When I am in
a new place one of the things I like to do where possible is read a local
newspaper if one is available in a language I have a chance of at least
partially understanding. I find it interesting to see what is important there
and how they see the world as well as the interest in local activities. So
being in Canada I bought the weekend version of The Globe, one of the articles
written on the eve of Quebec’s National Day was on the future of bilingualism
in Canada.
I knew Canada
was officially bilingual and I knew in Quebec French was the dominant official
language but neither I nor my French/English speaking friend that I have been travelling
with for a while had appreciated just how French it was. Signs even for
tourists are almost all in French only. Many people could speak English in the
restaurants and tourist places we visited but French was the default language
and there was no doubt that when my friend asked in French she got a lot more
extra information than if I started off with my “Bonjour. Parlez-vous anglais?”
or alternatively attempted to answer a question in French and which point
terrible broken Spanish would come out of my mouth as if according to my brain
all foreign languages are the same! Or as I just tried after a lot of mental
preparation on the long distance bus today having finally been left to fend for
myself on the journey to Montreal “Excusez-moi, vous avez internet?” after my
unsuccessful attempts to get meaningful internet access via the bus Wi-fi. I
understood that my neighbour on the bus had also not got internet but then she
kindly explained a lot more to me than I had any chance of understanding, being
worried she may think I was someone she could engage in conversation or that I
should be answering something and I might be seen as rude I tried to say
“Perdon, je ne comprende pas tout” it came out as neither French nor Spanish
that any intelligible person could understand something along the line of
“Perdon, no comprendo (oops forgotten better add in the I) je pas todo”. I
guess she got the message we weren’t going to be having a conversation anyway!
It was
interesting to learn that the Official Languages Act of Canada wasn’t designed to
encourage bilingualism but to ensure that all Canadian citizens whether French
or English speaking has the right to access to all services in a language they could understand. A Canadian friend
told me that the current population of Canada is approximately 30 million and
according to the Globe around 5 million Canadians speak languages other than
French and English at home. I was astonished to learn that in 1950 450,000
Canadians spoke Ukrainian at home and that briefly there was a discussion about
making Ukrainian an official language, but by the third generation of
immigrants only 45,000 people spoke Ukrainian at home. What would have been the
effect of making Ukrainian official?
The article
explored Canadians feelings about bilingualism in their nation and what were
people’s reasons for learning the language which was not their mother tongue.
Since the Globe is an English language newspaper obviously much more of the
responses were from Anglophones of which the majority felt bilingualism was a
good thing to be encouraged. The answers mostly emphasised establishing a
stronger sense of national unity and identity and better job prospects.
This got me
thinking about why we learn other languages and perhaps why we should learn
other languages apart from the ongoing research that being fluent in at least a
second language and ideally more seems to help stave off Alzheimer’s disease
and dementia. As someone who comes from a country that traditionally hasn’t
really valued learning other languages and yet spent 7 years learning French at
school and 3 years learning German and Latin it struck me that I have no memory
of ever having a discussion as part of my studies about why it might be good to
learn another language except for it giving breadth to your later study and
career options. You learn to earn or learn so you can study more, which seems
rather narrow minded. The irony of course is that 25 years later the only
foreign language I speak well is Spanish which I learnt as an adult.
So why do we
learn languages other than our mother tongue? I guess like most people my
primary motive has been to communicate and survive in a place where English is
not spoken or at least not widely. I want to be able to explain what I want, to
tell people what to do or what I think and not to feel both foolish and
vulnerable when someone talks to me and I can’t understand what they are
saying. When I describe the motive like this it sounds very self-centered,
perhaps more self-centered than I would like but this is pretty much the truth
of it.
Not all my
motives are self-centered however, there is a small part of me that tries to
learn a few words, such as greetings of the language of a country that I am
going to visit simply as a courtesy to show that even though I can’t speak it I
value their language and am trying to show some respect before I have to ask “Do
you speak English?”. In Manila there was little reason for me to learn Tagalog
to meet my survival or day to day communication needs, but I am sure my
colleagues appreciated the fact I tried to learn a couple of words at least.
As I have
reflected on this I have realised that in many ways the most compelling reason
to learn another language is the one that I have never heard discussed and I have only
discovered as I have gained a reasonable fluency in Nicaraguan Spanish.
Speaking another language well allows us to more deeply hear and understand
other people’s stories both personal and corporate and as such to expand our
view of the world and recognise our common humanity as well as our differences. Each language has words
and expressions that do not easily translate into another language which make
you aware of how limited your own language as well as others may be in
expressing everything, sayings and jokes teach us so much that cannot truly be
translated, it allows us to more deeply appreciate the culture and art of
another people. Even as I write parts of this post I am listening to Shakira
and enjoying the joy of lines such as “cuando menos piensas sale el sol” (“when
you least expect it the sun comes out” although not a direct translation) The
more we appreciate others the greater the understanding and peace between us.
Would I have
been more interested in languages at school if I had understood that at heart
it wasn’t about having a breadth of study to give me more career options later,
nor was it about grammatical exercises all be it they are necessary, it was
about being able to understand other people’s stories and experiences, increasing
the meaning in my encounter with humanity and building peace? Perhaps, perhaps
not but it would certainly have made all language learning seem more valuable.
So as I leave
French speaking Canada, should I go and refresh and develop my French which has
been dormant and largely forgotten for 25 years? Yes. Will I? Hopefully.
