We’re talking about slightly different things here. I’m not at all saying that translation problems are a reason not to have two official languages ( although there may be other reasons). I am saying, given a country that doesn’t have two official languages (like the US) ,translation errors may be reason not to try to officially publish every statute in a second language.
the difficulty of translating between any two languages is based solely on the fluency of the translator in those languages. it has nothing to do with the language families of the respective languages. if you’re fluent in chinese and english, translation (with legal training if you are translating legal documents) will not be “harder” than translation between english and french, assuming the translator is fluent in english and french.
first, you have failed to show exactly how it is going to cost a lot of money. you just assume it will, where’s your evidence? what “unintended problems” specifically do you refer to?
so, alabama already offered the driver’s license exam in 14 different languages for over twenty years. why did it all of a sudden become a problem in 1991? why didn’t we hear about all the unintended problems and crippling expense of the extra 13 translations during those 20 years?
here’s a paper on the history of the “english-only” movement in the united states. interesting background.
-fh
a few quick points to make:
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in response to this (from page 1) "Addressing the second issue of the OP, I believe with two languages, the cost of everything the government does is increased by 50%. " - actually, unless you can provide cites to prove otherwise, I would think that would be almost obviously untrue. The costs to any place providing documents in another language would be the cost of the translation, the cost of having to have on hand /store multiple language versions of documents. the costs of reproducing the documents is pretty much the same, regardless of how many languages (I need 100 copies of this, 80 in English, 20 in Spanish) might get slightly cheaper for quantities, but certainly not “doubling” one’s expenses.
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For those concerned with the translations being inaccurate, 'cause the translator might miss nuances etc. Well, gosh. How is that any different from the individual having to learn the language?
Any time you have a translation from one language to another, there are slight differences. this will happen in the case of a professional translator, but probably will happen even more frequently in the case of an individual trying to learn the language.
- Since the OP is specifically in the case of a person needing a translation of the driver’s license exam, is it too much to ask to keep it on that? To me, there’s distinctly different rational for the translations being made available in certain areas. A driver’s license greatly enhances some one’s ability to support themselves - which, I would think should appeal to folks generally against this sort of thing. And, as was pointed out earlier, in Europe, where road travel between countries is common, encouraged etc, they don’t generally have all their signs in multiple languages.
Yeah that’s true, though I wonder what the percentages were in the southwest states at the time they were annexed to the US. Anyway, I think the “majority” distinction has its flaws as well. If the purpose of providing bilingual services is to assist a significant percentage of the population who speak a different language, should it really matter whether that significant percentage is above or below 50? And why?
I already gave you a reason for the increased costs several posts ago. I will repeat: these tests don’t write, administer, nor score themselves. You must have available staff to do these things. I say it is safe to assume that it would increase costs to have a translator available at each and every driver’s license station.
As for the unintended problems, I have also repeatedly demonstrated this, without suitable refutation. If not offering driver’s exams in Spanish is discrimination based on national origin, then so is not offering the Bar Exam in Hmong, Bantu, Farsi, etc. (one example of OH SO MANY). But to practice law in this country, it is ESSENTIAL to speak, read and write English with a great amount of proficiency. Therefore, to be forced to offer the Bar Exam in any given language, other than English, would be an exercise in stupidity, and one more example of government waste.
If you have a refutation of any of this, post away. Please don’t bore me with an assertion of rights that don’t exist (i.e. it’s “unamerican” to make me learn English to do nonessential things, like driving).
It’s different in the specific example that was being discussed-laws and codes being translated-and possibly few, if any others. If I move to a foreign country, and I misunderstand what the law requires because of my lack of fluency,or because a person who translated for me (at my request) didn’t do it accurately that’s one thing.It’s another if the government attempts to publish in a second language,does it inaccurately and therefore causes my misunderstanding. I certainly couldn’t be held responsible for following the government’s inaccurate translation, rather than the what was meant to be the law.
TX
No, I don’t concede that at all. Every federal statute in Canada, and every statute in Quebec, New Brunswick, Manitoba and Ontario, and large parts of our Constitution, are bilingual. You may get the occasional question of interpretation between the two versions, but in my experience, no more frequently than other issues of statutory interpretation.
Similarly, most international treaties are in more than one language, the UN Charter is in 5 languages, and the European Union publishes its statutes and regulations in all the official languages of the member states. The mulitiplicity of language versions doesn’t cause problems. (The substance of all those laws and regulations may, but that’s another story :p)
Lyllyan, I think I love ya. I completely agree. It’s ridiculous to think that we should accommodate every person that comes to the US just so we don’t hurt their feelings. For crying out loud, either they learn English or they will be disadvantaged. End of story. BTW, I truly believe that anyone with a driver’s license should speak very good English and understand every possible word that could ever be on a street sign. There are enough bad drivers out there already. Ever notice how a lot of bad drivers are foreigners (cab drivers come to mind)? They’re probably having trouble reading the signs.
This, for the most part, is what I was talking about. All of your examples were actually passed by the appropriate legislative body in bilingual/multilingual form.
If differences in language interpretation (as opposed to statutory interpretation within one language) came up in a law passed in only one language, which one ALWAYS wins?
Tolerance of linguistic diversity may or may not be a good thing, but cost of implementation is definitely a serious factor to be considered. A few contributors to this thread have mentioned the Canadian example of two official languages, the gist being that yes, there’s a cost, but it’s a tolerable one and not so high that it causes problems. Well, may I offer you the constrasting example of the European Economic Union. When the European Parliament meets, every spoken and written word has to be translated into several different languages. I think it’s seven, and the number may be increased in time. The cost is enormous, in absolute terms and also as a percentage of the EU’s total budget. It also slows down the rate at which any matter can be discussed - as if politics needed anything to slow it down.
This is a tragic waste of time and money. Unfortunately, no member countries would be happy for any other member’s language to be the one ‘official’ language.
This wasn’t really about providing services in a second language, it was about having two official languages. I think that the majority distinction makes sense in terms of why Puerto Rico should have two official languages even if it becomes a state,even if no other state has two official languages,because no other state has that situation.I think providing services in different languages and which ones should be up to the individual states.
oh, in reply to your question, TX - my understanding is that bilingual product labelling is required by federal law, and is not market based. But, part of the reason for the law is that that previously, companies did not label their products in French, even in Quebec, in part becauase of the increased costs. That meant that Canadian citizens in their home province would not be able to buy products labelled in the majority language of that province.
The requirement of bilingual labelling is a consumer measure, just like putting the nutritional information on the products, and other types of product labelling regulation. (I don’t deny there is an ideological statement there as well, about the status of the languages in the country, but my point is that there is also a practical reason for it.)
And yes, if you spent most of your time on the Canadian Forces Base, everything would be bilingual, since they’re part of the federal government and subject to the bilingualism requirments.
jti- if products in Quebec (or any other large, majority francophone areas) weren’t labelled in French, that was just stupid, from an. Like I said before, I’ve eaten imported food products labeled in languages I don’t fully understand, but I’m more adventurous in that regard than the average Ugly American[sup]TM[/sup]. I don’t really want to know what kind of mystery meat is in some of those Vietnamese snacks I crave from time to time :eek:.
I didn’t spend the much of my time at the CFB, but my cousin’s fiancee was a soldier, and I got the two-dollar tour ($1.50 US at the time :)). I noticed a lot of those little signs you see all over military bases (i.e. Pick up after yourself for the good of Canada, don’t tell suspicious foreigners about our secret military plans, etc.) were bilingual. Every soldier (at least the ones I encountered) their spoke English, but I guess these were printed for every base in the country.
[picking on Canadians]I also noticed that the signs didn’t end every sentence in “eh?”. DON’T LEAVE YOUR TOOLS ON THE FLOOR, EH. :D[/picking on Canadians]
Every soldier there spoke English.
You still haven’t explained why you think the majority distinction makes sense, though. I think it makes even less sense if you’re talking only about having two official languages. Ireland gets by fine having two official languages even though one of them is spoken (on a daily basis) by only about 10% of the population and the other one is understood by almost 100%. New Mexico’s Spanish-speaking population is surely over 10% and many of them cannot speak English so why doesn’t it make just as much, if not more sense for Spanish to be an official language there, even if its speakers aren’t in the majority?
I’ll try to be clearer (don’t know if I’ll succeed) It only makes sense in terms of why Puerto Rico is not starting from the same place as other states.Arguments against and problems with having a second official language that might apply to other states would not apply in Puerto Rico ( for example, suppose 4 or 5 different languages are spoken by between 7 and 10% of the population each.Do you now have five or six official languages? Do you have 2 or 3, and if so, how do you choose which ones? Do you stick with just English?Suppose for some reason there is a lack of applicants who speak the second official language for particular government jobs? None of those questions will ever come up in Puerto Rico.) If the people of New Mexico want to make Spanish a second official language,that’s fine with me (even if only 5% of the residents speak Spanish) but chances are it won’t happen until a substantial minority {it wouldn’t necessarily have to be a majority,but it would have to be pretty close) not only speaks the proposed second language,but wants it to be an official language (since there’s no guarantee that someone who speaks a language would necessarily want it to be an official language).
Responding to questions from jti;
In Bill 101, Quebec’s Charter of the French language, Quebec has legislated French as the only official language of Quebec. I realize that this legislation in Quebec is provincial, rather than federal, but to me it still indicates that Francophones in Quebec are not very interested in bilingualism. The attitude that motivated this Bill is also abrasive to Canadian Anglophones, who have been known to have the attitude of “If they don’t want English in Quebec, why do we have to have French in the rest of Canada?”
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Yes, Canada is still united, but at such narrow margins, I don’t consider either victory for unity over sovereignty to have been a ringing endorsement for staying in Canada.
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Agreed.
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First of all, I didn’t mention roads, I mentioned Federal roadsigns, which do have to be in both official languages. Taken on their own, they are not a huge expense (although they do have to be created across Canada, a very large country). My point that bilingualism increases costs by 50% is not based on statistics, because I don’t believe I could find any stats to compare monolingual costs vs bilingual costs, because everything Federal is done only bilingually. My assertion was based on what I considered a common sense observation; if I do something once in English, and then do it again in French, it is going to double my costs. Everything done in one language must also be done again in a second language; I understand there will be shortcuts available within the processes, but the overall picture still seems like a duplication of efforts at most levels.
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Agreed, reluctantly. I still don’t like it, though 
okay. the driver’s license exam is all multiple choice. you pay for the translation into each new language once. then it’s available to you whenever and wherever you need it through the magic of bureaucracy. since it’s multiple choice, the answer key is the same for any language. you don’t have to know the language to grade the test, just to take it. a computer probably does the grading anyway. so anyone can administer and grade the tests. how is this going to be prohibitively expensive? as i already mentioned, prior to 1991, alabama already offered the test in 14 different languages. california offers it in 33. michigan, massachusetts, and new york offer it in over 20.
also, since most state DMVs get a lot of federal funding, why not standardize on one national test, given using a computer with a touch screen? i took my “written” driver’s license exam on a computer, and that was in the early 90’s. network the damn things, and have the initial menu when you begin the exam a choice of the list of languages you want to take it in. then when the test is translated in any state, that translation becomes available instantly all over the country.
you brought up bar exams, which are irrelevant so i didn’t respond about them. you don’t need to pass the bar to earn a living in the US. on the other hand, a good argument can be made that you do need to be able to drive. other essential government services similar to being licensed to drive like voting, paying taxes, etc. should be available in any language. most everything else happens in the marketplace, where people are free to do as they please.
you expect perfection in the procedures from a country working toward multi-lingualism, but forget that government services are imperfect and inefficient as they are right now, predominantly monolingual. even among english speakers, government services do not accomodate everyone. it is not important that we immediately accomodate all 400 odd languages spoken in the US, it is merely important that we work towards that goal and not against it.
-fh
hazel-rah:
Driving laws are different from state to state, so a single test wouldn’t cover everything.
I took my ‘written’ test on a computer as well (in Washington), and I think I was given a choice between English and Spanish.
You say this is just about driver’s licenses and Spanish, and you are right for this case. But I will state this again since it obviously isn’t sinking in, according to the suit in the OP, this is about discrimination based on national origin. That originally involved actions such as: not hiring a French guy, since they don’t bathe too often, or not hiring a Mexican guy, since they are all lazy, or not hiring an Irish guy, since they are all drunks (all overgeneralized stereotypes, false more often than they are correct, and introduced as an example. These are not my views.) If not offering the driver’s exam in Spanish is discrimination, then so is not offering it in Bantu. It does not matter that there are a lot more Spanish speakers in this country than Bantu speakers. Additionally, if it is discrimination when it is the driver’s exam, then it is discrimination when it invoves the Bar Exam. It may be nice to offer the driver’s exam in Spanish, if that will help people, but it is not illegal discrimination if you don’t.
Who said we are working toward multilingualism (other than you)? Who said we should (other than you)? It may be a wonderful goal, but it is not mine.