28415: Hermantin( Letters to the Editor)Teach French, Mandarin, not Creole (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted Sunday May 7, 2006



Teach French, Mandarin, not Creole


Re the April 26 letter No to Creole immersion:


Everyone should have a second language. The choice should be based on how many 
doors that language will open, how many people speak it and how widely 
distributed they are.

A billion people all over the world speak English. Half a billion people, also 
widely distributed, speak Spanish. A billion people, most of them in the 
world's second largest country, speak Mandarin. French remains a widely spoken 
second language despite the fact that there are only 125 million native 
speakers. These are the languages we should consider teaching in our high 
schools.

Creole is spoken by seven million people, one-tenth of the number who speak 
Telugu, a language of central India. Optional classes in Creole will produce 
optional segregation. We need to integrate our children by bringing Haitian 
literature, the finest literature in the Caribbean, into our schools. Edwidge 
Danticat's masterful short stories are written in English. Jacques Roumain's 
Masters of the Dew should be read in the original French by students taking 
that language and in English translation by everyone else. French students 
should read the poetry of Rene Depestre. Anglophones should at least have read 
a translation of Black Mineral. These all are works that should be read for 
their ideas as well as for their literary merit.

ALLEN A. SMITH, North Miami

The letter fails to address the crux of the issue. The analogy that compares 
the use of Creole to Yiddish is not far-fetched.

We must give our children the tools that will help them later in life -- 
knowledge of English and French. Creole will always remain a wonderful 
conversation piece for scientists and connoisseurs of the Creole language.

ROLAND MONTAS, Miami