By Yin New Ko
There are a few people who could not accept studying English because English occupied our land and ruled for nearly a hundred years. Especially, they were probably in the colonial era but my granddad was not included among them. He was a farmer who created the land to grow paddy by removing bushes and mounds in virgin land. Later, he owned many acres of land and the Chit-tis (a kind of tribe from India) whose paddy fields were close to my granddad became jealous.
My granddad and Chit-tis were often in arguments associated with the paddy fields as the borders of the paddy fields are adjacent. They faced each other before the township-level court. Sometimes, my granddad lost the case in court; sometimes, the Chit-tis did. No matter how the result came, there was a difficult situation for my granddad. It was nothing but the final order of the case released by the Sub-deputy Commissioner was in English. My granddad could not read it. He had to make the external office clerk translate into Burmese (Myanmar) costing one pya for one word. He felt it was very shameful that he could not read English. He could afford the cost of the translation but his feeling was one had to be able to know English under the rule of the British.
Since then, he decided his son and daughter would be made to be able to become English literate. At that moment, the village he lived viz. “Thetkelgon” which was 2 miles away from Kyaunggon, Ayeyawady Region has only 7 households. It was just a small village indeed. No one was literate and knowledgeable. He sent his son and daughter to Yekyi, a town that was over 22 miles away from Kyaunggon but it had an English Vernacular School and made them learn English. All subjects were taught in English except Burmese. Although his plan for the children’s education was accomplished, the whole village taunt my dad saying Ko Kyaw Hla had dared his children to send them away from the parents’ bosoms. When my dad retold me about it, I could not guess whether it was just jealousy of the villagers or their lack of knowledge.
After over 15 years, the children of U Kyaw Hla, my granddad became English literate. The children of the other villagers were left in the paddy fields of Thetkelgon village. I have mentioned the real event of my dad and aunt before I was born. At present, the time comes to a situation in which English is learned by almost everyone across the world. However, there still are people who taunt the ones who are eagerly learning English. The following interview is the opinion of an expert whose name you all are going to see soon with a well-known magazine explaining how English is shaping one’s life.
The rise of English as a global language seems unstoppable. From Tunis to Tokyo, from Nairobi to New Delhi, good English skills are seen as highly desirable. According to the CEFR Language Exam Resource Centre: “English language instruction for non-native speakers is a $63-billion-a-year industry.” Who, though, might be losing out in the rush to learn English, and is the ascendancy of one language in business, culture, politics, and academia a good thing?
Spotlight spoke to the American linguist and lawyer Rosemary Salomone about her latest book, The Rise of English: Global Politics and the Power of Language, in which she examines how English is shaping our lives.
Spotlight: Your book The Rise of English looks at the role of English in politics, economics, and societies around the world. What is the appeal of this topic for you?
Rosemary Salomone: I was always interested ins languages. My doctorate is in linguistics and, while I was working on it, I was developing and running bilingual programs for French Haitian, Italian, and Spanish-speaking students in very disadvantaged neighbourhoods in New York City. So, I started to write a book about how the United States and anglophone countries were being left behind, but also how English was upending Europe. At the time, in 2013, there were two lively issues on this topic, in France and Italy. In France, a law had been proposed – and was ultimately adopted – that would ease restrictions on teaching university courses in languages other than French, i.e., in English. This caused huge controversy, particularly among the intellectual elite. At the same time in Italy, the prestigious Polytechnic Institute in Milan decided to change all its graduate courses to English within two years. About 100 professors took the institute to court to challenge this. Around this time, I also began looking at the role of English in postcolonial countries – a very different perspective on the problem of English spreading all over the world.
Spotlight: You write: “For people worldwide, native English speakers are presumably the big-time winners in the language lottery.”
R.S.: English is considered cosmopolitan, a sign of modernity. Even young people who don’t speak it well pepper their talk with English phrases. What struck me is how privileged those of us are who do speak English. We can travel the globe, go into any big city where signage will be in English, and in restaurants and hotels find someone who speaks English. And not just that: Political leaders around the world communicate in English, academic conferences are usually held in English, and scientific journals are mostly written in English – if you’re a science professor, you publish in English or perish.
Spotlight: Are there disadvantages to being a native speaker of English?
R.S.: Well, in the US, for example, poor children get a steady diet of mathematics and reading in English and that’s very important, but they don’t get what we call enrichment courses: arts, sports, music, and foreign languages. I found that few African-American students, for instance, were taking French or Spanish lessons. I looked at data on study abroad and, unsurprisingly, not many African-American or Latino students were studying abroad. Yet, we know that multiple language skills are an entrée into higher-level jobs with multinational corporations.
Spotlight: Access to good-quality English-language lessons outside the Anglosphere seems very much hit-and-miss. Can you tell us more about this?
R.S.: In postcolonial countries such as India, we see parents spending their last penny to send their children to fee-paying schools that are supposedly teaching them English. Even in Western Europe, from what I understand, many children are now required to learn English in primary school. In many cases, they’re taught by teachers who don’t speak English very well. All over the world, parents want their children to have the best possible opportunities, but what they’re getting is not always particularly useful or good quality.
Spotlight: In the chapters on English in the EU, it seems Germany is not promoting the use of German with the same intensity as, say, France is pushing the French language. Why do you think that is?
R.S.: I think Germans are very pragmatic about learning English. They see English as having a value in the global economy, but I also think – and this is a rather delicate subject and one I entirely understand – that since World War II, Germany has been careful not to exhibit signs of nationalism. There’s lots of patriotism in the US and France, too, but I think Germany does not want to show such outward manifestations of patriotism.
Spotlight: In The Rise of English, you say India still has a complex relationship with the English language. Can you tell us more about this?
R.S.: India is probably one of the most complicated countries in terms of multilingualism. According to a 2011 census, there are over 19,000 overlapping languages in India, which is a very high level of multilingualism. At the same time, it has been unable to reconcile the tension between Hindi and English and the issue of which language was going to be dominant. English has always been a favourite language in India for government and schooling – although, from the numbers I’ve seen, only about four per cent of the population is fluent in English. The current government, led by Narendra Modi, is highly nationalistic and, in 2019, tried to impose Hindi in schools. There was a lot of resistance, especially in the south of India, where those who don’t speak Hindi see English as their protector, their bulwark against Hindi. In the end, the plan was rejected.
Spotlight: Do you think English, by its structure, is especially suited to being a lingua franca?
R.S.: Perhaps English is a bit easier because our nouns are not gendered, but then again, it’s difficult because it’s not phonetic. Some English words are similar to French, Italian, Spanish, or Portuguese, so those speakers might find it a little easier to navigate English vocabulary. But to me, the reason English is becoming a lingua franca is purely political. It began with the British Empire. Then, just as that empire was falling apart, in the mid-20th century, and Europe was trying to recover from the war, the US stepped in as an economic, cultural, and political power. At the same time, you had the development of organizations such as the World Bank and the British Council that was promoting a very pro-English agenda.
Spotlight: If you had a wish for the development of languages in the coming years, what would it be?
R.S.: I’m hoping that recent events may have been a reality check for us – seeing how we’re connected in ways we didn’t understand before. Certainly, the pandemic has put that to the forefront. It took a global effort to move us for- ward to a vaccine. The one developed by Pfizer here in the US together with BioNTech, a German pharmaceutical company, was produced largely by two scientists who were children of Turkish immigrants to Germany. I wondered if it could have been done as quickly if they had not been able to speak English together. At the same time, linguists have realized that language shapes our view of the world – and anyone lucky enough to speak more than one language understands that.
XDHere, one can contemplate widely and in detail about English, the international language, as a useful tool or a beneficial device of the world, I assume.
Reference: Spotlight July 2022
