In article >, ! says...
>In article >,
 says...
>>At 10:40 AM 8/5/96 -0400, Frank Aycock wrote:
>>>Actually, if the U.S. did take over Canada then English would become
>>>the official language of Canada, too, like the Congress is doing right
>>>now. Canadians would no longer need bilingual signs! :-) :-) :-)

>>I'm in favour of bilingual signs.  Official bilingualism acknowledges
>>that Canada is not just an English speaking nation.  It also sets
>>Canadians apart from that 'Great Satan' to the south.

>>I think that bilingual signs would be a good think in Slovakia and
>>Romania. It would make the Magyar speaking people feel a bit more at
>>home in those countries.  As it is now, the Slovak and Romanian law
>>makers just have to glance at America's unilingual law and feel that
>>they too are moving in the right direction.

>Hear, hear!  Maybe you send an E-mail message about this to the Quebec
>government!

Some other off-hand examples that come to mind are: Belgium, with three
official languages, albeit German being localised around Eupen, having
a good mixture of French and Flemish road signs where the linguistic
communities are in proximity to one another. London's Chinatown, where
the street names are in both English and Chinese characters, etc, etc.

Does the USA really have a unilingual law a la despotic Slovakia and
Romania? What about all those Spanish speakers in the SW?

--
George Szaszvari, DCPS Chess Club, 42 Alleyn Park, London SE21 7AA, UK
Planet Earth, Milky Way Galaxy * ARM Club * C=64..ICPUG * NW London CC

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On Fri, 9 Aug 1996, heringer wrote:
> I also get this list via bit.listserv.hungary, and have no trouble to
> post my messages.
 Like I was trying to explain, the problem is not with posting your
messages, but with getting them to be seen by the rest of the net - via
email they go out to all subscribers immediately, while over the Usenet
they may take days and some even get lost...

>  However - maybe someone can help me here - whenever I
> shut down my Navigator, all my messages posted on WNwin (not only this
> list) are shown as errors.  My server has no answers.

 I don't know, but this sound like some local messup - you should press
the admins around there to figure it out and fix it...

- --
 Zoli , keeper of <http://www.hix.com/hungarian-faq/>;
*SELLERS BEWARE: I will never buy anything from companies associated
*with inappropriate online advertising (unsolicited commercial email,
*excessive multiposting etc), and discourage others from doing so too!


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George Szaszvari writes:

>Does the USA really have a unilingual law a la despotic Slovakia and
>Romania? What about all those Spanish speakers in the SW?

There is a movement to require English to be the official language in both
state and federal  level.
But, this is somewhat different from what is being practiced elsewhere. City
names are not changed on the basis of who is there. Just see the numerous
Spanish origin city
names. While on a literary basis someone may refer to the city of the
angels, both offficially and generally, it is called Los Angeles (the ciudad
etc. was a part of the full name for some time) The same way there are also
many French names leftover from the area where the French were before the
English (e.g Detroit, Vermont) and certainly a plethora of Indian named
communities and geographic designations. Thus very often or even most of the
time there is no reason for putting up Spanish or French or Indian names,
mayhap an English name would be more appropriate.

There is also a difference, in my opinion, between a country where the
people are moving into it and a country where the "borders are moving into it".

I would like to also add, that I see more chauvinism in Canadian politics
than in the US politics in relation to culture, language, etc. While Canada
seems to be going from a melting pot into the pressure cooker stage in
several location. (e.g Toronto, Vancouver), the US is more accomodating in
tolerance of individual cultures and customs. Who would have found even
several decades ago drive thru espressos, Ethiopian restaurants (even if
they are mostly Eritrean) or taxi drivers who have a meager knowledge of
English and even decent bread in the US and these things have customers from
the whole population not only from a particular ethnic group.

I have had an educational experience in a recent exchange between our
company and a French speaking area company. All correspondance from them in
relation to us selling a product to them came in French and all
correspondance relating to them selling something to us came in English. I
thought it was OK, but we translated everything carefully to English and the
price was adjusted accordingly.

Regards,Jeliko
Regards,Jeliko
PO Box 29151
Columbus OH 43229

Here is some background information to this new thread.

At 10:40 AM 8/5/96 -0400, Frank Aycock wrote:

>Actually, if the U.S. did take over Canada then English would become the
>official language of Canada, too, like the Congress is doing right now.
>Canadians would no longer need bilingual signs! :-) :-) :-)

Then, at 12:43 PM 8/5/96, I wrote:

I'm in favour of bilingual signs.  Official bilingualism acknowledges that
Canada is not just an English speaking nation.  It also sets Canadians apart
from that 'Great Satan' to the south.

I think that bilingual signs would be a good think in Slovakia and Romania.
It would make the Magyar speaking people feel a bit more at home in those
countries.  As it is now, the Slovak and Romanian law makers just have to
glance at America's unilingual law and feel that they too are moving in the
right direction.

At 12:31 AM 8/9/96 GMT, Agnes Heringer wrote:

>Hear, hear!  Maybe you send an E-mail message about this to the Quebec
>government!

At 01:46 AM 8/9/96 GMT, George Szaszvari wrote:

>Some other off-hand examples that come to mind are: Belgium, with three
>official languages, albeit German being localised around Eupen, having
>a good mixture of French and Flemish road signs where the linguistic
>communities are in proximity to one another. London's Chinatown, where
>the street names are in both English and Chinese characters, etc, etc.
>
>Does the USA really have a unilingual law a la despotic Slovakia and
>Romania? What about all those Spanish speakers in the SW?

I think the Americans are scared silly by all the Spanish speakers in the
South Western States.  I may be wrong on this, but I once read that English
is growing everywhere in the world except in the American South West.
There, Spanish is growing faster than English.

As we approach the next millennium it might be appropriate for the United
Nations to pass an international law that would guarantee minority language
rights around the world.  Certainly a percentage would have to be agreed
upon and historical facts would have to be considered.  The percentage would
have to be local, regional, or national.  Let's assume that 10 percent is a
workable number.

How would such a law work in Romania, for example?

In Romania, Magyar speakers are less than 10 percent of the total
population.  However, in Transylvania more than 10 percent of the population
is Magyar speaking.  Accordingly, Transylvania should be an officially
bilingual region.  If Magyar speakers made up more than 10 percent of the
population of Romania then all of Romania should be officially bilingual.

How would such a law work in a city like Toronto, for example?

Toronto is a multicultural and multilingual city.  Street signs are already
in Chinese and English in Toronto's Chinatowns, Greek and English in the
Greek areas, etc..   Many business and municipal services are already
available in a plethora of languages in Toronto.  The new law would make
official, throughout the city and not just the ethnic neighbourhood, any
language that was spoken by more than 10 percent of the total population.

A United Nations minority language law would make it next to impossible for
petty local politicians to feed on racist and intolerant attitudes.  They
would not be able to pit one ethnic group against another.  Well, they
might, but the whole world would be watching with great disapproval.

When it comes to bilingualism or multilingualism it should be remembered
that nothing is being taken away from anyone.  Instead, something is given
to those whose numbers warrant.

Joe Szalai

"After all, when you come right down to it, how many people speak the same
language even when they speak the same language?"
          Russell Hoban

Hi could somebody give me some information about how to use
      SOUNDEX.



                                                THANK

At 11:59 AM 8/5/96, Eva S. Balogh wrote:
>At 11:26 AM 8/5/96 -0400, Zoli Szekely, the Social Democrat, wrote:
>>ESB:
>>> the "working-class movement" in no way was influential in
>>> twentieth-century Hungarian history.
>>
>>???                                               (Sz. Zoli)
>>
>>
>
>And Joe Szalai, his comrade-in-arms (what a ridiculous notion but this is
>what these two claim at least in this instance) added:
>>
>>You found that statement curious too, eh?  I suspect that for Eva Balogh,
>>denial, is just a river in Egypt.
>>
>>Joe Szalai
>
>        It just shows how little Hungarian history you know. Marxist, or if
>you prefer, official socialist, historiography of the Kadar period, put an
>inordinate emphasis on the "working-class movement" (munkasmozgalom) and
>within that on the illegal communist party. But the fact was that the
>Hungarian working class was very small and because of the restricted
>franchise, politically impotent. The communist party was not only illegal
>but was completely discredited after 1919. Therefore, writing a history of
>the interwar period from the a vantage point which placed the working-class
>movement in the center of historical development was totally misplaced.
>
>        Eva Balogh

If we equate the working-class movement with the history of the communist
party than indeed we cannot speak of much of a labour movement in Hungary
of our century. The social democratic movement, however, was an important
political force from the beginning of the century especially amongst the
skilled workers. After the communist take-over the labour movement became
an important instrument of the working class in becoming part of the ruling
class. In 1956 the workers' councils made history too.

Peter I. Hidas

Hungarian Studies
Department Of Russian and Slavic Studies
McGill University
Montreal, Quebec, Canada

At 01:02 PM 8/9/96 -0400, JFerengi wrote:

>So, Eva, I dont think your source stands up to scrutiny, yet.

        I honestly don't know what my source is supposed to be. My so-called
independent source turned out to be nothing but office gossip. Official
confirmation from Argonne is not forthcoming, therefore I don't have any
independent source to confirm Nemenyi's own story. I still think that Petofi
Radio did wrong by airing an interview with Nemenyi without having hard
facts. However, I think the whole story favors Nemenyi. He can come out with
names: Kiss, Nagy, Szabo, and so on. He can name anyone of us and we will
have no recourse.

        Eva Balogh

At 06:51 PM 8/9/96 -0400, Peter Hidas wrote:

>If we equate the working-class movement with the history of the communist
>party than indeed we cannot speak of much of a labour movement in Hungary
>of our century.

        That is certainly not even debatable.

> The social democratic movement, however, was an important
>political force from the beginning of the century especially amongst the
>skilled workers.

        The socialist democratic movement was less influential than you try
to make it out here. Sure, they had a few representatives in Parliament but
because the party agreed to restrict their activities to cities and leave
the countryside alone (the Peyer agreemement) their influence wasn't that
influential. I am not saying that social democracy was not at all important;
I am simply saying that it wasn't as important as Hungarian historiography
tried to make it in the last forty years or so.

>After the communist take-over the labour movement became
>an important instrument of the working class in becoming part of the ruling
>class.

        Well, yes, if you consider the manipulations of the working class as
something genuine. I don't. As for the workers' council in 1956, I already
said that they were very important.

        Eva Balogh

Sorry that I did not make clear what I meant by 'source'.

I was referring only to your use of the recent Farkas List as a source to
prove that NPA  is anti semitic.

I know absolutely nothing about the radio show. And I know nothing about
Nemenyi naming people.