Invasion or Immigration?

[Bruce Tuncks]

I once worked with a yorkshireman and nobody could understand him.

[Bruce Tuncks]

On immigration...  I am an old guy, born in Australia.

It is pure racism to say that I am less worthy than an aborigine.

[old man emu]

25 minutes ago, Bruce Tuncks said:

On immigration...  I am an old guy, born in Australia.

It is pure racism to say that I am less worthy than an aborigine.

Two kids, one European, one Indigenous are living in an average small country town. Their fathers work together in the same Council gang. The kids sit together in the same classroom; taught by the same teacher from the same material. Don't they have an equal start in the race to Success? 

[facthunter]

You can't justify inherent long term advantage to any group, if you are ethical. . Keep this "YOU LOT are going to HELL" stuff in the BIN, where it belongs. Nev

[spacesailor]

One generation! .

It will take awhile for education to have an effect on an ethnic race.

In my case my children were given the best education that my poor schooling allowed

My second generation is so much better, with at least two WHITE collar worker's !.

AND ONE HAS TAKEN HER FIRST TIFF FLIGHT. ( Camden VH-WKM  )

YIPPEE 

Am l a proud Grandad.

spacesailor

 

[Old Koreelah]

14 hours ago, old man emu said:

You can't nominate any one Aboriginal language as being the common tongue…

Maybe. What about sign language? My Indig students in Arnhem Land spoke several languages, but all of them used sign, which was understood widely. 

14 hours ago, old man emu said:

Language is a very local thing, and in ages past, people did not travel vast distances as we do now…

This may not apply to many of Australia’s indigenous peoples, who regularly travelled enormous distances, including across their neighbour’s territory. We now know that their trade routes crossed the continent.

[Marty_d]

While it's nice to have a holiday in January, I don't particularly care if we call it Australia Day, Invasion Day or anything else.  I'm not a flag-waving / wearing "our country above all" type -  while there are many great things about our country, and I'm glad to live and raise my children here, there are areas we could definitely improve and I don't think a blinkered jingoistic nationalism helps anyone.

I'd rather see us leading the world in things like innovation, combating climate change or foreign assistance than seeing our cricket team win or counting our gold medals at the Olympics.

I can also understand that some aboriginal people might be annoyed at the country celebrating the arrival of white man which has, no doubt about it, significantly altered the lifestyle they had for 50,000 years or so.  In some ways it may be for the better but in many ways it was seriously worse, so celebrating the date of this arrival probably grates for them, and I wouldn't object to moving the date if they wanted to.  Maybe it could be 21st January, which would make it easier to remember our wedding anniversary...

[old man emu]

25 minutes ago, Marty_d said:

I wouldn't object to moving the date if they wanted to.  Maybe it could be 21st January, which would make it easier to remember our wedding anniversary...

Actually, for the rest of us white folks, 1st January would be more appropriate as it is the date that the Commonwealth of Australia came into existence.

 

52 minutes ago, Old Koreelah said:

This may not apply to many of Australia’s indigenous peoples, who regularly travelled enormous distances, including across their neighbour’s territory. We now know that their trade routes crossed the continent.

Apart from the desert tribes, did members of each clan really travel "enormous distances"? Why would they? Do you travel across the country to get the things you can't get within your local Shire/Local Government Area? No. You use the trade routes. So has every group of people since time began. Those who travelled far and crossed territorial borders would most likely have been messengers, or their equivalent of diplomats. Not everyone in the clan would have travelled out of "Country".

[facthunter]

How do you know what the rest of the white folks think.?  Nev

[spacesailor]

They All had different languages! .

SO what.

I can't read or write in OLD English !.

Can you or anyone, with a standard education read OLD English.

I stand to be Surprised. 

I would like ALL SCHOOLING to be taught in !

ESPERANTO.

The new New language. 

It does,not belong to any country, If All schooling !, ln All countries did the same. All humans will end talking to Each other.

In Their second language. 

The Native Australians will speak their Home dialect, Whenever they wished, and that New language at work & play.

Sounds easy !.

BUT 

The Paid teachers wont have a bar of it.

spacesailor

 

[spacesailor]

Is any one here Welsh, irish or even Scots.   ( Even our AOTEAROA neghboors ).

They are all pushing their Native language, away from this English, that is spoken by half the world.

Does this make any Sence to any one !.

Will they demand the TV reporters & news papers be spoken & written in Their minority language.

spacesailor

 

[onetrack]

English is the language of Science, Engineering, Technology, Mining, Aviation, and Construction. Every educational facility worth its salt - particularly in Oceania - always makes the point that you MUST be fluent in English to progress in todays world and in any of the forementioned areas. If you are not fluent in English, you're destined to only hold occupations that are menial.

[spacesailor]

AND ,those same scientists are the ones who Made Esperanto.

If any one would like to experience the scope of it.

Almost every country has a club who,s members, will be your ' Guide ' when in their country. Only a phone call away. LoL

spacesailor

[nomadpete]

59 minutes ago, onetrack said:

If you are not fluent in English, you're destined to only hold occupations that are menial.

A long time ago, when I was young, that was the mantra.

 

Nowadays, it might be wise to replace the word 'English', with 'Chinese'. And try to keep English as our second language.

 

My kids were given lessons in Mandarin when they went to school.

[pmccarthy]

Apparently my Australian ancestors from Cornwall couldnt understand my Australian ancestor from Orkney. I don't know about the ones from Ireland. 

[old man emu]

10 minutes ago, pmccarthy said:

Apparently my Australian ancestors from Cornwall couldnt understand my Australian ancestor from Orkney. I don't know about the ones from Ireland. 

Your Cornish ancestors probably spoke a language rich a language derived from the Brythonic languages, and having common roots with both Breton and Welsh. Your ancestors from Orkney spoke Orcadian Scots, a dialect of Insular Scots. It is derived from Lowland Scots with a degree of Norwegian influence from the the Scandinavian Norn language. Irish (Gaeilge in Standard Irish), sometimes referred to as Gaelic outside Ireland, is a Goidelic language of the Insular Celtic branch of the Celtic language family, which is a part of the Indo-European language family. Insular Celtic languages are the group of Celtic languages of Brittany, Great Britain, Ireland, and the Isle of Man. Irish is indigenous to the island of Ireland and was the population's first language until the late 18th century. 

 

So there you have three languages spoken amongst three groups of what we now call the British people, but which have differing diversions from the very ancient Proto-Indo-European (PIE) theorized to be the common ancestor of the Indo-European language family.

[spacesailor]

BUT WHY ,

Would you use English as your secomd language IN the British lsle,s.

Then have the English,  learn French, The French learn German, the Germans learn : it mamakes the mind boggle, that they can,t, after all the war,s, learn just One language.

Esperanto

spacesailor

[gareth lacey]

3 hours ago, spacesailor said:

Is any one here Welsh, irish or even Scots.   ( Even our AOTEAROA neghboors ).

They are all pushing their Native language, away from this English, that is spoken by half the world.

Does this make any Sence to any one !.

Will they demand the TV reporters & news papers be spoken & written in Their minority language.

spacesailor

 

I am welsh by birth, lived there till i was 15, my son who loves all things welsh wants to learn welsh, i said its only good if you live in certain parts of Wales, useless outside of Wales

[onetrack]

Gaelic was a common language in Western Scotland, because a lot of Western Scottish people moved to Scotland from Ireland. There's even a "Scottish Gaelic" language.

My Grandfather (Jimmy McLean) on my mothers side, came from a wee village called Ballachulish (Balla-Hool-ish) in Western Scotland, on the shores of Loch Leven, off Loch Linnie, near the infamous massacre site of Glencoe.

 

But his family moved first to Alloa, in the Central Lowlands of Scotland (to get work in the textile mills there) - and then my Grandfather moved to another wee village called Lochore, which is N of Edinburgh - where he took up work in the coal mines.

Jimmy McLean could speak Gaelic fluently and often conversed in it with friends - but as with many Gaelic speakers, he never taught Gaelic to any of his family. Thus Gaelic became a dying language.

 

However, when a company in Edinburgh hired a sizeable number of Irish "navvies" (labourers) to work on one of their construction sites (this would have been the late 1800's/early 1900's), the jobsite foremen were stunned to find the Irish navvies only spoke Gaelic, and the jobsite foremen (who obviously spoke English with a Scottish accent) could not converse with them. So they sent for Jimmy McLean to be the navvies translator! - which he readily agreed to! It must have been an interesting place to hear the discussions!

[Old Koreelah]

1 hour ago, spacesailor said:

BUT WHY ,

Would you use English as your secomd language IN the British lsle,s.

Then have the English,  learn French, The French learn German, the Germans learn : it mamakes the mind boggle, that they can,t, after all the war,s, learn just One language.

Esperanto

spacesailor

Spacey I too was once an Esperanto enthusiast (about the same time I was carrying anti-war placards) but that artificial language didn’t take off.

Like it or not, as others have said, English is widely used. Australian might feel fortunate to be part of the Anglosphere, but it also means few of us bother to learn another language. Most of the multilingual Australian are migrants or Indigenous; some of them speak a dozen or more tongues.

[spacesailor]

O K

Iagree ,

But

Whats the point of learning a different language belonging to a country, that is learning another language.

The human race  should be trying to speak on the same level playing field.

Not trying to make NEW words in their native tongue, just to prove ' point scores '.

spacesailor

 

[Old Koreelah]

2 hours ago, spacesailor said:

Whats the point of learning a different language belonging to a country, that is learning another language.

Learning another language gives us much besides the ability to talk with different people. As well as giving our most important organ a good workout, it broadens our perspectives and we learn lots more about our own language as well.

 

My other half and I are planning a crash course in French to prepare for a week or so in that country next year. Lots of work, but it might postpone Old Timers Disease a few years…

There’s money in learning languages. This country has often done very poorly in international trade negotiations and much of this might be due to our delegates’ insensitivity to the other side. So many Europeans speak several languages and often run rings around Australia negotiators.

2 hours ago, spacesailor said:

The human race  should be trying to speak on the same level playing field.

This is where we agree: a neutral language such as Esperanto is the only way to level that playing field

[onetrack]

I found one phrase particularly useful when I was in France for a holiday in 2010 - "Parlez-vous Anglais?" I was quite relieved to find that a very sizeable majority of French people speak quite good English - and being Australian seems to help.

Only one old French lady really threw me - when we were on the bus to go and have a touristy gawk at the Madeleine Church ("L'église de la Madeleine") and the surrounding sights.

 

We were very near the Gare Saint-Lazare (St Lazarus Station) and the old lady thought she'd be helpful, and that we would be looking for the Station stop. So she turned to me, and rattled off what sounded to me, like, "Gah-sala-zah?? Gah-sala-zah??"

I couldn't figure out for the life of me, what she was saying, but I realised she was trying to advise me something about a local focal point. So I merely replied "Non, la Madeleine!".

This apparently satisfied her, and she turned around without further conversation. Fortunately, the Madeleine Church stop came up almost straight away, so I didn't have to endure the torture of trying to understand further, an old French lady and her strong French accent.

I didn't find the French as arrogant as they're usually made out to be. Perhaps that was because I didn't have an American accent. I found Parisians quite good in their temperament overall. But beware of the pickpockets and the Gypsy scammers, particularly around the Eiffel Tower!

 

One thing I cannot find replicated in Australia, is French pastries and breads. They really are outstanding, and nothing made here, comes anywhere near them for taste. A daily visit to the local patisserie and boulangerie when in France, is a must!

[old man emu]

My email friend was born in Latvia; grew up in Brazil and works in Sweden for Ericsson, an international corporation. He writes to me in English. 

[facthunter]

In  the main parts of Holland everyone speaks English and when I commented they said IT was their second language. Just as well for me as I would hardly know one word of the dutch language.

  The French have their own style of humour.  Like when one day I asked how you find a place to park your car. The reply was M'sieur you don't FIND a place to park, you MAKE one.  Getting so you can freely converse is more than knowing schoolboy French. You could get an "A" here and only raucus laughter over there, ,if you tried it.

   There was a booklet that is quite helpful called The BERLITZ  book of anglaise -francaise common phrases (with Phonetic pronunciation). Very helpful and so good with the phonetics you can be taken as more  fluent than you are. Listen to French broadcasts and news reads. IF your hearings off you will have more difficulty with the  clarity. They say I have a strong southern accent in Paris. Paris is a bit more "distant" than smaller cities and always was apparently.. You are a paysant if you come from somewhere else. Pays means Country. Nev