lbktort t1_iybaraz wrote
Reply to comment by BallardRex in Lithuania should phase out Russian language teaching - president's adviser by Interrete
The US bans on German in WW1 were also sold using national security rhetoric.
BallardRex t1_iybbc4b wrote
The US didn’t share a border with the belligerent in question, I think that comparison is more or less worthless. The US didn’t have a plausible national security concern, Lithuania certainly does, and in fact has history of being annexed by said belligerent.
lbktort t1_iybeie8 wrote
The US and German example is just one, but I think it is relevant. WW1 era Americans certainly felt there was a genuine threat and were not quite as cool about their own situation as you are in retrospect.
BallardRex t1_iybfk8e wrote
Do you know why the US felt that the German language was somehow dangerous to them? It wasn’t like countries bordering Russia, a country that has used language as a pretext for invasion. Here’s a great article on the subject, and it has this to say:
> Legal historian Paul Finkelman says in 1915 about 25 percent of all high school students in America studied German. But by the end of the World War I that had changed dramatically. German had become so stigmatized that only 1 percent of high schools even taught it.
> "During the war, there is an argument that if you learn German, you will become the 'Hun,' " Finkelman says, using the pejorative term for anyone from Germany. "And there was this notion that language was somehow organic to your soul. So if you spoke German, you would think like a German, you would become a totalitarian in favor of the kaiser."
> When members of minority groups spoke against entering the war in support of Britain, including some, but not all German-Americans, their patriotism was questioned. They were disparaged as "hyphenated Americans."
> After President Woodrow Wilson took the country into war he said, "Any man who carries a hyphen about with him, carries a dagger that he is ready to plunge into the vitals of this Republic when he gets ready."
> Schade says this anti-German sentiment extended to internment.
Let’s be real, it was bigotry and nothing more.
Not exactly a national security argument, and not a rational argument based on precedent either.
MissPandaSloth t1_iyc2g3z wrote
No one is banning anything. This is 2nd language option in schools. Russian already has been an useless historical leftover. Almost everyone had to learn Russian because we only had Russian teachers and no other options. Absolutely no one uses it past their school (it's 99.9% English).
Looking at where people go to study for their degree, it's Scandinavia, Germany, Netherlands, so any of those languages would make more sense.
Even French would make more sense that Russiam considering that it is still commonly used as diplomacy language.
Dziedotdzimu t1_iyczp6f wrote
The Russians complaining about this are like Americans who complain about the locals in Cancun not knowing English and then yelling at the taxi driver and calling it discrimination against English speakers.
mondeir t1_iyc5b3k wrote
Lithuania is not banning it lol. You can always learn on your own.
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