Re: [ga] Whoa ! Multilingual?

[Harald Tveit Alvestrand <harald@alvestrand.no>]

At 01:00 06.04.2001 -0400, JessWest@aol.com wrote:
>It seems you have already learned rudeness from them!  Williams we don't
>claim as a Texan!   Jeff has all the earmarks of being  a misplaced
>Arizonian that's been chewing on a little too much Peyote for too many years!

whoa....even Jeff Williams deserves SOME respect...

>   <<In fact it is a Multilingual issue because it deals in differences in
>culture, and even different language, like NZ and SA.>>
>
>Excuse me - perhaps you should find a dictionary and look up the word
>"multilingual" !
>
>The last time I was in New York, they were still speaking English there.  The
>same was true in NZ and SA (assuming you are referring to New Zealand and
>South Africa)

As George Bernard Shaw observed, the English-speaking communities are 
"divided by a common language". Being a non-native speaker of English 
sometimes gives rise to quite unintended bouts of hilarity when two 
English-speaking persons think they are both speaking plainly and clearly, 
and totally fail to communicate.

Anyway, the SIL ethnologue (www.sil.org) lists 31 languages in South Africa 
and 4 in New Zealand.
I wonder how many they would count in New York....

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