I was browsing in Koorong Books [our biggest Christian bookstore] and I saw
a young girl reading to her mother from a Greek NT. She was just reading
separate words, and had trouble with the title, because she wasn't used to
capitals.
This is not normal in Australia, in my experience. I had to butt in, and
ask how she learnt to read the Greek NT. She said she learnt at school, at
William Carey College. Her mother offered "She's only 12, you know!"
In Australia, most Christian people I meet either are contemptuous of
scholarship, or else terrified of foreign languages. While we have many
speakers of other languages here, we also have great enclaves of
monolingualism.
This little experience made my day.
David McKay
music@fl.net.au