Originally posted by Pope:
I agree, at some point all languages can be seen as gibberish from some point of view, and from my point of view as an English speaking American, Spanish is gibberish, but so are German, Latin, Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, Lithuanian, Latvian, Galic, Japanese, Chinese, Koreanese (sp?)(sorry,had to do it), Russian, etc.... and I'd be offended if I saw a ton of signs all over in these languages too...



Does it offend you when people who "speak English" butcher their own language in public signage? If not, you don't have a leg to stand on.

And, according to your POV here, there should never be a Chinatown, no Little Tokyo, no Little Italy (North End here in Boston), no German Town. Just all quaint American cities with absolutely no ethnicity save for WASP.

What about the people who HAD to run here for one reason or another, and are doing their best to figure out a way to get their lives straightened out? What about people who've only been here for 3 weeks and are figuring out the language, despite being perfectly legal?

And, yes, there is a requirement of basic language comprehension for naturalization, but that does NOT mean 100% fluency, and people will still be more comfortable speaking their own language.

Don't get me wrong, if I'm working a counter at any retail establishment, and someone comes in speaking a language I can't understand for the life of me, I'll try to get them to dumb down a little and try as much English as I can.

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