Lingua Franca: The Myth of the Language Barrier
Japanese
Japanese is the 9th most widely spoken language in the world. It is characteristically hierarchal: social prestige and degree of intimacy determine the structure of the sentence. There are three alphabets, one of which consists of over 10,000 borrowed Chinese ideographs – 2,000 of which are considered necessary to know in order to read a newspaper. It has been considered one of the most difficult languages to learn for a native English speaker.
Japanese is considered a minimalist language: context can erase the grammatical need for certain parts of speech, even the subject of discussion. There is much that goes unsaid.
An American student visited Japan and discovered that all of her hard work of studying the language at home amounted to very little abroad. When she became lost, separated from her host sister, she stood helplessly until a thoughtful student paused to make a notifying phone call with her charm-laden cell-phone.
But perhaps the incident could have been avoided entirely had English been better taught in Japanese schools. English pedagogy in Japan has been repeatedly criticized for its overemphasis on English grammar and writing. This prepares the Japanese student of English for the infamous examination process but not for real-world cross-cultural communication in the global world.
Or perhaps more American students ought to become multilingual in this global world. Committed to this creed and indebted to her experience of Japanese hospitality and culture, the American student became determined to study the Japanese language.
Japanese intrigues her particularly for its humility – the way emotional distance and the degree of certainty affects conjugation. There are literally multiple ways of expressing apology, and the American student must use them all. At times when she would feel most discouraged, she would remember that her host sister Midori Naruse from the city of Otsu struggled with the same love of foreign culture and the same creed.
Russian
Russian is the 8th most widely spoken language in the world. The Cyrillic alphabet, which in some ways curiously resembles the English one, was developed in the 9th century. All 14 Republics in Europe and Central Asia once controlled by the Soviet Union retain Russian as an official language. It is included among the six official languages of the United Nations because it serves an increasingly important role in various areas of politics and science.
After returning to the United States, the American student applied to a local fast food joint that, understaffed, hired her against its usual policy. Most of the employees spoke Russian. They came not only from Russia but from other former Soviet republics such as Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan. The student realized that the restaurant employs mostly travelers on visas, and caters mostly to the nearby university’s foreign exchange students. Through this part-time job, the student quickly met people of over 20 nationalities. Many of them traveled to the United States to escape their country’s struggling economies, an environment which also motivated them to study English intensely.
The employee Igor Alexandrovich, whose English is the weakest of them all, would greet his co-worker with an American “Wassup!” Beyond this, English words often failed him. On his first day the American student explained the difference between “sweep” and “mop.” She could not speak with him directly, and often resorted to gestures, jokes, drawings, and pidgin English, only to hear “Ya nye ponimayu – I no unistan.” Her other co-worker Gleb, a Russian graduate of a program for English conversation and fluency, remarked that Igor is one of the students who passed his language classes but would struggle in the application.
One night at the restaurant, an employee, Sandy, the daughter of Italian immigrants, badly lacerated her finger with the cutting machine razor. She cried out, and Igor arrived at her side. He examined her bleeding hand, gestured with two fingers to ask for a scissors and spun his hand in a circle to ask for a bandage, “Whoosh whoosh whoosh!” Igor whispered to reassure her as he wrapped the gauze.
So the American student learned. At times when words fail, they often prove unnecessary.
Portuguese
Portuguese is the 7th most widely spoken language in the world. Its alphabet is the same as that of English, but with three of their letters (K, W, and Y) used only in words of foreign origin. It is fast growing as the third most widely spoken European language, with contemporary speakers around the globe including people of Brazil, Mozambique, India, and Indonesia – heirs of Portugal’s Age of Exploration centuries ago.
From that era, Portuguese became the lingua franca, the language for communication between strangers of mutually unintelligible tongues. It was spoken to convey the gospel, to conduct trade, to conquer territories, to impose sovereignty – and to build orphanages. Portuguese is no longer the language of an empire. Nor did it ever achieve the international scope and status that English holds today in this chapter of the Age of Globalization. As sovereignty, interaction and influence change hands across time, language translates to political power.
Bengali
Bengali is the 6th most widely spoken language in the world. The alphabet consists of eleven vowels with seven sounds, 39 consonant characters with 29 sounds, and with additional letters made of combined sounds. Written Bengali cannot be adequately rendered according to English phonetics, and it is often inadequately transliterated first through Hindi. Although it retains influences from Sanskrit, Arabic, Urdu, and English, Bengali, which is present in countries like Bangladesh, India, and Nepal, retains a fierce air of independence according to its past and present.
After the partition of India, the establishment of Pakistan, in 1947, the government in West Pakistan decreed that only Urdu could be spoken, effectively attacking the Bengali speakers of the East. In 1952, protests led to the death of 12 students who were martyred as members of the Bengali Language Movement. The riots and military violence culminated in Bangladesh’s war for independence in 1971, at the cost of 3 million Bangladeshi victims of genocide. The monument erected in memory of the murdered students remains printed on Bangladesh currency.
At times words may fail, but people will die for them to be spoken.
In 1999, the prime minister of Bangladesh inspired an agency of the United Nations to declare February 21st to be International Mother Language Day. The resolution stated: “the recognition was given bearing in mind that all moves to promote the dissemination of mother tongues will serve not only to encourage linguistic diversity and multilingual education but also to develop fuller awareness about linguistic and cultural traditions throughout the world and to inspire solidarity based on understanding, tolerance and dialogue.”
All languages are valuable. Perhaps it is not a lingua franca that makes international communication possible.
Hindi
Hindi is the 5th most widely spoken language in the world. It is the national language of India in addition to English and 21 other languages spoken throughout the Indian states. The language and alphabet evolved from ancient Sanskrit and it is still written with Sanskrit’s Devanagari script. Except for differences in some vocabulary and system of writing, Hindi is incredibly similar to Urdu. Before India’s partition, Hindi and Urdu were known as the same spoken language of Hindustani. Hindi also bears similarities with English, in combination with their shared ancestry as Indo-European languages and with Britain’s imperial influence. Hindi was standardized in the late 1950s and declared the national language in 1965.
One of the student’s co-workers hailed from India. He was fluent in three languages in accordance with the demand of all Indian students within the southern state of Andhra Pradesh. He spoke Telugu, his mother language, Hindi, his national language, and English, his international language. Initially skeptical of an American student’s welcome for foreigners, Bharath, whose very name is the Hindi word for his home country, kept his distance and silence. The American student thus maintained her own shyness.
Unlikely as it was, where verbal communication withered friendship still grew. One day Bharath brought the potato pastry samosa, food to share. The American student returned the favor when he struggled to work while weak with a fever. She bent down, picked up the garbage, and managed the store in his place. Then he brought Indian sweets to work. She brought a copy of the lyrics to an American song he liked.
Bharath brought the American student to a Hindu temple. His white shadow watched in awe of the many rituals. He bowed to statues of gods, recited ancient Sanskrit prayers, claimed the names in his family, gave money offerings, and received blessings from the yellow-robed priests who gently held a bowl over his head. Unable to speak, the student felt herself baptized. She could not understand the words, but somehow knew the spiritual significances. The American student too approached the shrine, bowed, took red powder from the bowl, and marked her brow. Bharath smiled and said it looked good.
The cultural exchange continued. He told her of Indian holidays like Diwali. She brought him Christmas presents. He brought her another friend in new co-workers, Kiran, Raghu, Naveen, and Nikhil – all from Andhra Pradesh. Though they had always been fluent in English, the American student took time to forget her shyness, to converse with them about work, life and culture. The American student came to regard them affectionately as among her closest friends in America. They affectionately regarded her as a fellow Indian save for coloring and language.
English did determine the lingua franca and bridged communication among these relationships. However, the American student learned that in a larger sense, the cross-cultural friendships were not made possible because of English, but because of a more global language of sharing and giving. The student once asked her friend Bharath of the difficulty of learning English and following a foreign culture. He shrugged and intoned, “Think globally, act locally.”
Arabic
Arabic is the 4th most widely spoken language in the world. Its script is standardized and written from right to left with letters that change according to their position within a word. Its present tremendous popularity apart from various dead languages with similar ancient roots is tied to the growth of Islam and its sacred text, the Qur’an. Arabic has several spoken dialects across the Middle East and North Africa in addition to a Modern Standard from known as Fus’ha, preferred as a lingua franca and a mode for public broadcasting, and a Classical form for spiritual texts and ceremonies. Modernization and use of foreign words for Arabic remains a sensitive issue among many of its speakers who hesitate to change a language founded in religious values.
The Syrian Mary Ann Ibrahim also worked at the restaurant with the student, speaking on the phone with her family and with Arab customers in Mediterranean Arabic. Completely bilingual, she freely discusses with the American student Syria’s modern day and ancient history. She, like that of her namesake, internationally revered, embraces all who know her, full of grace. MaryAnn teaches Igor English with the patience of a saint, works outside her schedule to aid her co-workers in late night closing, and cares for all even when the friendship becomes a cross. She shows hospitality founded in more than that of her cultural tradition.
English
English is the 3rd most widely spoken language in the world, and it is now the world’s most widely spoken second language. It is considered extremely versatile, with possibly the richest vocabulary and with an alphabet that has only 26 letters and about 44 sounds. It was formed by several root languages like Latin and German, and it has adapted efficiently through the changing times. Among other various reasons, this is due to the imperialism of the British Empire, its current range of speakers which exceeds that of any other language, and the efforts of the present Age of Information and spread of international media.
The American student once thought she was good at English, but scarcely knew what such an assessment meant. As an English student, when she had something to read, she usually understood it well. When she had something to write, she usually worded it well. But when she had something to say, she usually avoided it. Her openness and eloquence adjusted according to the one addressed. When she spoke with increasing frequency to foreigners, she strived to be informal and succinct. She realized her language could be extremely simplified: “Igor. Your mother. Your father. What is job?” She became less wordy, and, sometimes, curiously, more honest. The American student realized it was not English she prized but communication itself: writing to reach others with an idea, speaking to reach others with a service.
Spanish
Spanish is the 2nd most widely spoken language in the world. It features several dialects, differing across 44 countries with influences from Latin, Arabic, and English. Its alphabet is similar to that of English but much more highly phonetic, with incredibly reliable rules of pronunciation. Its speakers range primarily across the Western Hemisphere and despite the divide of the Atlantic Ocean, the Spanish of Europe can easily be understood by those who know the Spanish of America.
In the United States, approximately 10% of the population speaks Spanish. More and more American schools try to teach English-speaking children Spanish, and Spanish-speaking children English. Many children of both tongues become too frustrated, and avoid it altogether in the future. Perhaps this might not be the case if children of either tongue met more of the other.
Otherwise, sometimes English- and Spanish-speaking Americans meet each other in adulthood and their past struggles matter less than they thought. An American student’s aunt and uncle employ a woman named Rufina to watch their infant son. She does not speak a word of English, and they not a word of Spanish. But as the grandmother of over 20 children and grandchildren, with a lovely disposition, and deep friendship with the family, it hardly matters that Foster may grow up to become bilingual.
Chinese
Chinese is the most widely spoken language in the world. There are four tones to each sound which determines the meaning of words, which are depicted as syllables and parts, known as morphemes, by thousands of universally understood, but dissimilarly pronounced, ideographs and their combinations. Chinese, which has the greatest number of native speakers, encompasses many spoken subdivisions that are regarded as dialects or even other languages, with speakers very often familiar with more than one version. There are varying, complex relationships between the written and spoken Chinese languages.
English is very difficult for a native Chinese speaker. At the restaurant, many abandon altogether the attempt to verbally communicate. They will simply point at their selection, offer their credit card with both hands, and leave with a grateful smile. A new co-worker, Sam, the daughter of Punjab Indians, quit trying to distinguish thick Chinese accents and exclaimed “how do you understand them!?”
The American student, who doesn’t speak a word of Chinese, only smiles in reply.
Love
Love is spoken by less than 6 billion people in over 200 countries. It is perhaps the most popular subject in all forms of art and literature throughout time, for all time. Nevertheless, it is still considered difficult to speak.
Across the globe, teachers and philosophers, priests and prophets, strived to study this language to record the universal truth: to love one another is to love the foreigner also. Whether people follow the Buddhist Sutras, the Christian Bible, the Hindu Upanishads, the Muslim Qu’ran, or any other sacred text besides their own instincts, one must recognize that the stranger to whom they cannot speak can receive their care.
Perhaps love can also be considered a minimalist language.
The more the student of the world learns of language, the less necessary English, grammar, and structure seem to matter. What really matters in communication is the intent and attempt: the mind and the heart.
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