As promised, here are some interesting factual/amusing anecdotes from Mother Tongue. Bill Bryson is worth checking out, the fact that such a dense fact-based book could keep me interested through thing is a complete testament. This guy's got a way.
"More than 300 million people in the world speak English and the rest, it seems, try to. It would be charitable to say that the results are sometimes mixed."
"The British attitude toward Americanisms (American words, speech patterns) is still quite frankly hostile.....(However) Putting aside the consideration that without America's contribution English today would enjoy a global importance about on a par with Portuguese, it is not too much to say that this attitude is unworthy of the British."
"In an article in Gentleman's Quarterly in 1987, Kenneth Turan described some of the misunderstandings that have occurred during the dubbing or subtitling of American movies in Europe. In one movie where a policeman tells a motorist to pull over, the Italian translator has him asking for a sweater (ie a pullover). In another where a character asks if he can bring a date to the funeral, the Spanish subtitle has him asking if he can bring a fig to the funeral."
"We in the English-speaking world have often been highly complacent in expecting others to learn English without our making anything like the same effort in return. As of 1986, the number of American students studying Russian was 25,000. The number of Russian students studying English was four million - giving a ratio of 160 to one in the Soviets' favor....In 1989, some 77% of all new college graduates has taken no foreign language courses.....There is evidence to suggest that some members of Congress aren't fully sympathetic with the necessity for a commercial nation to be multilingual. As one congressman quite seriously told Dr. David Edwards, head of the Joint National Committee on Languages, 'If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it's good enough for me.'"
Working in this multilingual environment, while struggling as an adult to form any sense of competence in German, strongly reinforced my belief that we are doing it all completely ass-backwards wrong wrong wrong in the United States. Our preschools & elementary schools, homes, and public places should be promoting, teaching & fostering second languages (I'm looking for more than Dora the explorer here). Do you know how many friends we have that speak upwards of 3-5 languages fluently? Do you know how many of them are American? Your inclination is correct, it's zero. It's embarrassing, and it's one of the main reasons I think we (on the national, not personal level) are held in low regard internationally. Clearly, we are at an advantage that our language is the dominant one in the world, but it does not mean we need to take advantage.
Wow, how did I get up on that high horse with my short lil' stump legs?
I am just holding out hope that a certain Mexican-expat is back living in the US in time to teach our (hypothetical) lil guys Spanish! That or we'll just have to master German; that really makes me hope for the former.
1 comment:
What an academic blog post Liz! I am fascinated by the topic and at the same time frustrated with my limitation as an English-only speaker. I totally agree with you on the point that we (as a nation) look silly and presumptuous in our inability to speak additional languages. However, one of the major roadblocks that a majority of people encounter (in the States) is the lack of opportunity for authentic practice. Take Switzerland for example, several languages are “officially” spoken within a day’s drive. Here, that is not the case. If we are not using it often enough, we can (and probably will) lose it.
After visiting you, I was dead set that I wanted and needed to learn a second language and speak it fluently. But then I realized that I couldn’t decide which one I should learn and how I was planning to use it. Which of the many world languages is most pressing for us to learn and how do we decide early enough which one we will need?
Sorry to add more questions to the mix. Your post just hit on a topic I had been pondering since our visit. I also agree that if we are going learn additional languages, starting younger than we do is the way to go.
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