Jacques Chirac appeals to a long history of English amusement at the French. When, in 2006, he stormed out of an EU summit because the (French) leader of a European business lobby addressed attendees in English, it gave the Anglophone world another chance to feel smug in the superiority of their tongue. How ironic that English, brought to every corner of the world by the trading ships of the British Empire and the teleconferences of American business, had become the lingua franca of the 21st century.
Since then, things have got worse for the French. Francophones are increasingly threatened, not just in international organisations where English is an easy mutual method of communication, but also by the infiltration of the language of Shakespeare into that of Molière. The Académie Française can’t be pleased about all the people sending textos or emails (which it insists on calling mél), if they don’t have time for le chat. This worrying trend has even seeped into the corridors of power. Chirac must be seething to find that under a successor derisively called l’Américain, the Higher Education Minister feels happy to defy Gallic loyalty, winning this year’s “prize” for services against French, the Prix de la Carpette Anglaise (think doormat):
Her crime: proclaiming to the press that she had no intention of speaking French when attending European meetings in Brussels, because, she said, it was quite obvious that English was now the easiest mode of communication.
Outside France, where resistance, especially through its “linguistic Commonwealth”, the International Organisation of Francophonie, is strongest, English is surging ahead more quickly. Last week’s Economist reported on efforts by European news websites, such as Der Spiegel (Germany), NRC Handelsblad (Holland) and Politiken (Denmark) to offer content in English. As The Economist points out, this affords an opportunity for the first real pan-European exchange of ideas:
It has proved helpful to journalists seeking interviews with world leaders. Kees Versteegh of NRC Handelsblad talks of creating a European “demos”, but also admits to frustration at publishing some “very fine pieces” in Dutch that the rest of the world never notices.
The trend-lines are not all rosy for Anglophones, however. The Economist concludes on the glum note (for proponents of multilingualism, at least) that the rise of English will inevitably lead to a situation where “continental” Europeans are increasingly bilingual (60% of Europeans under 24 already speak English “well” or “very well”), while Anglophones, already sitting pretty, will be increasingly content to be monolingual. This alone is cause for concern. Learning a foreign language broadens the mind, promoting pluralism and tolerance.
This is only the first problem, however. Paradoxically, the hubris of English-speakers risks that they will be left out in the cold. English may be the chosen medium of communication in European Parliament committee meetings or trade delegations, but English speakers are sometimes the hardest to follow given their idiomatic flair. Moreover, a world speaking English as a second language risks debasing it. Already, the Esperanto of the 21st century has emerged, but “Globish” as it styles itself, looks terribly familiar. It is English reduced to only 1,500 words, attuned to the needs of business, but hardly to nuance or poetry. Anglophones are feeling the heat. And whose creation is Globish? A Frenchman’s!
Monsieur Nerrière is a retired French businessman who one day in the course of his work made a fascinating observation. In a meeting with colleagues from around the world, including an Englishman, a Korean and a Brazilian, he noticed that he and the other non-native English speakers were communicating in a form of English that was completely comprehensible to them, but which left the Englishman nonplussed.
He, Jean-Paul Nerrière, could talk to the Korean and the Brazilian in this neo-language, and they could understand each other perfectly. But the Englishman was left out because his language was too subtle, too full of meaning that could not be grasped by the others.
Could it be that the French were right all along? In our search for a collective language to further commercial aims, do we risk devaluing England’s greatest gift the world, her language? And can we, in light of Orwell’s warnings, be comfortable with the reduction of the complexity of our language to suit transitory needs?
Allons enfants de Shakespeare…!
February 19th, 2009 at 18:13
this raises some interesting meta-linguistic questions. for example, are trends like “globish” really threatening english, or merely a sign of its natural evolution? if such linguistic trends pick up speed, wouldn’t they have to at some point expand their vocab anyway? and would this then have an influence on actual “english”?
it would be pretty fitting if a language created from a mix of german, italian(inc.latin), danish and french was returned to those nations for the next step in its evolution
February 19th, 2009 at 18:16
oh yeah, cos some bureucratic mumbo-jumbo is really going to affect the might of english, at least in its american version, isn’t it?
February 19th, 2009 at 20:17
well no, I doubt it will affect the hegemony of English. but what is interesting is that respect for richness of vocabulary and application of grammar are already on the decline. as English becomes the world’s second language, the divide between “pure” English and what is spoken as a casual intermediary language will become ever starker. you might end up with a situation where those who speak English “properly” become as few or far between as opera-goers, with the rest of the world resembling, in my dubious metaphor, the Top 40…
March 5th, 2009 at 20:19
[...] an earlier post on language I alluded to the idea of a European “demos”, that elusive common sense of European [...]
May 18th, 2009 at 00:24
There’s no irony linking ‘lingua franca’ to French because the phrase never referred to the French language, or so I thought.
This might be wrong, but the story I learned was that lingua franca was the language used on board Ottoman navy ships to address Christian galley slaves in the 1400s and 1500s, since the Ottomans referred to all Christians as ‘Franks’, and was a blend of Italian, Latin, and Spanish.