A joke with a question

[Ballaw de Quincewold]

What do you call someone that speaks two languages? Bilingual. What do you call someone that speaks three languages? Trilingual? What do you call someone that speaks only one language? An American.

While this joke is good for a chuckle, it presents a question that seems to have an obvious answer, but one that I'm not satisfied with. Since this board is occupied mainly by people from England and various European countries I am curious as to what your opinion is on this. Is it really because of America's massive prominence in the last century or is it something else? Is it because of our almost complete geographic separation from countries with different languages? Is it something inherent in the American psyche to rebuff opposing/differing lifestyles/languages? I may be "making a mountain out of a molehill" but I am still interested what you guys think about this matter.

[Ron Ofir]

I'm not sure how this this is. Do Englishmen know more than just English? I know only a handful of Americans and a single Englishman, which is too little I guess, but the English guy knows only English and quite a few of the Americans knew a second language (French and Spanish, I think). I do know that people that don't have English as their first language, usually have to learn it so they'll be able to get along (i.e in Israel you must know English to get to the university).

[chckn8r]

I think it's a lot of different things.

1. The American economy is one of the largest in the world ( I think the largest), so, at one point or another, if you're dealing in international trade, then you'll have to start speaking English.

2. American pop-culture has been so pervasive in the past century, that it's hard not to be influenced by it in the rest of the world. There's an intoxicating fascination with American music, food, lifestyle... it's one of the only ones from the "new world" that evolved so far from its' roots.

3. I don't think this is an American phenomenon, but with reference to pop-music, English has been noted to be one of the easiest languages to set to that genre of music. I forget where I read this, but most of the romantic languages (French, Italian) are too "soft", the Germanic languages are too "hard" with lots of consonants. English seems to have a combination of consonants and vowels that is pleasing to hear and fits with pop music - probably one of the biggest language influences in the last century...

D

[Thorolf]

Heh! First, I’d like to point out that the pervasive influence of pop music through the english language has been at least as important through England than through the USA. Hollywood and Broadway, yes, but since the Beatles, Britain is where a lot of (the most important) pop influences come from.

Regarding the main question, remember that French and British children has eachothers language as subjects in schools for an insane amount of years, considering the fact that they end up not learning eachothers languages in any useful way (I know I generalize here, but still… ). At least this means that at least politicians and education systems see the possible gain in learning another language.

But the chauvinism, making british kids thinking that french language is redundant and vice versa—I suspect that that chauvinism is taken to yet another level in the US…

Regards

[chckn8r]

Originally Posted by Thorolf

Heh! First, I’d like to point out that the pervasive influence of pop music through the english language has been at least as important through England than through the USA. Hollywood and Broadway, yes, but since the Beatles, Britain is where a lot of (the most important) pop influences come from.

Yes, I agree that the stuff coming out of Europe (from a Billboard top XX standpoint) is influential rather than being sanitized, regurgitated fluff, but the point is, that pop music - at least the stuff evolved from R&B, Blues, Country, etc. had a big start in America, then got absorbed by other cultures.

Being Canadian and having to had to learn French through my pre-university education, I can sort of relate to what's going on. Sure, the efforts of the government are noble in that they are attempting to recognize and preserve two official languages in Canada, but when it comes to the "real world", when you get outside of Quebec (the French speaking province), there's not any real need to use the other language. Even when interacting with francophone Canadians, if you attempt to converse in French with them, and they hear you struggling, they'll most likely switch over to English - seems like an innate reaction.

It's probably the same thing in France and in England. If there's no practical use for the second language in every-day life, then it'll probably never be used.

What about in Switzerland? Do they not have three official languages? I've heard that most Swiss are quite fluent in all of them because of their proximity to each other and the inter-mingling of the different cultures - don't know, as I've never really been there... But, there again, there's probably a more practical need to learn and keep up a second or third language because you need it.

Now, back to the States, if you happen to travel to the south western states, you'll most likely start hearing more and more people fluent in English and Spanish. Even though Spanish is not an "official" language of the US, there is a growing need to at least understand it because of the growing Hispanic market. Which brings me back to the point on my first thread - America is and has been a HUGE market in the world (from a consumption and development standpoint) for a very long time and whenever money comes into play, that'll be a big influence on how cultures will react and adapt to service that market.

So, I don't know if Americans not learning a second language is a chauvinism thing, but more likely a "well, what's the point?" If they don't HAVE to, then why would they? They're buying a LOT of things and if it makes it easier for them AND makes you more money by being able to communicate in their language, then I doubt there'll be a change.

Now, if the Chinese keep up their growth, I can see their culture and language doing the same thing over the next century... only time will tell!

Cheers,
D

[Student]

The whole Geographical distance from foreign speaking countries also encourages people to speak only English around these parts. With the exception of the third of the population in States near Mexico there really isn't a need for foreign language speaking.

Hey, don't look at me, I'm trying to learn Russian!

[sawscape]

Growing up in Southern California I took Spanish in school for 6 years. However, I never became fluent in the language since I never really needed to. Spanish would almost never come up in day-to-day living, even living 50 miles from Mexico. Even those who speak Spanish use English in the general public (this may eventually change as demographics change).
While Americans are often labeled as being arrogant, uninformed, and/or lazy (when it comes to languages), I don't think that this is why they/we don't learn other languages. The modern lifestyle is fully packed with things to do. American's generally work hard and play hard. Since other languages are rarely required, they become a "nice-to-have." Adding a nice-to-have to a full calendar does not get much attention. It is also noteworthy that many 1st generation and more 2nd generation immigrants to the US loose fluency in the language of their (former) home countries.
Also, which languages would we pick? We have large populations of people from all over the world. Learning other languges is really a personal choice in the US and, thus, not a cohesive, nation-wide mandate.

[sean009]

Yeah, living in USA, I don't think so there is need to learn another language.English is international language and American economy is big one where everyone wants to fit himself.U need to laern another language only when u wanna to go abroad specially in search of job.I will also learn French
after finishing my exams.

[brightparis]

I also want to learn few other languages but my busy schedule does not allow me.