{"id":455,"date":"2005-12-17T11:04:13","date_gmt":"2005-12-17T11:04:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/indiadaily.org\/?p=455"},"modified":"2017-09-01T11:06:48","modified_gmt":"2017-09-01T11:06:48","slug":"11-million-americans-dont-know-english","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/indiadaily.org\/?p=455","title":{"rendered":"11 Million Americans Don\u2019t Know English"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A revelation: \u201cAll developing and underdeveloped countries have a large number of illiterates!\u201d You are neither surprised nor amused\u2026I bet! \u201cRevelation? Joking or what\u2026!\u201d you might say. And why should you be? It\u2019s been a Third World truth since ages. But what if you were to hear that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/news\/2005\/12\/15\/D8EGQEMOE.html\">11 million Americans can\u2019t read English?<\/a> You might say again, \u201cJoking or what?\u201d But this time, it\u2019s a TRUTH.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20060304114504im_\/http:\/\/indiadaily.org:80\/images\/cr_illiteracy_in_america.jpg\" alt=\"This graph depicts results of a survey conducted in 1998\" hspace=\"7\" vspace=\"5\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Howsoever incredible it may sound, the fact remains that one out of every 20 American adults can\u2019t make out the head and tail of English language, leave apart English literature, according to a federal study conducted recently. This means that no less than <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wsws.org\/news\/1998\/oct1998\/ill-o14.shtml\">11 million Americans are unfit<\/a> for performing even everyday tasks.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.shashitharoor.com\/articles\/newsweek\/illiterate.php\">survey<\/a> studied a varied sample of 19,000 adults, who are living in homes, college hostels and even those behind the bar. As many as 30 million adults have \u201cbelow basic\u201d skills in English language. Their ability is so limited that they may not be able to make sense of a simple pamphlet, for example. However, those declared \u201cilliterates\u201d in the study include those, who may be well-versed with Spanish or any other foreign language but are <a href=\"http:\/\/indian-river.fl.us\/living\/services\/als\/facts.html\">unable to comprehend texts in English<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20060304114504im_\/http:\/\/www.indiadaily.org\/images\/r_illiteracy.jpg\" alt=\"Estimated World Illiteracy Rates, 2000\" hspace=\"7\" vspace=\"5\" \/><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/spicecorner.blogspot.com\/2005\/07\/illiteracy-in-usa.html\">Illiteracy<\/a> is a blot for any progressive society, and more so in case of America, the \u201cGlobal Superpower\u201d (sounds hollow, no?). There must be something seriously wrong with the system of that country where a sizeable number of people don\u2019t know even their mother tongue that also happens to be the world\u2019s lingua franca, incidentally.<\/p>\n<p>Will you do something about it, Mr. Bush? At least, do give some thought to the issue if at all you get some free time after bothering for the rest of the world!<\/p>\n<p>Also Check Out: <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Image:World-Literacy-Rate-1970to2015.TC.png\">Projected World Illiteracy Rate &#8211; 1970 to 2015<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A revelation: \u201cAll developing and underdeveloped countries have a large number of illiterates!\u201d You are neither surprised nor amused\u2026I bet! \u201cRevelation? Joking or what\u2026!\u201d you might say. And why should you be? It\u2019s been a Third World truth since ages. But what if you were to hear that 11 million Americans can\u2019t read English? You might say again, \u201cJoking or what?\u201d But this time, it\u2019s a TRUTH. Howsoever incredible it may sound, the fact remains that one out of every [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":456,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/indiadaily.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/indiadaily.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/indiadaily.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indiadaily.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indiadaily.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=455"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/indiadaily.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":457,"href":"https:\/\/indiadaily.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455\/revisions\/457"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indiadaily.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/indiadaily.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indiadaily.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indiadaily.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}