Reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in Arabic?

[billchao]

Then you should not respond until doing so.  It had nothing to do with "accommodating" people who don't speak English.  It was part of an idea from the foreign languages department to read the pledge in different languages every day during FOREIGN LANGUAGES WEEK. The entirety of the "anti" arguments in this thread boil down to the whole "you live in this country so speak the damn language" and that has ZERO to do with the topic. I'm embarrassed for the school administrator who actually felt the need to apologize to those families.  He should have told them to eff off and stop being bigots.  Not really, obviously, because school officials need a little more tact than I have, but if you're offended by the language that happens to be the same language that terrorists speak and you just lump the other 420 million worldwide Arabic speakers in with the terrorists and choose to be offended by that, then you're a bigot.

I agree with everything in your post except for this one thing: [Spoiler=OT]There are lots of militant groups all over the world who can be considered "terrorists" and they speak all kinds of languages, English included. It's unfair to both Muslims and anyone who speaks Arabic that "terrorism" is associated solely with Islamic extremists who speak Arabic. I know you didn't mean it that way, but your wording makes it seem like Arabic is the language of terrorism.[/spoiler]

[Shorty]

interesting that you mention spanish.  i am a high school spanish teacher.  heres a tidbit for you.  by about the year 2050 its projected that there will be more latino school-aged children in the US than white kids.

heres my thing.  the language in which the pledge is stated does not change the meaning of the words.  this was part of a language enrichment activity, nothing more.  and while i dont say the pledge, this seems ludicrous to me.  what about americans who have been killed by people who speak japanese?  german?  do we not include those languages in the activity?  i for one thing that arabic should be taught in US schools as a second language along with spanish and chinese.

How about some capital letters and apostrophes if you're going to go on about language? Geeeeeezzzzz.

And you say you teach in high school??????

Surely you refer to these languages as "languages other than English", and not "second languages". No?

Anyway, on topic - I would wager that not a single person who was catcallling would be able to point to a single country in the Arab world and would quite possibly not even know what hemisphere these countries are in.

[phan52]

Agree with you guys, but again, this shouldn't really even be the topic.  Nobody was trying to accommodate non native speakers or usurp the English language, they were just having an activity during foreign languages week.  An activity that seems ENTIRELY appropriate.

I can see it now ... somebody is going to get offended and cause a ruckus when a school decides to serve tacos and tostadas on Cinco De Mayo later this year.

People are dumb.

Yup.

[14ledo81]

Quote:

Originally Posted by colin007

interesting that you mention spanish.  i am a high school spanish teacher.  heres a tidbit for you.  by about the year 2050 its projected that there will be more latino school-aged children in the US than white kids.

heres my thing.  the language in which the pledge is stated does not change the meaning of the words.  this was part of a language enrichment activity, nothing more.  and while i dont say the pledge, this seems ludicrous to me.  what about americans who have been killed by people who speak japanese?  german?  do we not include those languages in the activity?  i for one thing that arabic should be taught in US schools as a second language along with spanish and chinese.

How about some capital letters and apostrophes if you're going to go on about language? Geeeeeezzzzz.

And you say you teach in high school??????

Surely you refer to these languages as "languages other than English", and not "second languages". No?

Anyway, on topic - I would wager that not a single person who was catcallling would be able to point to a single country in the Arab world and would quite possibly not even know what hemisphere these countries are in.

Give him a break.

I would venture to guess he was posting with a smart phone, and was in a hurry.

[newtogolf]

@phan52 beat me to it, but in the link you posted:

I specifically used the words "national language" not "official language".  English is the "national language".

[Lihu]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shorty

Quote:

Originally Posted by colin007

interesting that you mention spanish.  i am a high school spanish teacher.  heres a tidbit for you.  by about the year 2050 its projected that there will be more latino school-aged children in the US than white kids.

heres my thing.  the language in which the pledge is stated does not change the meaning of the words.  this was part of a language enrichment activity, nothing more.  and while i dont say the pledge, this seems ludicrous to me.  what about americans who have been killed by people who speak japanese?  german?  do we not include those languages in the activity?  i for one thing that arabic should be taught in US schools as a second language along with spanish and chinese.

How about some capital letters and apostrophes if you're going to go on about language? Geeeeeezzzzz.

And you say you teach in high school??????

Surely you refer to these languages as "languages other than English", and not "second languages". No?

Anyway, on topic - I would wager that not a single person who was catcallling would be able to point to a single country in the Arab world and would quite possibly not even know what hemisphere these countries are in.

Give him a break.

I would venture to guess he was posting with a smart phone, and was in a hurry.

Or, a not so smart phone.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lihu

@phan52 beat me to it, but in the link you posted:

I specifically used the words "national language" not "official language".  English is the "national language".

True, but I don't think English is even that, the statement was qualified with "de facto".

[Golfingdad]

I agree with everything in your post except for this one thing:

There are lots of militant groups all over the world who can be considered "terrorists" and they speak all kinds of languages, English included. It's unfair to both Muslims and anyone who speaks Arabic that "terrorism" is associated solely with Islamic extremists who speak Arabic.

I know you didn't mean it that way, but your wording makes it seem like Arabic is the language of terrorism.

Absolutely, thanks for the clarification.  This only furthers the point that it's silly for people to be offended by a language.  (I almost added a comment a smart ass comment at the end about English and Timothy McVeigh but couldn't figure out how to word it right.)