{"id":603,"date":"2006-05-27T23:39:28","date_gmt":"2006-05-27T23:39:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/archives\/603"},"modified":"2006-05-27T23:39:28","modified_gmt":"2006-05-27T23:39:28","slug":"making-english-the-nations-lingua-franca","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/archives\/603","title":{"rendered":"Making English the nation&#8217;s lingua franca"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As I&#8217;m sure everyone knows, last week the US Senate voted to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wwaytv3.com\/Global\/story.asp?S=4925453&#038;nav=0zHS\">make English our &#8220;national&#8221; language<\/a>. All through this debate I keep thinking back to when my dad was a professor at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.georgiatech-metz.fr\/\">Georgia Tech Lorraine<\/a>, Georgia Tech&#8217;s campus in Metz, France.<\/p>\n<p>Back in 1997 Georgia Tech Lorraine <a href=\"http:\/\/www.whistle.gatech.edu\/archives\/98\/may\/11\/french_court.html\">was sued<\/a> for violating a French law forbidding the sale of &#8220;goods and services&#8221; in France in any single language other than French. The lawsuit was brought by two French organizations, the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.langue-francaise.org\/\">D\u00e9fense de la Langue Fran\u00e7aise<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.avenirlanguefrancaise.org\/\">Avenir de la Langue Fran\u00e7aise Defense de la Langue<\/a>, because the campus (which taught classes only in English) did not have a French version of their website. I remember smugly thinking how idiotic it was that the French had organizations dedicated to the &#8220;defense&#8221; of the French language, and how much more sensible we Americans were. Of course, I should have realized my smugness would be short-lived: the French may be known for their jingoism and petulant national pride, but the US has always envied that title.<\/p>\n<p>So now I have to wonder \u2014 how would the Senators that voted for &#8220;defending our English language&#8221; react to the accusation that they&#8217;re acting, well, French?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As I&#8217;m sure everyone knows, last week the US Senate voted to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wwaytv3.com\/Global\/story.asp?S=4925453&#038;nav=0zHS\">make English our &#8220;national&#8221; language<\/a>. All through this debate I keep thinking back to when my dad was a professor at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.georgiatech-metz.fr\/\">Georgia Tech Lorraine<\/a>, Georgia Tech&#8217;s campus in Metz, France.<\/p>\n<p>Back in 1997 Georgia Tech Lorraine <a href=\"http:\/\/www.whistle.gatech.edu\/archives\/98\/may\/11\/french_court.html\">was sued<\/a> for violating a French law forbidding the sale of &#8220;goods and services&#8221; in France in any single language other than French. The lawsuit was brought by two French organizations, the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.langue-francaise.org\/\">D\u00e9fense de la Langue Fran\u00e7aise<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.avenirlanguefrancaise.org\/\">Avenir de la Langue Fran\u00e7aise Defense de la Langue<\/a>, because the campus (which taught classes only in English) did not have a French version of their website. I remember smugly thinking how idiotic it was that the French had organizations dedicated to the &#8220;defense&#8221; of the French language, and how much more sensible we Americans were. Of course, I should have realized my smugness would be short-lived: the French may be known for their jingoism and petulant national pride, but the US has always envied that title.<\/p>\n<p>So now I have to wonder \u2014 how would the Senators that voted for &#8220;defending our English language&#8221; react to the accusation that they&#8217;re acting, well, French?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}