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If someone is fluent in 3 languages, he is tri-lingual; if fluent in 2 languages, he is bi-lingual. Therefore:
a. What do you call someone fluent in one language?
b. What do you call someone fluent in no languages?
a. Unilingual
b.
b. Inarticulate
a. monolingual
b. a toddler
The traditional answer to the first question (someone who speaks only one language): an American.
In all fairness, before the 20th century most educated Americans know multiple languages, but since World War II American language skills have atrophied (being the leading superpower is a factor).
Jews were historically multilingual. All men needed to know Hebrew (legal documents were in Hebrew). Everyone knew the local Jewish dialects (e.g. Yiddish), and many knew both the local dialect (e.g. Polish, Ukranian, etc.) and the language used by the government and courts (e.g. Russian, German or Latin).
The traditional answer to the first question (someone who speaks only one language): an American.
Truthfully, there are several answers to this question:-
American
British
Canadian [if not from Quebec]
Australian
New Zealander
or simply:- Anglo Saxon.
I have not included South African, as they tend to know Afrikaans.
Many many many americans speak spanish
I once knew a family, who had two cars: one for him to drive to work, and one for her to drive to work.
Then they got really really rich, and both stopped working, and got rid of one of their cars because they take helicopters everywhere instead.
One day they met Akuperma. He made fun of them for being so poor they only have one car.
Americans only know one language because we have made our culture and language so dominant that there is little need to know any other language anymore. And where there is need, we pay someone else to know it for us.
The sweeping generalization about what most or all people do is breathtaking, all without any support information.
The vast majority of american citizens I’ve met speak at least one other language. If you are referring exclusively to WASPS, then perhaps you might be correct in saying that americans don’t know other languages, but in case you haven’t noticed, the majority of americans aren’t even white, and the majority of non-white americans speak other languages. Add to that the european immigrants who are white, the random white people who speak other languages, and frum Jews and guess what – most americans speak another language besides for english.
and incidentally, if you hold that only WASPS are american, you are simply following the party line of the National Socialist Party of America and the Ku Klux Klan, both of whom would view it as a tremendous improvement to your appearance to be tied by the neck to a tree.
akuperma:
Everyone knew the local Jewish dialects (e.g. Yiddish), and many knew both the local dialect (e.g. Polish, Ukranian, etc.) . . .
Nitpick: Polish and Ukrainian are languages, not dialects.
In alot of Europe its quite common to see people speak several languages, I saw someone in Belgium speak 7 languages one after the other (This is more common of speakers of less common languages like dutch or Danish)
Everyone knew the local Jewish dialects i.e. Ivrit the language of our Toroh & Siddur & Machzor & Hagoddoh and most of Nach & language of Mishna, and numerous Seforim. It is also the oldest language in the world, the only language predating Tower of Bavel.
takahmamash:
The difference between a language and a dialect is largely political. In recent times such languages as Ukranian and Afrikaans (not to mention Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian) were declared by local governments. The day before they were all regional dialects. The act of parliament declaring the local regional dialect to be a “language” has nothing to do with whether people could understand each other. As most Jews could only read the Hebrew alphabet, they were unware whether the person they were speaking a slavic language to was writing it in Roman or Cyrillic (and indeed, until recently, the person they were speaking with was probably illiterate).
akuperma
By that standard Yiddish is also a dialect. Just because it uses hebrew letters as opposed to latin alphabet doesnt change that fact.
How do you know most jews could not read Latin or Cyrillic. I remember hearing stories of people speaking “Goyish” meaning Polish
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