“I literally died that night”. No, you
didn’t, I thought, looking at my work colleague straight in the eye. Although
I could “literally” kill you right now. Smother you with one of the cushions
from the Family Learning Room, if you like. No, I am not a
murderer. At least not of the homicidal variety. But when it comes to grammar…
well, let us just say that there are a few words and constructions whose misuse
awakens my inner Norman Bates. It is ironic that I
am more permissive of modern linguistic fads in my native tongue, Spanish, than
I am of my adopted one, English. I have no idea what that says about me but
perhaps my attitude owes more to a certain disdain for the Royal Spanish
Academy and its zealous role in enforcing obeisance to the language tsars. However when it
comes to English, I have no shortage of gripes. Not to the point of a “Mr
Disgruntled of Tunbridge Wells”, shooting off letters to The Daily Telegraph every two days to complain about the difference
between “use” and “usage", but certainly with what I call linguistic
laziness. The “I can’t be bothered to do better” attitude. The English language
is one of the richest lexica there are in the world, formed from the amalgamation
of different cultures. To treat it as if it were an arid, barren land, bereft
of adjectives and adverbials is a crime, in my opinion. Culprits should be
sentenced. I can think of no better punishment than to write a thousand times:
“it’s” is the contraction of “it is” whereas “its” is the possessive form of
“it”. A thousand times, literally. I know that this impassioned
(fanatical, you say? Nah, please, let’s not get too heavy here, shall we?)
position puts me on the side of traditionalists. Yet, nothing could be further
from the truth. I’m perfectly OK with double negatives (as long as they are used
to reinforce an opinion) and the replacement of “more than” by “over” as in
“for over thirty years”. At the end of the day it is communication that we are
talking about here. Where I draw a line
is in those words and phrases that are bandied about as if there were no
consequences beyond their utterance. Yes, there are consequences! We are all
human after all. There is no such thing as “more unique”, just “unique”; do not
give “110%”, 100% is enough, thanks; do not “literally die of laughter” because
if you die, how come you are telling me the story? And, please, please, please,
do not get overexcited and do not be overtired. Just be excited and tired (not
both at the same time, of course). When did we become a nation of “overs”? Is
it to do with cricket? Well, I can’t play the game and I do not understand the
rules.
Learning a foreign
language is not just about skills and dedication; it is also about context. Determining
one’s context is as important as decoding complex grammar structures or incomprehensible
syntax. I learnt this lesson the hard way as a newly-graduate English language
teacher more than twenty years ago. There I was, fresh from uni, talking about phonetics
and phonology to my students, when all some of them were interested in was to
find out how to say “your rent-car is ready, sir”. It is this
contextual aspect that came to mind recently when I read the now-customary
section in The Economist called “Johnson”.
This was a regular feature years ago that has made a much-desired come-back. The phases one goes
through foreign-language-learning are not dissimilar to the ones one undergoes
when taking the first steps in one’s native tongue. There is much to decipher,
digest and interpret. The difference is that when presented with a vessel of
new words the foreign-language learner will immediately hang on to primary
meanings. They are the equivalent of a life-saving piece of wood in a
shipwreck. It takes a while
for second-, third- and multiple-meanings of a word to take hold. I always knew
that “baby” was an infant or very young child. But the “baby” who just cares
for Nina Simone is of a different variety. Same with the “baby” whom (repeatedly)
Robert Plant is gonna leave in Led Zeppelin’s monster hit. That baby had
nothing to do with youth (even if she was young). Thus, from
primary-meaning acquisition the learner moves to a nuanced zone where the
context defines the meaning of the word. We, those of us who have studied a
foreign language, begin to think in that target lingo. It happened tome halfway
through uni and it is one of the reasons why I am able to write a blog in English
despite the fact I am a native Spanish-speaker. At some point, through hard
work and skills-building, I managed to create a personal structure based on the
English syntax, semantics and grammar. I mentioned
semantics in that paragraph. Semantics can be misleading sometimes. When we are
learning a foreign language we not only adapt to unusual patterns (and make
them familiar to us) but also we adopt linguistic tics in the same way a native
speaker would. How many times have I not heard a fellow Cuban nowadays start a
sentence with the word “like”, just like a US or – come to think of it – a British
teenager? In the same way,
we, non-native speakers, sometimes appropriate language we rarely give a second
thought to. Some of this language could come across as socially awkward. The Economist’s “Johnson” section had a
wide selection of words that describe men and women but that tend to favour
mainly the former over the latter. For instance, I am guilty as charged of
using the word “chatty” for women whilst for men is, “says a lot”. I used to
use the word “bossy” to describe a woman I knew until I realised that I was unconsciously
patronising her and boxing her in. It also works the other way around. I have
been called “articulate” on a few occasions, which used to bring a smile to my
face until I noticed that it was usually accompanied by a look of surprise on
my interlocutor’s face. At a higher level, our Prime Minister, David Cameron, used
a put-down in Parliament a few years ago that no one has forgotten about. In
addressing a female colleague, he told her to “calm down, dear”. Well, at
least, I have the excuse of being a foreign-born non-native speaker. Oxford-based
Cameron has no such excuse. He knew exactly what he was doing.
The conversation could not have been more normal. Two work colleagues talking
about their children and their first GCSE year. The only difference was that
the novel I am about to finish now, Die
Mansarde, was lying on the table in the staffroom and my colleague queried
the title.
It is German for The Loft, I said.
Oh, that’s a coincidence, my son is doing German GCSE, she replied. And so,
modern foreign languages entered our amiable chat.
It is welcoming news that people’s perceptions of Germany are finally
changing. More important is the fact that the language is becoming popular once
again. Attached to this is the economic success of recent years. Linguistically,
native German-speakers might lie in a distant tenth place, well behind the Chinese,
Anglophones and Hispanics. Yet, they actually rank fourth in the world when you
take into account their economic output (put Germany, Switzerland, Austria,
Luxembourg and Liechtenstein together and you will see. In fact, squeeze part
of Belgium into the equation if you still have some space left).
Wie sagt man "power" auf Deutsch?
There is another factor in this upward trend. German language advocates
do not seem to engage future learners aggressively but adopt a rather laisez-faire attitude to the acquisition
of their lexicon. Where the Academy of the French Language would probably put
its foot down and tut-tut at Anglicisms, German-speakers (from this outsider’s
perspective) assimilate them.
A few days ago I praised on this blog the efforts of Angela Merkel
during the current refugee crisis and how her attitude contrasted with that of
our Prime Minister. Merkel, more than anyone else, understands that if a
country is to become a magnet for investors, it needs an influx of young blood.
One of the ways to attract this kind of attention is to stand out. That is
exactly what she has been doing since she came to power, in a rather inconspicuous
way some would say. By the way there is no sycophancy in my words. Politically speaking
Frau Merkel’s domestic agenda is not one I would follow and her party is not one
I would vote for. Yet I have to admit that she has placed Germany and by
default, German-speaking nations in an advantageous position. When news channel
prefer to use subtitles instead of dubbing her speeches, you know something is
going on.
What this means in practical terms is that newcomers to the language
forget how difficult it is and focus more on the benefits of either living in
Germany, Austria or Switzerland or
working there temporarily.
As for me, my reply to my colleague was, your son is very clever. Not only
is he thinking of his academic future, but also his professional one.
It
is that time of the year when I think of the books, music and movies that made
a deep impact on me in the previous twelve months. I usually share this
information with you, my dear fellow bloggers and readers, in my last post of
December but tonight I would rather use the space where I regularly muse on our
multilingual world to promote two books I know some of you might enjoy. One of
them I read over the summer just before I got on the plane to France. The other
one I have just started and I can’t put down. Both volumes are my must-reads of
2014.
The
first book is a novel called Heureux les
Heureux. The title is taken after a line in a poem by the late, renowned Argentinian
poet, essayist and short-story writer Jorge Luis Borges. What catches the eyes
immediately is the way this roman is
structured: each chapter is a monologue through which the reader gets
acquainted with the characters whilst the plot unravels. Bearing in mind
that the author, Yasmina Reza is also a playwright, I found myself at times
wondering where the bracketed and italicised stage directions had gone. The second
book is called D’Autres Vies que la
Mienne and deals with the aftermath of the terrible tsunami that devastated
South East Asia ten years ago in 2004. It was an interesting and intriguing interview
with the author, Emmanuel Carrère, in The
Observer that made me want to investigate his writing further.
It
was also the fact that both books were available in French.
I
don’t read in French as much as I used to years ago and this has always been a
cause for regret in my case. After spending three years learning the language
and becoming fluent in it, I lost many of my oral and listening skills when I relocated
to the UK. That is the reason why going back to the Gallic lexicon feels
usually like travelling to another country, a familiar and friendly land, if
only in my mind.
One of my two books of the year
Those
of you who speak more than language and are fluent in it/them will probably
recognise this phenomenon. It has probably been a while since you dabbled in
unusual grammar and syntax constructions, so you get a book in the language in
which you want to regain your fluency and you dip your big toe in the water
first. No headfirst plunge, mind you, just a shy re-acquaintance.
If the water is too cold, you close that first page and go back to your warm comfort
zone. I did it a few years ago with a novel in German and I regret it now. My advice
is, plough on, and make sure that you understand the reason why the water feels
cold. You see, you have not swum in this beach for a long time. So, you must wade
in the water first, and then little by little, ensuring you have got a firm
footing (i.e., a good dictionary) you carry on, until the water level reaches
your waist. It is only then, that you dive headfirst.
That
is how reading in a foreign language, especially French and German (and more
the former than the latter) feels to me. Like immersing myself in the vastness
of a great big ocean. Along the way I am helped by friendly winks and nudges
that reassure me I’ll be supported on my journey. In the case of books written
in French I feel as if there is always an ellipsis hanging over the pages. Not
a clear-cut omission of items in order to avoid repetition, but rather a mark
or marks along the lines of “...” that
signify the sentiments and emotions left unexplained. Both Heureux les Heureux and D’Autres
Vies que la Mienne are full of examples. In the former there is a character
called Paola Suares, who is sleeping with a married man, Luc Condamine. Since his
wife is not home, he decides to take Paola to his house. The scene that follows
is full of small, descriptive details that render the situation absurd. Whilst he
is taking his clothes off, ready to have sex with her, Paola is showing more
interest in the house décor: “Luc a défait sa
braguette. J’ai attend un peu. Il a libéré son sexe et tout à coup j’ai réalisé
que le canapé était turquoise. Un turquoise chatoyant sous la lumière
artificielle d’alcôve, et j’ai pensé qu’au milieu de reste était assez
surprenant d’avoir choisi cette couleur de canapé. Je me suis demande qui était
responsable de la décoration dans ce couple.” There is
humour in the scene as well. The man unfastens his trousers but his female
companion is more interested in the couch and its colour. The chapter ends on a
more serious note, though, with Paola stating the obvious: you will never leave all this,
will you? Luc’s elliptical response indicates that there is a suppression of
thoughts. Thoughts that will come out in his monologue, pages later, but which,
for the time being, will remain under wraps.
Those
of us who live in a multilingual world, even if we forsake one of the languages
in which we are fluent for a while, always have the opportunity to come back and take the plunge. But do
not be afraid to dip your big toe in first. Should the water be cold, plough
on, please, do plough on.
Surrender your weapons, my dear Chinese brethren and sisters. Your linguistic
ones, I mean. Resistance is futile. Look, just a few months ago, I was waxing
lyrical about the Spanish language and the way it was going to take over the US
on this very forum. That time will come, I’m sure. But I might have overstated
a tad bit the “when”.
As it turns out you, me ol' Sino chinas (did you see what I did there? If you’re
from London or are familiar with Cockney rhyming slang you’ll understand), have
gone the same way the rest of the world has gone for the last seventy or eighty
years. Down the Anglicised rabbit-hole. And with no chance of leaving that mad
hatter’s party. You can have a stab at answering the riddle “why is a raven like a writing desk?” but
you will nevar (sic) be able to come up with the goods. Because, guess what,
they will be in English.
According to a recent article in The
Economist Chinese language purists are trying to keep the evil influence of
the English lexicon out. Ha, good luck with that! Funny, isn’t it? Mao
exterminated millions through famine and his so-called “cultural” revolution (very
little if anything of the former but plenty of the latter). Last week we commemorated
the 25th anniversary of the massacre in Tiannamen Square and the
hundreds, if not thousands, who were murdered there. All these events and the
way they look to the outside world should worry the business-conscious, modern
China more and yet the threat to the socialist state comes, not from reform-minded
students, but from a Germanic language whose most famous icon is a 16th
century-born playwright, poet and actor. Even Shakespeare couldn’t have made it
up.
The irony of the tirade in China's state-run People’s
Daily against words such as “MBA”, “CEO” and “iPhone”, the examples given
in the article, is that it fails to take into account the rapid economic growth
China has undertaken in the last ten or twelve years and its consequences. This
development has come at a cost. The more a country opens itself up to investment
(whether it is state-sponsored capitalism or sweatshops) the bigger the risk of
its losing some aspects of its culture. I know that from my own experience. Back
when I used to live in Cuba there were people who adopted an accent that was half
Cuban, half American just to impress and sound more knowledgeable, worldly and important.
In reality they sounded like fakes, because they were fakes. The dichotomy in
the Chinese situation is that you have a country competing for markets with the
USA and Europe and yet they think that they can achieve this by coming up with
their Sinified version of Twitter (which is blocked in China anyway).
Let’s say it again just in case it didn’t sink in first time around. English
as we know it and speak it (especially the oral bit) won’t be our lingua franca forever. Eventually either
another language will take over (I’m of the opinion it will be Spanish because
of the large Latin population in the States and the fact that it will be the
official language of the country in fifteen to twenty years) or English will
develop into unrecognisable (to us now) variants depending on which country you
are. Globlish is a good example of
this. That means that no matter how much the Chinese newspaper People’s Daily rails against the
pernicious influence of the evil empire’s lexicon, people in China, chiefly
young people, will continue to use the English term “NBA” instead of wrecking
their brains trying to come up with a Chinese equivalent. In the meantime they
could do something constructive and attempt to translate and answer the riddle posed
above: “why is a raven like a writing
desk?”
Going through my Twitter feed the other day, it
struck me how strange my mother tongue, Spanish, has become. There were words
and phrases in my co-Twitterers’ pages that I could not recognise. Sometimes,
it was only after the third or fourth attempt that I was able to decipher what
had been written.
Because English is so dynamic, fluid and adaptable I
no longer bat an eyelid when I see a LOL or ROTF. I expect that. After all,
social networking sites’ roots are mainly Anglophone. But that such an austere
language like Spanish dares to use a verb like “Twitear” (literally, “to
tweet), is taking the biscuit.
Yo twiteo, nosotros twiteamos...
And that’s where the challenges lie. You could say
that the Anglicisation of Spanish was foreseeable. An irony, really, as in the
real world Spanish is overtaking English in the US and could be the official
language of the largest English-speaking country on Earth in a generation from
now. But online, English still holds the triumphant card. In our cyber-world we
speak Spanglish. The second challenge is that social media’s spontaneity invites
grammatical sloppiness and typos. Lots of them, in fact.
Because of the Spanish language’s structure – long,
three or four-line paragraphs can easily be made up of one single sentence with
many subordinate ones – Twitter would be the last place where you would find
fluent and articulate Spanish speakers. Which logically poses a hurdle to us. And
where there is a hurdle, there exists the desire to overcome it. That’s how we
come up with aberrations like “ke” (“que”, “what” or “that”).
Is there a way back from this situation? There has
certainly been a backlash. Unfortunately it has been led by academics and
language specialists for whom even my Cuban accent would be an anomaly. That,
to me, is taking it too far. I would dare to ask Twitter to increase its word
limit, just for the sake of Hispanics. But having read recently that he media
giant is planning to float in the New York Stock Exchange in November, I thought
that maybe Jack Dorsey would be too occupied to answer my phone calls. Or my
tweets.
The linguistic fate of the Spanish language on most
social media, especially Twitter, is one of those topics that becomes like the
annoying fly that drives you mad at dinnertime. Very rarely you will be able to
swat it and when you least expect it, it will alight on your food. “Twiteando” to the whole world.
One of my favourite poems by the
late Uruguayan writer Mario Benedetti is Sery Estar. Although heavily political the piece also has a nice combination
of humour and didacticism. The latter is illustrated by the author’s poetic
explanation of the difference between the verbs ser and estar (hence the
title) in Spanish to an imaginary US marine. This is always confusing for people
learning Spanish. In English, there’s only to
be. Or not, as Shakespeare put it. In French, there’s être and in German there’s sein.
But in Spanish we have two verbs, one of which denotes identity (ser) and another one that infers
condition (estar). Confusing, uh? You
bet.
Yet, Anglo speakers can occasionally
indulge in the pleasure of hanging a sign outside their houses that reads “Schadenfreude” (or epicaricacy, in English)
and watch us, speakers of other languages, struggling to come to terms with
modern linguistic currents. For instance, when to be formal and when to be
informal.
Spanish has a common trait with
French and German, the other two languages I speak (although not as fluently as
I used to). They all have formal ways of addressing someone according to age or
social status. For instance, if I were in Spain or any other country from the
Diaspora, it would never occur to me to use the “tú” with a new acquaintance unless he or she was my age or younger.
Anyone over fifty would be given the “usted”
treatment straight away. Same with French and “vous” and the German “Sie”. Besides, in the case of German, one of
the reasons why I usually stay with the formal is that it makes it easier for
me to conjugate verbs. They usually keep the infinitive form – with the
exception of “sein”, methinks. Even when my interlocutor assures me that "Wir sagen doch du, ja?", I still sometimes use the "Sie". Which is just as rude as "Du-ing" someone without his or her consent.
I can hear Anglophones laughing
their heads off now. But we only have “you”
for both singular and plural, they’re probably shouting out. And they’re right.
What makes matters more confusing is that nowadays the distinction between “tú/usted”, “tu/vous” and “du/Sie” is fading
away rapidly. Part of it is technology. There are five letters in “usted” and 140 characters to contend
with in Twitter. Guess which of the two addresses is handier? Well done for
figuring that one out. Another reason for this linguistic shift might be the drive
to turn less dynamic languages (Spanish and French come to mind) into lexica
more attuned to the times we’re living, like English has done for the past few
decades. Readers of this blog know that I’ve neither time nor patience, for the
Real Academia Española, the body tasked
with looking after the correct use of our grammar and syntax. The overhaul of
the “tú/usted” division might be a
way of reacting against centuries-old, traditional dogma which made even relatives
observe formality when addressing each other. In fact, I know that in some
countries in South America (Ecuador and Peru, for instance) children still
address their parents as “usted”.
There is a third reason why the
confusion about when “se tutoyer” and
when “se vouvoyer”, or when to “du” or “Sie” someone, has come to the surface in recent years. There are
countries, mainly in Europe, that are still resistant to the Americanisation of
their culture. They see US influence as detrimental to their heritage. I’ve no
truck with this attitude, but it was interesting to see a few years ago the
short shrift the British ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair was given when he was presumably
addressed as “Yo, Blair!” by ex-White
House dweller, George W. Bush. Never mind the lack of a formal second person
singular in English, this chumminess was a step too far. Especially on the back
of the ill-fated invasion of Iraq a few years before and the
too-close-for-comfort relationship between Downing Street and Washington during
that period. In these circumstances, maybe keeping our “tú/usted”, “tu/vous” and “du/Sie” dichotomy is a sign of showing
respect to people we meet for the first time. It also creates a space between
individuals to get to know each other progressively. In the same way I wouldn’t
dream of calling my former line-manager (a headteacher) “mate” in public, I wouldn’t
“du” anyone just because it’s cool to
do so. Surely a question for the marine boy of Benedetti’s poem to ask the
Uruguayan master. After all, the poet uses “tú”
al the way through.
It baffles me somewhat that I
have left this section unattended for so long. I love writing about the
wonderful world of languages. After all that’s what I majored in at university.
And “Living in a Bilingual World” has
always had an appreciative and receptive audience on this blog. In fact, my
regular linguistic outing was included in a book a couple of years ago, “Multilinguals are…?” by educator and
scholar Maddalena
Cruz-Ferreira. It was a recent essay in Prospect
magazine that made me bring Living in a
Bilingual World back. Under the title Let them learn English, the article focused on the
division that exists in the teaching of the English language in India and how the
poorest are, as usual, the ones faring worse.
That the language of Shakespeare,
Alice Munro and James Baldwin remains the lingua
franca worldwide should come as no surprise to anyone. I’ve written here
before about English natural ability to adapt to the modern world. Its
malleability means that anyone can learn the language; even if its phonetic and
spelling systems remain a mystery (there are twenty-six letters in the English
alphabet to represent its forty-four phonemes!). And I’m talking from the point
of view of someone who taught the language for a number of years as both as an
undergraduate student and teacher.
This resilience and flexibility benefit
people in countries like India where, according to Zareer Massani, the author
of the Prospect piece, there’s no
truly national language. He states that “Hindi,
the central government’s official language, is an artificial, 20th
century construct created by purging Hindustani, the colloquial language of the
north, of most of its Islam-derived Persian and Arabic words. Now, 65 years
after independence, Hindi is still a little spoken officialese one grapples
with government forms.”
If Zareer is right and this is
the linguistic panorama in India, it then makes sense to default to a language with
which the rest of the world is at least acquainted. But of course, there is the
small problem of the British Empire. India was a prized possession of it. And not
everyone agrees that the imperial legacy was benign and beneficial. In fact
opinions have always been divided on the matter. This is the reason why many in
the Asian nation are opposed to English becoming the de facto language. Plus, English apparently carries with it a whiff
of privilege and elitism in the subcontinent. It’s still mainly used by those
occupying the upper echelons of education, media and the judiciary. By contrast
outside this mini-world, there’s a whole Babel of dialects nationwide that
merit as much attention as or maybe more attention than the language of the
former conquistadores.
It’s a dilemma with which I can
sympathise from a personal perspective, even if it is to a lesser degree. When
I moved to the UK my accent was still heavily American, with a North-eastern
lilt. This was the consequence of having had three or four postgraduate
teachers hailing from or living in Boston and New York. Over here in the UK,
people were at a loss as to why a Cuban would choose to speak like an American
when we were supposed to be at loggerheads with them.
The answer is that first of all,
it’s our two governments that have locked horns for more than five decades.
When it comes to common, ordinary folk from both the US and Cuba, we leave our
political differences aside and get on pretty well most of the time. And the
second element is that most schools, further and higher education institutions in
Cuba teach American English as opposed to the British standard. The latter is
seen as distant, not just geographically, but also practically. But what is
non-practical for a Cuban can become very useful to an Indian. So, when our compadres and comadres from the subcontinent use (chiefly British) English as a
way out of poverty and deprivation, they’re being neither anti-nationalist nor
pro-empire, but resourceful. In order to explain this approach, Massani quotes
Mumbai-based businessman and journalist Jerry Rao: “Even if you flunk your schools finals, if you can speak decent English,
today you can get a nice job. But even if you have a master’s degree and your English
is poor, you’re likely to end up in a labour market where salaries are
significantly lower.”
I witnessed a similar situation
in Cuba in the early to mid-90s when many professionals, including doctors and
teachers, defected to the tourism sector. Their motivation? The green Yankee
dollar. Whilst their hard-earned salaries in Cuban pesos were getting more and
more devalued, those working at hotels and tourist resorts were minting it. And
that was just from tips. There was a problem, however. Many of these highly
trained professionals had been educated either in the old socialist bloc or in
Cuba but with socialist ideals. The language they’d learnt, used and were used
to, was Russian. Russian. In a globalised world trading in English. Yes, you
can imagine the rest. Scrapheap doesn’t even begin to cover it.
That’s how in my first paid job
as a teacher I faced a classroom full of people coming from a wide variety of professional
backgrounds. There were mechanics, lawyers, journalists, ballet dancers (in
fact, Lorna Feijóo, prima ballerina at the National Ballet of Cuba, was one of my
students). You name it; they were there, trying to do the same thing their
Indian counterparts are doing now: getting at least one foot on the first rung
of the social and economic ladder.
The irony is that despite the strong presence the
Brits had on Indian soil, the influence the empire had on Indian life and the
ubiquity and usefulness of the English language in the world, Gandhi’s sons and
daughters are headed in the wrong direction. It is said that in ten or fifteen
years’ time Hispanics will be the largest minority ethnic group in the US,
replacing African-American in the process. And in probably ten more years after that, Spanish
will replace English as the official language of the States. And where the US
goes, the UK oftentimes follows. Spanish is, then, the way to go, my lovely
Indian chums. And here’s the first word for you to learn: ¡Bienvenidos! 2012 Next Post: “Sunday Mornings: Coffee, Reflections and
Music”, to be published on Sunday 9th December at 10am (GMT)
Language is a funny thing. Just imagine, we're 7 billion souls in the world today and if I was to write this post in Spanish, more than three quarters of my regular readers wouldn't understand it. Similarly, if some of you opted to communicate in vernacular Scottish or Punjabi slang, I would be floored. It just goes to show what a diverse bunch we, humans, are.
That's why we've always tended to simplify words, phrases and sentences. Create linguistic shortcuts, if you like. Looking for a common denominator, a template to which we can default in order to communicate better with each other. Languages don't just exist as tools to get our message across, but also as canvasses on which we experiment and give free rein to our imagination. The first time I heard a conversation between a London-born Asian guy (of Indian ancestry) and a Jamaican patois-speaking black man. I was clueless about what they were saying but spellbound by the musicality of their lexicon. Later on I found out that the Asian guy had adopted rhythmic linguistic patterns from his interlocutor's Jamaican lilt, whilst his counterpart had done a similar thing but in an Asian style.
All this probably explains why, faced with an ever-expanding globalised world, groups like the Queen's English Society are destined to fail. In the era of textspeak and 140-character-long speeches, not a lot of people care about the difference between "refute" and "rebut".
I pity the QES, because I'm also a stickler for good grammar and syntax. I don't mind neologisms and modern-day slang, as long as the speaker knows how to use proper language. "Proper" in this context shouldn't be confused with the snobbish attitude that some people display towards those they think inferior just because they use different words or phrases, or have a different accent. I mean it in the sense of having the capacity to communicate in a way that most people will understand you. I welcome English's all-inclusive approach to importing words and phrases from other languages. But I also think that we're letting the next generation down when we don't tell them that they shouldn't say "Peter is more intelligent then Paul". That's what I call bad English, or bad language.
However, I think that the Queen's English Society shot itself in the foot when they came up with their name, even if it was forty years ago. I mean, Queen's English? Really? At a time when on BBC Breakfast News, Middlesbrough-born, business reporter Stephanie McGovern's melodic northern accent is a welcome wake-up call for this blogger at ten to seven every morning? And she even mixes it with Irish dancing? Really, Queen's English? Forty years ago they should have seen that the game was up when the 60s introduced us to swinging London.
Language exists in a constant state of motion, changing and moving forward like the society around which it develops. Most languages carry with them subtleties and nuances that render them elegant, regardless of whether this amounts to no more than the word "blatant" uttered by am Asian young man to emphasise an idea. To pick on certain dialects or forms of speech, like the Queen's English Society used to do, smacks of snobbery.
Moreover, what I've found as a non-native speaker is that English is by its very nature subversive and so are its users. I don't believe that in a country like the UK, someone would come up with a body like the Academia Real de la Lengua Española to act as a judge and adjudicate on all matters linguistic.
This dogmatic approach to language displayed by the QES has also infitrated other sections of society. If not, look at the recent outcry by the Church of England about government plans to change the law and enable gay couples to marry. You could be forgiven for thinking that the Armageddon had arrived. Just because the definition of marriage as the union of two persons of opposite gender is deeply embedded in the English language doesn't mean that in this time and age we have to follow the same linguistic rule to the letter. To me, the motive of the Anglican church is clear: they want to claim ownership of the legal definiton of human relationships. But with an ever dwindling membership, can the Church really afford to be so blind? Even followers of its faith have expressed support for the changes. We already have civil partnerships, why not go the extra mile and grant gay unions the right to marry, too?
As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, we're a diverse bunch. And as it sadly happened to the Queen's English Society, those who fail to adapt to the demands of modern living, including the way we speak now, fall by the wayside. I'm not saying that the same fate awaits the Church of England, but as everyone knows God moves in mysterious ways.
According to Genesis, the Tower of Babel was supposed to be human beings' way to "reach unto heaven". I think we're all acquainted with what happened in the end: God grew jealous and punished the puny transgressors by confounding their language. No one could understand the other person's speech anymore. And so, that's how New York came into being.
Sorry, did I confuse you, too? Well, just.
Recently I came across an article in The Economist magazine that dealt with one of my favourite topics and this column's raison d'être: languages. In this case the feature focused on the disappearance of a number of unusual tongues, which have found a home in the US metropolis. In order to address this situation a group of academic linguists got together to collect, record and codify grammar, pronunciation, syntax and in some cases traditional songs and stories from a dozen languages. The results are spellbinding: samples range from Mexico to Indonesia. And they're all under the same (metaphorical) roof.
Some people might scoff at the attempt to "rescue" these languages. After all, how many of them, in the history of humankind, have run their course and become extinguished? Surely there must be reasons for that. Disuse, complexity, geopolitics, to name a few. Furthermore, once we welcomed the arrival of a lingua franca, i.e., English, we helped, unintentionally, dig up the grave into which we condemned all these other "esoteric" languages.
But, I can't be the only person who greets news of a research into endangered languages with open arms. For one, the study gets the better of my inner linguistic Snoopy. For instance, in Mahongwe, a language from Gabon, the word manono, translates as “I like” when spoken in soft and flat tones, but “I don’t like” when the first syllable is a tad sharper. No information is given about what happens when you're down with a cold. Then, there's the cultural side of it where we get to learn about oral traditions that, in many cases, are hundreds, if not thousands, of years old.
I'm not surprised that it's New York where this research is taking place. Although it could have equally happened in London. After all, there's a lot more linguistic diversity in the British capital than in the US metropolis. But with its skycrapers attempting to "reach unto heaven", this modern Babel is the closest we'll get to its biblical counterpart. And you know what? By confounding those hubristic humans, maybe the Lord gave us the best gift of all: a cultural mix that has enriched our human experience.
German has its subordinate clauses where the verb is always placed at the end. Spanish and French have the ubiquitous (and difficult!) subjunctive mood to negotiate. Plus two dyed-in-the-wool academies (Real Academia Española and l’Académie Française respectively) with very little time for modern, linguistic twists. And English? Well, the language of the Anglo-Saxons has gone Globish, a lexicon whose existence is deeply rooted in the way the role of English has been reframed in recent decades, becoming anarchic by nature in the process. From Nigeria to Malaysia, Shakespeare's language belongs to no one and to everybody. We speak English in whichever way we want to.
And yet...
There still exists within this lingua franca a trait that is enough to send the sanest of human beings to the nearest madhouse: it is the stark contrast between the spelling and the pronunciation of many words.
If you've ever felt as if you were metaphorically marooned on a deserted island because you couldn't work out how to pronounce and/or tell 'should' or 'sought' apart, then, welcome to the club, my friend. This is the 'Club of Non-Natives Who Thought English Was Easier Because Of Its Grammar, Only To Find Out That Its Pronunciation Vs Spelling Structure Was Anything But'. Long title, I know, but it truly reflects the club's large membership.
Take 'weight' [weyt] and 'height'[hahyt]. We all know what they mean and how to pronounce them. But have you ever stopped to think of what would happen if you tried to utter one of those two words using the articulation of the other? In the case of 'weight' pronounced as 'height', your audience, at best, would try to work out why you're including references to 'biped' or 'Homo Sapiens' in your conversation; at worst you'd be downright misunderstood. With 'height' the situation would be very different. Any attempt to apply the way we pronounce 'weight' to the noun that denotes 'extent or distance upward' will be met with quizzical looks. Why are you asking me what my 'hate' is? You mean my pet hate? Confusing, I know.
One of the reasons for this mess, beautiful and intriguing as it is, though, is that English is not the result of one single linguistic stream. English is the result of centuries and centuries of, sometimes small and sometimes large, geopolitical and historical events, which have brought about deep and significant changes in the way it is spoken and written today. Take Hollywood for instance. Starting in the 1920s and peaking in the '40s its presence and influence have been omnipresent, chiefly in a Europe devastated by the Second World War and in need of escapism. Thus, American English, or at least the brand exported by Tinseltown became the standard by which most countries strove to speak this Germanic language. The examples abound, 'theater' was favoured over 'theatre' and 'color' over 'colour'.
That still leaves the whole phonemes vs graphemes question unanswered. Whereas in a language like French you know that there are three kinds of 'e' sounds whose pronunciation usually matches spelling (yeux, les and chaise,for instance), in English the disparity between what you hear and what you read is abysmal. For example the grapheme [a] can be found in the following words and yet the pronunciation changes each time: hat, adorn, mate, pillage.
Attempts to simplify the spelling of words in English are being made, even if they have not proved to be successful. One reason is that there's no national or international body tasked with the responsibility of safeguarding the English language for future generations. And good on English, I say! Spanish and French have long lagged behind their Germanic counterpart because the two aforementioned academies frown upon neologisms. In the language of Cervantes you have to wait for decades before a new term is admitted in the Diccionario de la Real Academia Española despite the fact that it's probably already widely used by Spanish-speakers. By contrast English is dynamic and ever-changing, coining new words and phrases. If only their pronunciation/spelling combination made sense most of the time!
The other night when I began to write this column the first example that came to my head was 'laughter' [lafter] and 'slaughter' [slawter]. Just one letter ('s') separates both words and yet they couldn't be more different. On the news a few years before I'd heard that a wedding in Afghanistan had ended in a bloodbath when the crew of a US fighter jet had mistakenly thought that the shots being fired in the air were projectiles aimed at them. They were instead part of a traditional celebration. In the comfort of my London home I thought of how, through the addition or omission of one letter and a change in pronunciation, a journalist's report could move from elation to tragedy in an instant. A quirky - and dare I say, cruel - trait indeed.
Maybe you belong to the two-fingered peace sign brigade à la Paul McCartney (as long as both forefinger and middle finger are facing out to your adoring audience). Or, perhaps, you're part of the raised-eyebrow Ancelotti's tribe (Chelsea's manager). Or, how about lifting up your left leg at the same time one of your political foes hoists his in the middle of a television debate? That would surely show your supporters your power for 'joined-up' thinking. Alas, it didn't save Gordon Brown's premiership, whose choreographic movement with Lib-Dems leader, Nick Clegg, was caught on camera. The latter still plumped for the Tories when it came to choosing a political dance partner.
But regardless of what your gestures or facial expressions say about your affiliations, one aspect is beyond doubt: like the rest of humankind, you speak 'body language'.
We're capable of learning as many languages as we want to, even if certain aspects of them might fall without our reach (grammar, syntax, pronunciation and so on), but there's a lingo we can always fall back on: the one spoken by our bodies.
Whenever we, humans, are not displaying our natural skills for rhetoric, we tend to replace words with movements. Sometimes we fold our arms in what could be inferred to be a defensive stance. Or we acknowledge the person talking to us with a half-smile. We even do that when said person is boring us to death.
We also use gestures to back up our speech. In this case our verbal arsenal is given a boost by the physical component. Cuba is a good example where this approach has been woven into a nation's identity. Even on radio we gesticulate wildly, and as someone who spent an awful long time promoting dance and art on that medium, I've got enough evidence. I remember a particular DJ who was banned from carrying anything resembling a mug or a glass into the studio. He'd caused many an accident with his body language.
Corporal expression is also a way to convey our inner world to others even when words fail us. I still remember when we came across Stanislavski's 'The Method' at my uni drama group. We all jumped at the chance of finding our inner truth and subjecting ourselves to a process of rigorous self-analysis and reflection. The results were mixed, at least for me. I recall our drama teacher inviting once a famous actor to one of our sessions. We did various exercises and at the end of the rehearsal the guest spoke to each of us, giving us feedback on our pluses and minuses. When my turn came, he asked me quite a lot of questions: Did you mean this when you were acting out this scene? Were you worried when you were carrying out this particular exercise? Was there something on your mind other than the speech you were given when engaging with this other actor? His conclusion was that, although I had natural thespian skills, my face was a kaleidoscope of expressions, many of which were unrelated to the task set by my tutor.
It was a valuable lesson on the importance of our body language. It also brought back some of my more memorable moments in movies; when the protagonist(s) does/do not utter one single word and yet their expressions say more than what you could convey with a thousand words: Glenn Close removing her make-up at the end of 'Dangerous Liaisons' (from 1:34 onwards), Al Pacino squaring up to Kevin Spacey in 'Glengarry Glen Ross' (between 0:47 and 0:59, then, of course, body language goes out of the window and Al goes all 'Carlitos Brigante' on Spacey) and Antoine Doinel in 'Les Quatre Cents Coups' (3:18 to 3:24).
With all this in mind, I have often wondered what response the late John Lennon would have given to his former The Beatles pal, Paul, when the latter suggested some years ago that their collaborations together be named McCartney/Lennon and not the other way around as we had come to know them. Again, body language would have been handy. A two-fingered peace sign would surely have been the reply from the writer of 'Power to the People'. But this time it wouldn't be hard to guess which way the forefinger and middle finger would have been facing.
I once met a woman who was trilingual: she was born in Switzerland, in the French part, and lived there the first few years of her life, thus, she spoke the Gallic language fluently. Her family then moved to Spain, where she was raised, therefore she had an excellent command of the Iberian lexicon. As an adult she settled in the UK with her Canadian partner - later husband -, picking up English in the process. What was curious about this person was how she deployed her linguistic arsenal. She used French for basic conversations, the what, who, where, when, how, so to speak; Spanish for deep talks, from the state of the economy to politics. English, then, was left for chats about children and education (especially home education, as none of her three children went to school). You could say then that this woman was a 'natural' for languages; she was 'hardwired' to become fluent in any lingo.
Nonsense.
This is a different post today, in that issues to do with language are usually addressed in my 'Living in a Bilingual World' columns. But today I will use linguistics as an excuse to discuss with you, fellow bloggers and readers, a hot topic, one that has caused many a controversy for a long time and which will continue to polarise people all over the world. Are men really from Mars and women from Venus?
The reason why I'm using this woman as an example for my post today is that the response she often got to her excellent linguistic skills was similar to the feedback women (and men) get when they are involved in activities that are outside their alleged gender remit. Many people oohed and aahed at how this woman was able to switch from French to Spanish to English. But why did she elicit such a strong response? Because her audience was seldom multilingual themselves. Same with the people who claim that females are better at communicating and males better at playing the Action Man role. What a lot of horlicks (as former home secretary Jack Straw would put it. There, another example of male articulacy). Look at a group photo of the latest G20 meeting and tell me how many men and women there are in the line-up. And what do you think they do all day in this once-a-year meetings? Play cops and robbers? Hmmm... I just realised that I might have inserted an (unintentional) pun in that question. To clarify, any similarity to real actions or events is pure coincidence
But you know what I mean. When the G20 meet, they normally talk. A lot. For a long time. Usually behind closed doors. And as this group is male-dominated, we can safely assume that not a lot of 'it' or 'tag' games are being executed (the image of Berlusconi chasing after Merkel is enough to put me off my breakfast, although apparently he hasn't got any problems giving chase to seventeen-year-old girls).
Then, how is it that we still allow our - obvious - biological differences to rule our social interaction and our contribution to modern society? Why is it still OK to ascribe certain rigid mores to each gender without double checking first that, hey! they are interchangeable and don't you know that women can drive buses and men change nappies?
The 'Martian Man vs Venusian Woman' is a far too rich industry to execute a U-turn like Pope Benedict has done in relation to the use of condoms. And even the Pontiff's statement was not very radical. Anyone expecting to see a headline reading: "Pope Benedict: Jesus did not die on the cross, he died of a severe case of micturition, hence his crossed legs", will have to wait. The Pontifex Maximus has merely accepted what everyone else has been saying all these years: that the use of condoms reduces the risk of infection from Aids. Still, can you hear the gritting of teeth? Likewise, anyone expecting the advocates of biological determinism to come out and say that, actually, the differences between men and women are more often than not caused by social conditioning than innate distinctions, should sit down and wait patiently... and wait patiently... and wait patiently...
That's why I am opening up my blog for another debate (I've already done it once. Remember the discussion about feminism? Click here, here and here so that you have an idea about how it works). On this occasion we will be talking about the issue of nature vs nurture from a gender point of view. If you want to be part of this debate, e-mail me at my address (it's in my profile). I have drafted up three questions for the first three bloggers who contact me. Once I have received the confirmation from the three contributors that they want to take part in this discussion, I will then respond to all of you at the same time. I will be using the Bcc field to avoid disclosing your e-mail addresses. All replies will be unabridged. What you write is what I will post. I would really appreciate it if you could forward a very short bio, maybe just a couple of lines. Pics are optional, as I know some bloggers prefer to remain anonymous. If you do send a photo, please, do it in jpeg, tiff, giff or bitmap format, blogger doesn't accept pdfs. Your blogs will be linked at the beginning of each biography. If you want to reproduce the content of my piece in your own blogs, please, feel free to do so.
The follow-up to this column should come out next week, as long as I get the replies in time. I do have an alternative post to publish, just in case (always have a plan B), but I would really love it if we could segue from today's column to next week's instalment smoothly.
So, get writing! I'm already looking forward to your contributions.
In other news, the Theatre Royal Stratford East was the perfect setting for an amazing concert by the Creole Choir of Cuba last Thursday 18th November. Desandann (meaning 'descendents'), as the vocal troupe is more widely known, blew the audience away with their passionate songs, passed down by their parents and grandparents. The melodies, sung in Creole and supported occasionally by drums, highlighted the influence that Haitians have had on Cuban culture for centuries. I would like to thank Joe, Rebecca and Lucinda from Serious for giving me the opportunity to attend and review this concert. The choir will be on tour next year. For full details of their upcoming performances, click here. And for you readers/fellow bloggers, here's a taste of what my beautiful Cuba has to offer.
Another column from my 'Living in a Bilingual World' series. Still on holidays and soaking up what is left of our brilliant summer.
- Papi, what's this word?
Son’s voice snapped me out of my reverie. His index finger was pointing at a word in italics bang in the middle of a long sentence. All the other words were in English, but this one in particular stood out amongst the others. The reason? It was in Spanish.
The dreaded 'c' word had arrived in Son’s world.
Living in a Bilingual World has very limited patience for pretentious newspapers columnists with lofty linguistic ambitions, but my eye has been caught recently by certain articles I have read both in print and on the internet where the ‘c’ word has been included gratuitously.
Of course, there is a chance you are already familiar with the ‘c’ word. If you speak Spanish, that is. And if you hail from Latin America as I do, you will find it as offensive as I do. I can’t even bring myself to write it so I will have to do the same they do sometimes in written publications; to place asterisks strategically; do not fret, though, you will recognise it immediately.
C stands for c******. Got it? Seven letters. Seven gratuitously offensive letters (Spaniards do not count as I know that they love cursing left, right and centre).
So, why? Why has it become a habit to band this four-letter word about (admittedly, it is actually seven letters, but let’s not get too picky about it, shall we?) as if it was Angelina Jolie’s latest adopted Third World orphan?
It is a sad situation when you have to explain to a ten-year-old (Son), that no, this is not a nice word, that a man’s private parts are usually asterisked in the British media (except in The Guardian and The Observer where they delight in using all kinds of expletives without covering them up) and that some words sound very strong to certain cultures.
And what about Son? Well, what about Son?
- How do you pronounce this word, then, papi?
- Well, as you know, the ‘j’ sounds like the English ‘h’. But I bet they don’t know that.
N.B.: For non-Spanish speakers, just in case it has not been obvious to you, either by the tone of the column or by the photo included in it, the 'c' word I alluded to in the above post is a swear word for 'testicles' in Spanish.
