Three cheers for Alex! I have always felt that any soi-disant "educated" American who does not have a functional, speaking knowledge of at least one foreign language is a provincial, a country bumpkin--and in the international sphere, think of how much and often this country has been mis-served by political-appointee ambassadors who don't have a clue of what's going on around them! ... I am especially disappointed to see, over the past so-many years, how our grad students in literature, as a population, have grown monolingual--and that's been to the detriment of their native English as well. ==Dan Pearlman At 08:42 AM 12/9/98 +0100, you wrote: >A bit strange, Peter Bi, to join the discussion about EP & foreign languges with >a smart "who cares?". No? >Admitted: a German looks at these things from a SLIGHTLY different angle, i.e. >while the majority of Americans still seems to think that the wide world speaks >English anyway & that the US is the center of everything anyway [which, in a >very personal sense, keeps being true for me, and I like this thought, having >grown up in a distinctly pro-American early post-war West-Berlin], we here in >Europe usually are brought up with a healthy sense for what world citizenship >really means & that the 1st step towards multi-cultural & international >understanding is learning languages. I. e. McDonald's & Coke is NOT world >citizenship. I cdn't say that having learned other languages than just my native >one did me any harm. Through Pound I came to study Chinese history, culture, & >language at the university. Through Pound I came to look into Italian and >Provencal languages more closely. And re-activated my "school French". Etc etc. >There cd be found LOADS of Pound quotes which preach the necessity of learning >foreign languages. Pound, thus wd be the last to say "who cares". He was the one >who incessantly declared war on ignorance. >I'm very sorry, Peter Bi. But yr "who cares" in this context - EP, languages &c >- is pure cynicism. An inexcusable misinterpretation of Poundian thinking. >Pound wd have found other words for this, and far less polite ones. > >alex > Dan Pearlman Office: Department of English 102 Blackstone Blvd. #5 University of Rhode Island Providence, RI 02906 Kingston, RI 02881 Tel.: 401 453-3027 Tel.: 401 874-4659 email: [log in to unmask] Fax: 401 874-2580