Parlez-Vous?

Question: What do the following have in common: Papiamento, Amharic, Ga, Ganda, Hausa, Kikuyu, Tigrinya, Twi, Wolof, Marathi, Dari, Ilocano, Visayan?

Answer: These are all languages that appear on the “Language Identification Card” of the Department of Education’s Translation and Interpretation Unit. It bears this instruction: “Present this card to non-English-speaking parents, so that they may find their language and identify it to you. For over-the-phone interpretations services in any of these languages, call us at…” (a phone number with an extension is given).

I guess they didn’t include Cornish because Dolly Pentreath, the last person to speak this Southwest England language died in 1777. But Tom Jones and Catherine Zeta-Jones would lament the absence of Welsh. And the list also includes Tongan, but not Fijian. What’s with that?

But inquiring minds and all the tongues of the world want to know: will the DOE translate the results of the recent survey in which educators expressed strong disapproval of all areas of DOE behavior? By the way, this mayor campaigned against bilingual education. So glad to see he’s seen the light!

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