LINGUIST readers were shocked the other day to hear about a judge in Nebraska who had apparently told a father not to 'speak Hispanic' to his daughter or risk losing his visitation rights. Apparently, he had said 'it's hard enough to learn English, you know'.

Anyway, here's what happened when another linguist phoned the judge to protest:

I was so alarmed after reading the article mentioned yesterday on linguist list (Linguist 14.2777) that I googled the judge's name to get his address/phone number and then I called and left a long message saying that the ruling was harmful and ill-informed and went on to say why this was so, and who I was etc.

To my surprise, I got a call from Judge Reagan's secretary this morning, responding to my message of last night. She said she has been getting a lot of responses like mine and she wanted me to know that both sides are not coming out in the press and that in the courtroom the judge had said that he is for bilingualism and wishes he were bilingual himself. She said that the issue is that the father was in jail for the first 5 years of his daughter's life and the girl doesn't know him and he wants to speak only Spanish with her and she doesn't understand any Spanish. I told her that linguistically there is nothing wrong with being immersed in a language at age 5 and in fact that would be a better way for her to become bilingual than the 'this is a carro, that is a mochila' method, but that it sounds like the real issue is that she didn't know her father until now and that her current discomfort with her father seems magnified (to her, her mother, the judge) with the additional linguistic difference. So, I still don't think that was the right ruling, and I don't know about the whole 'speaking Hispanic' thing, but I sure was impressed that someone actually called me back.

The Omaha World Herald is now running an online vote asking whether the judge was right. You can find a link to the story near the voting buttons at the bottom of the page.

B-)