As an European, I find it cute how knowing "two or more" languages is sufficient for super status in North America.
edit: It's also pretty amusing to see how touchy North Americans can be about this even on HN.
edit: It's also pretty amusing to see how touchy North Americans can be about this even on HN.
>edit: It's also pretty amusing to see how touchy North Americans can be about this even on HN.
That's because you're comparing two distinct things. There is no comparison between learning a language naturally or because it is spoken in your home environment and the brute force process of learning a language which you have no exposure to, and no real incentive (economic, social) to learn.
The way you phrased it appears to be disdainful, "oh how precious", which noting the faults of the comparison, makes you come off as somewhat rude to a North American reader.
You do have clusters of Spanish/Chinese/Japanese/Hindi/etc on the West Coast of the USA, but except for the large Hispanic populations, almost every one of them speaks English too.
In short, you can learn English and Spanish and be understood in 99.9999999% of North America. Learning any other language is largely a pursuit of fancy ("for fun" or for traveling abroad), unless you plan on moving out of the country.
What happens if you want to sell to, or buy from, some other country? Is business squeezed into the bit that isn't "largely a ..."?
I'm English. I speak no other languages, and it's something I'm a bit embarrassed by.
I suspect the true number of people who speak at least english or spanish is closer to 99%.
I believe the grandparent meant languages such as Japanese, Ethiopian, Thai, etc.
Uh. Yes it does, and no they aren't.
What? Nobody was saying anything of the sort.
Brazil has a large population of ethnic Japanese. A number of them are able to speak Japanese. That doesn't make Japanese a Brazilian language. Nor does it make those born and raised in Brazil Japanese, aside from discussions of ethnicity.
Finland has had a large (currently ~5%) Swedish-speaking minority for a long time. While a large amount (~50%) of Finnish-mother-tongue Finns can speak Swedish, this is expected given the Swedish minority, the previously large and prestigious role of Swedish in Finland, the relative populations (~5M vs ~9M for Sweden), and the relative linguistic isolation of Finnish.
I wouldn't claim the proximity theory holds no water - it's just not the entire story.
They know they speak español, not mexicano, they know it came from Spain, and even a Mexican will brand you as a fool if you try to tell them otherwise.
Classification of language has nothing to do with ethnicity, background, where you were born or where it is being spoken.
1. The distance. Most of the US is actually quite far away from Mexico. As you get closer to the border (Texas, California, Arizona, New Mexico) the rate at which non-hispanics speak Spanish rises considerably.
2. The economic and social relations between the US and Mexico are nothing like those between Spain and Germany. If I'm German, I can learn Spanish, move there, find work (okay, the example works better the other way around), and live with a minimum of hassle. It's another stable, developed country.
In contrast, parts of Mexico are almost literally war-zones (Juárez et. al.), and gaining a work visa, finding employment, etc is quite difficult, and even then it will be a dramatically different standard of living.
If you know a 2nd language because it's been in your environment since childhood, then it's not so "super".
I'm curious about your definition of 'knowing' in this instance. Fluent? Functional? Basic?
Exactly. 50% of the population may identify as 'speaking' two or more languages, but I seriously doubt more than 20% of them are fluent in two or more languages. There is an enormous difference between functional and fluent.