Monolingual societies
Is there even something sinister and oppressive to the idea of monolingualism?
Presenter Simon Calder is from Britain, where, on the surface, everyone speaks English. In Brazil everyone appears to speak Portuguese, in Russia, Russian. But scratch the surface, and other languages appear, and not just those of immigrants. Simon meets speakers of indigenous languages (like Welsh in Britain), of dialects (like Moselfrankish in Germany) and vernaculars (like African-American Vernacular English, in the US). These speakers all use the mainstream language every day, but code-switch to their variants, questioning whether their societies are monolingual. Is there even something sinister and oppressive to the idea of monolingualism? A tool to control, used by emperors on conquered peoples, and by governments on immigrants?
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Duration: 02:19
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- Tue 23 Jul 2019 12:32GMT成人快手 World Service except News Internet
- Tue 23 Jul 2019 17:06GMT成人快手 World Service Australasia
- Tue 23 Jul 2019 21:06GMT成人快手 World Service
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- Sun 28 Jul 2019 17:06GMT成人快手 World Service News Internet
- Wed 11 Nov 2020 05:32GMT成人快手 World Service Australasia
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- Sat 14 Nov 2020 02:32GMT成人快手 World Service West and Central Africa
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