All good arguments, but veering off the point. A few issues struck me while reading this:
* What makes English a "foreign language"? National boundaries? Its origins? How does this tie up with its current position in India, where it is used as an associate national language? * Also, what about these facts: " Today there are more non-native than native users of English, and English has become the linguistic key used for opening borders: it is a global medium with local identities and messages (Kachru 1996: 11,14). English has become a world language, spoken by at least 750 million people. It is more widely spoken and written than any other language, even Latin, has ever been. It can, indeed, be said to be the first truly global language. English is nowadays the dominant or official language in over 60 countries." http://www.languageinindia.com/may2003/annika.html * How do you define one's "primary language"? In places like Goa, does this tally with the "official language" (both in terms of script and dialect)? * Is the presumption that we don't have to "teach one's kids grammatically and lexically" when it comes to "their own mother tongue". Does the process of language acquisition among children vary according to what they claim as their relationship with a local, national or "foreign" language? This raises a whole lot of issues, specially in places like Goa, where those who are capable have picked up English to near mother-tongue levels (the TOEFL scores and Dr Kurzon's work has studied that). The challenge is what happens to those still struggling to pick up those skills. Do we treat them with disdain, charity, condescension or hope? FN On 29 November 2011 23:52, Santosh Helekar <[email protected]> wrote: I noticed that, using the well-honed skills of distortion and incomprehension, Admin Noronha has now left far behind the simple reasonable suggestion on the need to teach one's kids grammatically and lexically correct English, especially if one adopts this foreign language as one's primary language, rather than one's own mother tongue. Instead, the Admin has migrated far and wide looking for some kind - any kind - of moral high ground, into faraway places such as Texas and Drayton, and onto distant topics such as racism, elitism, exclusivism and class bias. So before he finds Nazism from his standard deck of cards to play on any topic of discussion on Goanet, or gets lost further in the wilderness, let me tell you that people in Texas do not speak Queen's English. They speak the Texan variant of English. But the important thing from the standpoint of drawing the correct analogy to the situation described by me in this thread is, I am yet to find any native Texan who shuns his mother tongue and tries to speak Konknni, instead. If I find such a Texan, I will make an analogous suggestion to him/her, namely, that he/she should try to learn and teach his/her kids the correct Konknni grammar and lexicon. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Protect Goa's natural beauty Support Goa's first Tiger Reserve Sign the petition at: http://www.goanet.org/petition/petition.php ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
