I just returned from a trip two NY and for two weeks I had many encounters with emigrants from all over Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, The Bronx, Long Island and Staten Island. It amazes me that some people have been in the US for 25 years and yet they struggle and don't understand or speak proper English. I know any foreign language is not easy to learn and I don't expect to hear the King's English in an ordinary gathering but some foreiners don't care at all about the value of the English language. English is the most widely used language in the world. As I was growing up it used to be my fifth language and now it has become my most beloved language. The language of Shakespear and romance I skillfully use to woo women and conquer their hearts. Why some of my compatriots do not seem to be bothered to learn it truly baffles me. A foreigner bragged to me that he was fluent in Polish and not so much in English because he worked in a knitting mill in Ridgewod, Queens, where most of coworkers came from Poland and other Eastern European countries. Another one told me he spoke Spanish with a flair - Colombian Spanish - a lot better than English due to the fact that he was dating a senorita from Bogota who lived in Jackson Heights. His friend was very eager to let me know that he had bought some tapes to learn a bit of Russian because he lived in 'Little Odessa,' Cony Island, and he was pursuing a young Oxana Baiul lookalike with nice ass. He even admires Putin and wears a T-shirt with 'CCCP' logo stenciled on it. (I must confess it made me chuckle because I love women myself...but Putin?!) Everybody around me confirmed his mission. He was beaming with joy. He hoped his Russian would give him an edge over the other guys and now he was listening to tape # 3. Although no dates were in sight - not yet his buddies agreed in unison - but he was being a perfect gentleman, persistent yes but very, very patient. Some people fascinate me and foreigners are not an exception. Many times I've encountered foreigners who speak good English. Fluently! Both English and other languages, that is. First they learned English besides their mother tongue than other languages. How do I know this? I simply asked. It makes sense to me.However, it does not make sense to me an emigrant who comes to this country in pursued of the American Dream and they refuse to learn the language. They live here for over 20 years and still they are not able to communicate fluently in English. My jaw drops. I roll my eyes. I'm speechless. Some of them - not all, of course - don't even make an effort to learn English. Why is that? I've met an American G.I. who served with UNMIK in Kosova and spoke good Albanian and an African-American who spoke Greek because he worked in an auto-body shop side by side with Greeks. And, a Puerto-Rican who spoke even better Italian because he worked in a pizza parlor in Staten Island. I reckon that but at least they were all fluent in English whereas some emigrants are totally confused and they have set their priorities completely wrong. Instead of learning English first and other local languages second, they do the opposite. And then they shrug off and say, 'Well, I have no choice but to learn Romanian because at work this is the only language they speak. This is the only job I have. I know it sucks working in a sweat-shop where the pay is low but what can I do.I'm too old.' 'What can you do you said?! And at 50 you feel you are too old?! Really! I think you are joking... or better be. Let's see what can be done. Well, why don't you start learning basic English by enrolling at the 'University of Life'. First, start learning the street version of contemporary English.And that's not so hard at all since you hear that almost everywhere you go in New York City. There are even Tees with explicits on it. You don't need a private language specialist where you have to pay big bucks for it just pay attention and be more observant. Start with 'Lesson Number One: Fuck you! Ass hole! You stupid! Idiot! Move, mother fucker! Hey man, what's your problem! Come over here, bitch!' Oh, you already know these expressions. Very good. I'm impressed. O.K. Now let's move on to 'Lesson Number Two: Hello, Sir! How are you? Yes, Ma'am! Please! Thank you! You Welcome! Nice meeting you. ' And so on and so forth. You only need 500 words of basics in order to converse in any foreign language. When you combine those 500 words you can make 50,000 combinations and this method is the building block of learning any foreign language - including English. I must say all emigrants are not the same, of course. Once I met a gentleman who had accompanied his daughter to be examined at the emergency room. Immediately I noticed his English was superb and I asked him about that. He politely responded to me, ' I used to work in the embassy in Washington, D.C.,' he said with a grin. His daughter was fine and we both had a very pleasant conversation - in English. I.A. Why is English so hard? We'll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes; But the plural ox should be oxen, not oxes. The one fowl is goose, but two are called geese; Yet the plural for moose should never be meese. You may find a lone mouse or a whole lot of mice; But the plural of house is houses not hice. If the plural of man is always called men, Why shouldn't the plural of pan be called pen? The cow in the plural may be cows or kine, But the plural of vow is vows, not vine. And I speak of a foot and you show me your feet, But I give you a boot -- would a pair be called beet? If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth, Why shouldn't the plural of booth be called beeth? If the singular is this and the plural is these, Should the plural of kiss be nicknamed kese? Then one may be that, and three may be those, Yet the plural of hat would never be hose. We speak of a brother, and also the brethren, But though we say mother, we never say methren. The masculine pronouns are he, his, and him, But imagine the feminine she, shis, and shim! So our English, I think you will all agree, Is the trickiest language you ever did see! (Anonymous)
New York is a city of immigrants, always has been. sometimes it seems like the only time immigrants speak english is so the diferent immigrants can speak to each other. English is the original pidgin language a bastard toung formed of parts of German and Latin, Byronic Celtic, French and others. It has loose structure compared to the continental langiages it also assimilates borrow words well. It is the worlds newest language Shakspeare gave it respectability. Immigrants children always address the parents in english and the immigrant will address the kid in the native toung. Watching one of these conversations is always interesting. Immigrant neighborhoods fascinating. They all know the language of money though and they all can get by with their skills.
English is one of the easiest languages to learn. It's just that most of these immigrants, primarily from the poor countries like India are uneducated to begin with and they're in their 30s a lot of them when they come here. Because of all these ghettos we have in the U.S. and Canada they settle in with their own kind and don't bother learning the language of the country. Motherfuckers.
Don't be ridiculous, saying English was the original pidgin language. French for example was heavily heavily influenced by Latin, along with the Franks and Gauls, and their German neighbors. German came from the original Germanic languages but again it was hugely influenced by Latin. You could even say English is more faithful to it's ancestor languages than it's current contemporaries in Western Europe. For example the original Germanic Languages didn't have female and male words, and English still doesn't. German does. On top of that German was influenced by the Latin verb stem changers which it didn't have before. English doesn't have the stem verb trees that the other Continental European countries have. We have a word we use in the sentence like "would" and "to" to put in front of the verb instead of having to change it's ending. We do have some verbs that change like am are and is, but our system is much smoother than the other systems in my opinion. I would rather just state the subject of the verb than have to change the ending to fit the subject. So if anything the other languages are the pidgin languages, English stayed pretty true to German and Scandinavian style grammar, but became more flexible than either. Now because of it's huge spread it's even more open and flexible. About the immigrants learning English, I have noted that at a certain age it really is too much to learn a language well. My friends mother has to use English all the time, but it never really clicks even though she uses it at home a lot too. I think some of our brains have limits, different for some than others, and I think very dependent on age.
