Re: Linguo-Racial Complex


InspiredPoet a écrit :

> The Linguo-Racial Complex
> Monday, October 24, 2005 (23:41:24)
> The Linguo-Racial complex is a phenomenon that I (and many other
> people, I guess) discovered while learning foreign languages. It refers
> to how average people associate a language with people's racial
> characteristics and have confusing reactions to the speaker of the
> language if he/she does not have the appearance that a "normal" speaker
> of such language has. Here are some examples:
>
>
Happened to me in Sweden : I spent several years learning Swedish but
the only
people I could talk to were the elderly (who could not speak English
and are
almost always happy to have someone to discuss with, even if they can
be
racist, overtly accusing me of coming from a retarded catholic country
i.e. France)
and my girlfriend of the time who understood my point since she was
learning
French and English at the same time. All the young people would switch
immediatly to English, and admittedly Swedes speak it well, for the
educated ones,
and are better at it on average than the French, but it can be quite
rusty for
uneducated supermarket cashiers or people between 40 and 60...still
they
would speak bad English with me for the first hours
against all evidence excepted for my latin looks
(obvious racism here since in France we only segregate on family names
or
origin....). They really needed some time to switch back to Swedish.

The young argued that I would not understand their jokes (which is
true, but rather because the Swedes seem to have a different sense of
humor, if at all), so they felt it would be nicer for all of us to
speak English.

.

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