No. 5. We should welcome the spread of English as a world language.
It is obviously of practical benefit that there is one common, functional language of trade, air traffic control etc. but the actual domination of English in today's world has been accompanied by a tide of cultural arrogance that is itself debasing: a downgrading and neglect of other languages and cultures across the world, the general compounding of Anglo-Saxon political and social arrogance, and the introverted collapse of interest within the English speaking countries themselves in other peoples and languages; in sum a triumph of
banality over diversity. One small but universal example: the imposition on hotel staff across the world, with all its wonderful nomenclature, of name tags denoting the wearer as 'Mike' 'Johnny' and 'Steve'...
My Reply:
Ahhh, Engrish! It's hard to take the Anglo cultural hegemony so seriously when you come across the comedic malapropisms of the second language speakers and the Chinese-whispers malfunctioning of grammar coming from linguistic propagation through the undereducated and uninterested. Slang is only slang while it's in the minority - Ebonics, Australian, (sometimes even) the brogue of the emerald isle would be hard to call Queen's English, especially to the face of the speaker!
But then, the argument here isn't really that speaking English itself is a bad thing, more that its spread creates the potential for other languages to stultify and lose their vitality through preservation as opposed to use. It's hardly as though they will be lost, after all - the capacity of humanity to record itself is becoming so great that it may forestall the need for an archaeology of this or any future period. But language is a living thing, its meaning relative to its user, and to provide a more utile ( i.e. widespread) and easier method of expressing new ideas and new meanings is to spell the end of a language's growth. Latin is dead not because no one speaks it, but because not enough people speak it to be able to grow it. Irish suffers a similar malaise, on a less severe scale. But it's still in trouble - being preserved by the state and abandoned by the people. Preservation is for the dead...
There has always, as far as I know, been a dominant functional international language used as a de facto standard to enable widespread communication. Greek, then Latin, then French, then English, would be my guess. Why then is it just becoming an especially thorny issue now?
Perhaps it is because formerly, the international language was in a similar position to those problem languages outlined above - their use in an international context was limited in such a way that they could never usurp native tongues as a preferred method of expressing new ideas. They were spoken between foreigners the way communication networks use standard algorithms - as a way to make sure the broad outlines of communication are understood by each side. The main organ for expression was still the native tongue, and this be followed by translation to the international language.
Nowadays, the backbone of computer technology is English, and so many former English colonies are such vital international players, and then there is the mighty American media machine, churning out the beat and the dreams of the world. Or at least having the biggest budgets (and a big head start) in film and music production.
Yet that which interacts the most, changes the most. Without bothering to learn fluently another person's language, the casual speaker of English manages to communicate their approximate message and can fill in (perhaps with reference) using bits of their own and the other's language. So Engrish (the Japanese pronunciation, as they have no 'L' sound in their natural language), becomes the medium behind the medium, that means by which the native tongues are made to fit together up until communication becomes so complex that only the native tongue would do anyway. This complex area might be thought to cover any 'expression of new ideas' already, thus forestalling any danger to the native tongue.
The major problem for this vision is that for all those people who are native English speakers, there is absolutely no need to learn another language. For 99% of humanity, necessity is the only thing that can teach a language, in my opinion. So where does that leave us? I would say it leaves the native English speakers as the cultural paupers, and that if you come from somewhere non-Anglo, you only have historical economic disadvantage to blame if your culture suffers under the weight of Anglo-imports. In other words, those places that can afford their own culture seem to have it, and have the luxury of choice as well.
6 comments:
I would agree with Ben's point that being native English speakers we are the poorer linguisticly since there is no real pressing need to learn any other language in order to live our lives as fully as we
would aspire to doing. If we were born in Denmark say, a country I lived in briefly, one would have no option but to learn another European language, all educated Danes speak English. Their own language being too difficult and their influence not widespread enough for others to learn their language, unless living permanently in the country.
The French seemed to manage to preserve their language in a fairly pure form fending off the worst excesses of Americanisation ie. MacDonald's or was that in Italy.One other point, an observation really - since we put our television set to rest in the barn - tore up the licence and joined the Film Club at the Arts Centre in Wexford our movie entertainment comes in the languages of the world - tomorrow night's film is in Japanese, obviously with English subtitles, it is very refreshing to listen to a variety of world languages, and not to be bombarded with American accents and English slang.
I have just read Chris Bateman's blog. He does put a lot of information out there in a very clear form. The comtemplative action informed by the inward Light of Knowing would be how I would describe my present approach to 'religion'.
I am going to put in my ten cents on Number 5 and play devils advocate on this one. That culture and language are in fact an argument and that the diversity of language can be seen as one of the driving factors behind war, as well as religious and ethnic intolerance. If we look back to the earliest myths of mankind the same story pervades in different forms almost all cultures of the world, that is the confusion of tongues. Without a similar language man cannot work together or cooperate. The only reason we (by gmail) are currently communicating is because we are using english. This will appear as meaningless gibberish to the majority of the worlds population and it may well be! :)
I am not trying to say English is better than other languages. It is certainly more succesful and in the natural world it is the survival of the fittest. But would the world be a worse off place with only one language? Would it be less interesting? ...maybe arguments and war are what make the world interesting, both going hand in hand in the greater scheme of things? If everyone was agreeing with each other the whole time, would there be anything left to say?
Is it a case of a rose by any other language? or does the sound of a word add something to its meaning? I honestly cant say.
So, in this rather innaccurate but undeniably expressive (I dont mind saying so myself) context, English can be seen as the mongrel saviour of the modern world by giving a hope (however misguided that may be) of putting an end to what is an otherwise pointless war of semantics that has been raging seen the veil of language has fallen over the brotherhood of man. Any loss in diversity is a sacrifice that all mortals should be willing to make in the name of life, liberty and fruit of the loom.
Kris.
p.s. And mongrels always seem to be so damn attractive...
"brotherhood of man" .....!!!!... perhaps the issue is less the language we use to communicate than the communication we do with it, as in how complacent we have become at accepting its authority over us rather than critically engaging it as a tool of dialogue.
A-X
Whoops,
I should be more careful with my language! :)
Maybe brother and sisterhood of humanity would be better? I suppose what we really need is some term I can use to incorporate all of gods creation, so that no particular entity feels disenfranchised. Or alternatively, you could refer to it as the sisterhood of woman, so that there is some distinction to show that our experience of the world may be influenced by our gender?
i mean, to quote from the man himself, George Dubya, "the French don't even have a word for entrepeneur". what i find so degrading about the english language and how it's used now is the text message language. i'm more in touch with the school kids this year as i hear constantly from my media teacher who teaches english about their difficulty in writing properly anymore. she said taht her 1st year class this year took upto xmas to learn their grammar and ALPHABET!! this is preposterous. and bush is the head of the most powerful country in the world...who are taking over the world it seems...and he talks like a child.
In Nineteen Eighty-Four , George Orwell proposed that the means to achieve complete control of people's minds or their ability to think rationally about the issues at stake is to invent a new language, more primitive and less articulate than current "oldspeak". That is the intention of aestheticization. It seeks to subvert the rationality of the current paradigms through doublespeak and goodthink , and to persuade the majority that the use of violence in the particular context is not merely necessary or expedient, but just and glorious in the prosecution of higher ideals.
i'm off to learn french!!!.......
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