What we have learned is that people who speak different languages do indeed think differently and that even flukes of grammar can profoundly affect how we see the world.
— LERA BORODITSKY (1976–),
HOW DOES OUR LANGUAGE SHAPE
THE WAY WE THINK?
In What Language
A debate is raging across the United States as to what language or languages should be used in official functions and education. The rapid increase in the Hispanic population (now 18 percent of the U.S. population), along with a tendency for ethnic isolation in communities of immigrants from Islamic countries, has led to efforts by individual states to designate English an “official” language. They have even forbidden the use of languages other than English in schools. All through history, language has been used both as a way for the elite to set themselves above the masses and as a means of acculturating new members of a society. In twelfth-century England the nobles spoke Norman and the peasants Saxon. The educated spoke and wrote in Latin. The question is this: Does history show if such efforts have succeeded, and if so, will these efforts to require English force quick adaption of the younger non–English speakers into American or European culture?
When Rome conquered another nation, it did not attack the local language or customs. This added to the stability of an empire that lasted hundreds of years. But it did require that all the official business and notices be done in Latin. This effectively made it advantageous for anyone who wanted to be anything or anyone important to learn Latin. As a result, the Latin language became the lingua franca (also a Latin phrase) for the Western world. It was, by the second century CE, the common language of the Mediterranean world. Even when the empire collapsed, the Roman Catholic Church, true to its name, retained the Roman language as its official language, both for written use and in ceremonies. This provided in a fragmenting Europe a common tongue for all churchmen, and later for scientists and statesmen as well.
What Difference Does Language Make?
There are built-in attitudes and cultural assumptions in any language. The language people use and think with does affect both how they view the world and what their thoughts are. If there is no word for something, then it is unlikely a thought about it will occur. This is based on what is called cognitive psychological theory. (All psychology is theoretical; we still don’t have a detailed and working model of how the human mind works.) Perhaps the easiest way to explain this is that if a culture had no word at all for “lies,” then telling the truth would be the norm. Most people would not understand the concept of lying because there would be no way to think about it.
If your culture is surrounded by and interacts constantly with snow, as the Inuit are, you would have many words for the different types of snow. This is because any language both reflects and facilitates the speaker’s environment. There is likely no commonly used word in Inuit for palm tree, so when you say “tree” to an Inuit speaker it is safe to assume that palm is not the type of tree he or she will picture.
The Tuareg of North Africa have many terms for different types of dry terrain that range from loose sand to boulder fields. A New Yorker would simply lump them all together as being a “desert.” But that same New Yorker has as many words for elements of his environment—specialty stores, delis, roads—as the Tuareg’s language (actually a group of related dialects) contains for parts of their deserts. If you are raising a Tuareg child in New York City, then to have them think in a traditional Tuareg manner, they would have to learn to think in their Tuareg tongue first, or perhaps only. That might be somewhat inconvenient since there are a lot of things in New York City that there is no Tuareg word for. If the Tuareg children think first in English, then they will begin to have the same thought/word patterns that other New Yorkers have. This would include many thoughts that there are simply no Tuareg words to express. This is why some ethnic groups prefer to isolate themselves in closed neighborhoods where only their native language is spoken. Because they want to overcome this isolation and encourage integration, some educators dislike multilingual education. Since, like speaking Latin in the provinces of Rome, there are real advantages to speaking English when living in America and severe disadvantages if you can’t speak English, English can be very difficult to discourage. Simply said, language is one way that a nation absorbs immigrants. Its use eases them into adopting the culture’s way of thinking and attitudes by providing the framework needed to think and speak as part of it. Learning and using the group’s language allows ethnically diverse newcomers, or at least their children, to move easily into a society.
Can Language Be Repressed?
Is it possible to completely change the language used in a nation? It appears the answer may be “yes,” with a big “but.” The dark corollary to this question is that accomplishing this requires a level of repression that would be abhorrent to a Western government today. In fact, the heavy-handed and often violent way this was once done in such nations as Ireland, where Gaelic was all but obliterated, still causes emotional resistance all over the world to “official language” laws in general.
At the time of the Norman invasion in 1171, Gaelic was spoken in all of Ireland except the area adjacent to Dublin, known as the Pale, where English was already used. By the time of Thomas Cromwell, during the 1530s, England had begun to actively suppress both Irish culture and language. Use of Gaelic was forbidden. Just owning anything written in Gaelic was illegal. The Potato Famine of 1845, and the subsequent breakdown it caused to Irish society and culture, also contributed to the collapse of Gaelic. By 1871, the repressive language laws were eased, not because of tolerance, but because Gaelic was no longer the common language of the isle and the laws were deemed unnecessary.
While today in Ireland you can again find those who speak Gaelic, English is the language used for virtually every function. In schools Gaelic is now often taught as a second language and is popular all over Ireland. Patriotism and interest in Irish culture have caused this modern resurgence of Gaelic speakers, surprisingly in greater numbers among the younger age groups. Fifty years ago only a few thousand Irish were fluent in Gaelic and there was a concern about the language dying out entirely. Now more than one hundred thousand Irish use Gaelic, mostly in the western Gaeltacht counties of Cork, Donegal, Galway, Kerry, and Mayo.
Even more amazing is the number of Irish who can again at least speak the language. According to the census figures from 2002, released by Ireland’s Central Statistics Office, there were 1,570,894 Gaelic speakers in the country as opposed to 2,180,101 non–Gaelic speakers.
So the simple answer to the original question then is that if you ruthlessly repress a language as part of your destruction of a culture, and do so long enough, you can at least almost succeed. Since the nineteenth century, virtually all Irish business and governmental duties have been done in English. The British did succeed in effectively replacing Gaelic with English as the language used in commerce. Even those who spoke Gaelic felt compelled to learn some English as well. James Joyce wrote in English. Still, even after four centuries of repression, the English were not able to fully eliminate Gaelic.
Why English?
English is used worldwide. It is the language of science, air traffic control, and diplomacy. Schoolchildren from Japan to Egypt are taught English in their early grades. A language dominates because it is useful. This may be a political reason, as was the case of Latin, or it may be just because it fills people’s needs best. One of the many reasons for the far-flung use of the English language is its adaptability. You can describe a very wide range of environments and concepts in English. English now contains about twice as many words as any other European language. The language is also well suited for science and technical discussions and has become the accepted language used for the publication of all scientific papers. If you need to think about the degeneration rate of certain quantum particles, you need to think about it in a language that has a word for quantum particle. If you need to be concerned with currents and fish, then a Micronesian language would serve you better. But if you want to set up a GPS for your boat, hope the instructions are in English.
Because American English is a conglomerate language, based on Anglo-Saxon but filled with terms and concepts from many other languages, it is arguably the most adaptable and flexible language on the planet. Its popularity is not only because of the combined influence of the United States and Britain, but also because it works. The joke that linguists tell about American English is that it waits in the dark and mugs other languages to get their best words. Today, it is also busy mugging the jargon of technology all over the world, as well as stealing from the more traditional languages.
This is not the first time this pattern has occurred. The commerce and government of the Roman Republic were done in Latin. But science and literature all over the Roman Empire appeared in Greek. Most literate Romans felt they had to speak Greek, just as most literate Europeans now also speak English. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the language of science and diplomacy was French. The upper classes and educated of Europe and the Americas learned French as a necessity. Today, the French may occasionally resent it, but they, too, often learn English.
Perhaps the best current example of a common language being vital to a nation even when its people speak many languages is India. There are more than two dozen distinct and separate languages spoken on the Indian subcontinent. But for two centuries of British domination, English had been the language used for commerce and government. Despite English being a reminder of their colonial state, the newly free nation found it was not able to eliminate the use of the former occupier’s language. Because the Indians speak in more than two dozen languages and hundreds of dialects, they had to have a common tongue, and English was what most of those making the decisions already spoke. Even today, the two recognized languages used for the Indian national government and business are Hindi and English. Both are widespread enough that they are jointly the “official” language of that giant nation’s government and courts. There was an attempt in the 1950s to phase out English, calling it a remnant of the colonial masters, but this never gained momentum. With only about 40 percent of all Indians speaking Hindi, and the large number of other languages spoken locally, there simply was no alternative.
India’s Official Languages Act of 1963 and subsequent laws have continued to include English. Even a language imposed from the outside by colonial powers has proved impossible to repress because it serves a purpose and does it best. The British colonial government forced English on those they dealt with.
The use of English as a common tongue has since proved a necessity. It appears that if a language becomes established in a nation, it is very hard to eradicate it. It’s so hard, in fact, that even in 1947, during their first flush of national pride, the newly independent people of India could not do without English.
What does this say about the language questions being asked in America and Europe? If a small part of the nation is speaking a foreign language only within their community, this is likely not something that will continue for generations. Eventually, because a language is used to communicate, the one that communicates best in that environment will prevail. So Farsi in Sweden, barring a lot more immigration, will not be a permanent addition to the languages spoken by Swedes when viewed over generations. On the other hand, a very large number of people speak Spanish in the United States and there is, because of the proximity to other Spanish-speaking nations and the interaction of individuals between them, a real benefit in speaking Spanish. It is unlikely that Spanish would prevail over the more widely used and useful English, but Spanish is likely to contribute much to American English in the coming centuries. And judging from historical cases, it is not going to disappear even if immigration slows drastically. Like English and Gaelic in Ireland, or English and Zulu in South Africa, or even Latin and Greek in Ancient Rome, a second language that serves a purpose is likely to be around for a very long time no matter what “official language” laws are passed.
Keeping a Language Alive
There is no question that a language can be retained when it is not the main language of a nation. This is shown not only by the diversity of languages in nations such as India and the former Soviet Union, where Russian competed with local tongues, or the retention of both Pashto and Dari in Afghanistan. But there is an even more striking example that is so accepted most people do not realize the novelty of it. Even when the Jewish people had no nation and no land of their own where their language was spoken since the rise of Islam, Hebrew survived. In fact, not only did it survive (and evolve), but a rich literature was produced in the nearly two thousand years there was no separate Israeli nation.
There are many reasons for this. One reason was the often forced segregation of Jews in Europe. Not only could Hebrew be spoken daily, but it allowed them to converse without the other locals understanding. When there are thousands who already speak Hebrew, and the native population avoids most contact, the language of the ghetto will continue. Another cause was the combination of both cultural and religious importance given Hebrew by the Jewish people. Certainly there was no question that a constant and conscious effort was made to retain Hebrew and keep it alive.
This is not to say that Hebrew was not affected by the languages and lifestyles around it. Yiddish is a good example of such an intermingling. Yiddish evolved beginning in Germany around 900 CE. It was primarily a spoken language used by the Jews of Europe. Its speakers already had both Hebrew and German to write with. There was no written use of Yiddish among the German Jews except for in literature. Still, at the language’s peak in the early 1900s, eleven million Jews spoke Yiddish. Most of them also studied, read, and spoke Hebrew. Today, Yiddish is rarely spoken; most of its speakers were lost to the Holocaust. But Hebrew did not have the same fate and has been retained even after the losses and exiles. All Jews are still culturally encouraged and religiously required to learn at least some of the language. What this shows is that even with a geographically divided population, a group, if they retain a strong cultural identity, can keep a language alive and active, be it Hebrew, Gaelic, or Romany. For the first time since the Romans drove the Jews from Judea in the first century CE, Hebrew is again (since 1947) the national language of a nation, Israel.
A Problem That Solves Itself
Historically, major languages have amazing resiliency and power. Perhaps the greatest conclusion we can draw from history is that languages evolve or are retained to fit the situation. This is despite the efforts of governments and politicians. If a group has a good reason to keep a native tongue, it can and will. Even the most stringent efforts to eliminate Gaelic were not effective. If there is a good reason or need to speak a common language, that language will become or remain widespread, as English has in India and effectively worldwide. If there is a need for Spanish in the United States, then it will continue to be widely spoken and will spread as a second language, as Greek was used among the Romans. If just English is better suited for everyone in the United States to speak, then laws to force this are not needed, just patience. It will happen with or without laws.
There is a lot of noise and debate about forcing the use of only one national language. The record for artificial manipulation of language use is unpersuasive. The United States and its states can pass all the language laws they want, but the most any of those language laws may do is accelerate the rate at which immigrants living in America learn English. In the span of history, we see that languages really are a tool we communicate with and that they can, in return, mold those who speak them. People will find the most efficient way to talk to each other no matter what laws temporarily constrain them. The purpose of any language is to communicate, and eventually the language or languages that communicate best dominate. Nor will a language that serves a purpose disappear. A culturally based language can be retained even under great pressure, and a useful language will spread despite resistance, à la Big Mac.