Debate over English about more than words

International dilemma
Elsewhere, however, language has often stirred very strong feelings.

Some 158 nations have included a specific measure in their constitutions promulgating one or more national languages, according to a survey by Eduardo Faingold, a professor at the University of Tulsa. The United States is one of the relatively few without such a measure.

Language has been the source of bitterness in countries like South Africa, where the imposed teaching of Afrikaans to black South Africans was closely associated with apartheid.

Some nation’s policing of language has gone far beyond the verbiage in their constitution.

France’s Academie Francaise is both admired and ridiculed for its dedication to protecting the “langue de la nation” from words borrowed from other tongues — particularly English.

Canadian lawmakers have labored to make clear that theirs is a bilingual nation, ensuring that everything from cereal boxes to highway signs are written in both French and English. Except, that is, in the predominantly French-speaking province of Quebec, where English has been eliminated from most officially sanctioned language.

In Israel, the Academy of the Hebrew Language creates new Hebrew words and rules on spelling and grammar. In Iceland, the government established the Islensk Malstod, a national institute that considers and crafts the new words needed to sustain a language that has changed little in nearly 1,000 years.

Treasure or inconvenience?
That goal has become increasingly important as a means to keep up as English has spread globally, asserting itself into business, science and other fields that depend on a living, up-to-date language, said Ari Pall Kristinsson, the director of the institute. He spoke — in English — by telephone from Reykjavik.

“(Icelandic) has a long history as a language and that’s generally regarded as some sort of treasure that you should take care of,” he said.

Then again, most Icelanders also speak some English, which gives them something in common with people in many countries, whose lives have long involved speaking and being comfortable with languages other than their own.

That might help explain the antagonism that language can stir in the United States, where most people do not speak a second language and experts say many remain uncomfortable hearing the unknown used around them.

Hard to change behavior
But the recurring debate over English is almost certainly about more than that, Wolfram and others say. The emotions surrounding language resurface less because of the comfort people feel with English than with the discomfort many American feel with everything that the influx of new languages represents.

A law establishing English as the official language might be largely symbolic. Or it could lead governments to restrict services it provides in other languages.

But could such a law change reality? In France, despite the best efforts of the Academie Francaise to root out Franglais, people still talk about their plans for “le weekend.”

And consider all those commercials in Spanish, a regular feature now on American airwaves. Businesses realize the value of speaking to people in whatever language makes them most comfortable — and Crawford says that is something Americans will have to make peace with.

“It’s never about the language,” Wolfram said. “It’s always about the cultural behaviors that are symbolically represented by language. That’s what scares us.”

MORE FROM LIFE

Life Section Front

Road salt shortage vexes states Activist moves homeless into foreclosures Kosher meat getting scarce 30-mile pile a symbol of FEMA delays Attorney: Trampled worker lacked training Schwarzenegger declares fiscal emergency Pilot's promise: If teens build it, he'll fly it Life Section Front   Add Life headlines to your news reader: