
were able to swing an amendment to the state constitution making English
the official language. This was not enforced anywhere other than in
official communications (which had pretty much always been in English
anyway), although during and after World War I mob action destroyed many
German-American's desire to continue using the language. (Those mobs
occasionally attacked Norwegians as well, whether out of cluelessness or
opportunity, I don't know). It is not enforced to the extent that other
languages are excluded, by the way, so it is rather unlike the efforts of
the more recent English Firsters in that regard.

In any case, the point is that Mori Arinori's suggestion that the Japanese
switch to English was not out of step with other debates in other places.

Just didn't want that lost...

Richard
--Richard C. Miller
--UW School of Music
--Manado, Indonesia
--rcmiller at students.wisc.edu
  http://www.sit.wisc.edu/~rcmiller/