Asklemmy

43945 readers

590 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
!lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

129

Why do some Americans get angry at other people for not speaking English? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 5 months ago by TheImpressiveX@lemmy.ml to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

119 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I've hears stories of some Americans telling other people who are speaking a non-English language "This is America, speak English!" even if the conversation has nothing to do with them. Why do they do this?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] SlothMama@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

You got voted down, but this is absolutely real. I speak multiple languages, but none with the nuance and clarity of context as I do English. I communicate with folks all across the world that are all English speakers, however, the variance in comprehension is so drastic that at times we're really not using the same language, even if we're using some of the same words.

If you emigrate to a country, it's a reasonable expectation that you'll learn the language. The United States doesn't technically have an official language, English is just de facto, but from a practical standpoint it's absolutely occupying that role, and will in perpetuity.

I can absolutely agree with the premise that being frustrated with language barriers isn't racism, it's an actual real and realized impediment to understanding.

[–] criitz@reddthat.com 5 points 4 months ago

Language barriers are a real impediment to understanding. But these people we're talking about are angry because of xenophobia, don't get it twisted.