On The Respect of Language and Culture

Blubs of Verbs, Commentary Comments Off on On The Respect of Language and Culture

 I don’t like that man. I must get to know him better. -Abraham Lincoln

 

So while driving to work today, a radio station DJ wanted to find out who sang a song he liked.  Long story short, it turned out the song was a mix of 3 languages,(french, spanish and an african language) which is spoken natively in a part of the Ivory coast.  He was marveling at how many languages people knew, and decided then that Americans are too lax about languages.   He implied we were at fault for wanting to make an english language law. 

 

Well, naturally this had me thinking. 

 

First off. America is large.  If my neighbor wanted a) destroy me b) was constantly at war with me, c) i was a country the size of Rhode Island surrounded by other languages then yes, I would need all those languages to survive. 

 

Further more, let’s look at large countries, like Brazil, and Russia and Canada and Australia.  A single language prevails (predominately).  Alot of their citizens don’t know lots of languages.  I drive 10 hours straight and I won’t cross Texas, one state.  Take a long long drive in America and I pass…, states, not countries. states, of one country. 

 

Truly, (and let me make it clear) I think making english language a law is just silly.   What I do want however, is for others to respect the english language (and subsequently its culture) , as we( americans) are expected to respect theirs. 

 

I went to france recently and had a wonderful time.  However, i learned within the first day, that part of the culture was starting a conversation in french -No Matter What- I quickly went from dumb american to someone who was trying and respectful of the language and culture. 

 

Language and culture. This is a theme in spain, in Italy, even Iran, and China and Japan.  People appreciate it if you try, even if they decide you need to stop talking to them and stop butchering their language.   In america, getting people to try to speak english seems to only bring resentment.  47 languages on a ballot to vote?(in California)  In some places in Miami, the signs are in spanish only.  You know how odd it is to feel you’re in a foreign country…, in your own country?

 

One of the most amazing things about america is its ability to assimilate and melt everyone into a nice simmer of shared culture.   We celebrate not only Cinco de mayo (which the Mexicans don’t do) , St Patrick’s Day, and Chinese New Year, right along with Christmas and Yom Kippur.  I’d never give that up for anything, but please, for me, can I just have subtitles? Respect me enough to put them in. 

OceansOfThought @ February 27, 2008