Home
Previous letters
Subscribe
Useful links
About me
Contact me
|
WORLD CITIZEN LETTER: 516
View full list of previous letters
Receive future letters by email
WCL 516 June 2006
"Talk white, man"
In the bad old days of empire, it was famously declared that if natives addressed one of the ruling elite in a language other than English, the retort was "talk white", the implication being that all decent, pink-skinned, occupiers would speak the imperial language. Those days may have gone, but the mindset is still with us. It is now disguised by the simple and "well-known fact" that "everyone speaks English". Ergo, they will all have to and the sooner the better.
The implicit arrogance of this approach is again disguised by the speed with which all sorts of non-English speakers try to pick up the language and, indeed, do so with varying degrees of success. Their diligence is often remarkable and the fluency impressive. If it leads them to commercial aptitude and profitability, they may personally be content or even happy. Why then, should anyone want an alternative? Why seek any other international language if English is becoming, de facto, the second world language?
We in this favoured island live with this reality, which is part the legacy of empire but nowadays much more the result of American wealh and global dominance. Our business and political leaders can swan around the world knowing that linguistically they will be deferred to and cosseted. Only in a few spots - like France and official bastions of some international entities will the simplicity of an English world be challenged. But again, why should it?
There are a number of reasons. First one may point to the value that comes to anyone who has learnt fluency in a language not their mother-tongue. There is no substitute, educationally, for being compelled by the cast of the language one is using, to appreciate at least part of the world from a different perspective. Translation is a different thing: the use of another language is a deeply important instrument of education and one not to be neglected. If everyone comes to abandon other languages and settle on English, that will cease.
But probably more important still is the effect on society of effectively channelling all the most important and passionate political debates into English. That largely ensures that only the exceptionally talented or thoose with a minimum of six years' higher education are likely to participate. So much for global democracy. The greatest democratic deficit in our world is already apparent in that division between the linguistic haves (using English and perhaps one or more oher languages) and the less favoured have-nots. To drive towards a world using English as its approved second language can only exacerbate the division.
But of course, there are still a thousand million people speaking and using Chinese, only a small proportion of whom speak English on a level enabling them to participate as equals. There are also seven, eight hundred millions speaking Hindi and although India has a far greater number of highly fluent anglophones, there is a vast population whose English is not standard and does not give linguistic equality. Wherever millions of people learn English, millions more do not, or learn it inadequately. What will happen to English is another interesting question, but perhaps less serious.
There is really only one solution to this. That is to ensure teaching in schools throughout the world of a second, neutral, simple language that can offer an alternative to the steam-roller of English. The ideal may be unattainable, but there is already a possible world language that could provide the answer. Esperanto has for 125 years proved that it can offer a basis for human intercourse in personal encounters, massive international congresses, in song, poetry and language use of every conceivable kind. Only deep prejudice can refuse to recognize its success, even if a dispassionate observer can still with reason dismiss the language as a political choice that will not be made.
John Roberts
Comment on this letter
View full list of previous letters
Receive future letters by email
Comments on this letter
|
|