On the flight from Malaysia to Thailand a thought occurred to me that never had before: I come from a nation that was once part of the British Empire. I mean obviously I knew that but, of course, I don't think of the United States like that. I think of us as The United States and the fact that we were even associated with Great Britain is incidental at this point. I mean the Revolutionary War isn't even the war that defines us anymore. That would be the Civil War, which now that I think of it is all too appropriately myopic for Americans. Of course the US can't be bothered to be defined by anything other than itself.
Anyway, thinking of the US as a former British colony means I have something in common with Malaysians and Singaporeans. We’re all former subjects of the Queen and as a result have to this day some of vestiges of that fact. There’s one specific vestige that I feel particularly blessed by: the English language.
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| If you read English this Singaporean fast food is easy to order. Come to think of it, all food and everything else for that matter is easy to negotiate and order in Singapore if you read English. |
In Malaysia and Singapore the prevalence of English took me a while to get used to. It’s everywhere. In Singapore it's the primary language, as in on signs the English is most prominent and then the other languages (Chinese, Malay, and mystery) are below it in a font a fraction of the size. At first I was baffled by this but then I remembered the British Empire thing and it bummed me out because it felt, I don't know know, repressive or something. After a day or two something else occurred to me. Both Singapore and Malaysia are a mix of Chinese, Malay, Indian, and “other” people and they need a common language that cuts across those boundaries. That language, for a variety of reasons, is English. You know what nation that sounds like? Exactly, the United States.
None of my European forebearers were native English speakers. They spoke Norwegian, Danish, German, and French--and a little Hebrew mixed in there--before arriving in America. Two generations later their children spoke nothing but English, which seems to be a big difference between Southeast Asia and the United States. English is a binding agent in Southeast Asia whereas in America it's a mandatory, all consuming leviathan. Why Southeast Asians keep their mother and father tongues while we Americans readily abandoned ours will perhaps be the subject for a future post but onwards with this one.
What's important here is thanks to the existence and demise of the British Empire--plus the outcome and repercussions of the WWII, but let’s save that for another time--I can travel through Malaysia and Singapore with relative ease without being able to speak Chinese, Malay, Hindi, or mystery.
This is a gift. A gift with an expiration date.
To my primarily English speaking brethren, be warned. At the turn of the 20th century the globally binding language was... French. A couple of World Wars later and English took the reigns. As impossible as it seems English can and probably will fall from its perch and it won't take a couple of World Wars to do it.
China just decided English is no longer a mandatory in school. How much longer until other nations with, um, turbulent relations with the US (I'm looking at you Germany, Russia, all of the Middle East, all of South and Central America) say to themselves, "You know what? I may not be able to go toe-to-toe with the US but that doesn't mean I have to live in its shadow either." I have no idea what the next globally binding language will be (enter stage left: Esperanto!) and it will certainly take a few generations to dethrone English, but rest assured, the only certainty is change. Just ask Queen Elizabeth.
As an American I confess to knowing precious little about the British Empire. We were a part of it, it was all over the world and hilariously disproportionate in relation to the size of Britain (and still shrinking: Scotland will have its FREEDOM!) and that's about it. As far as I know its one and only notable contribution to the world we live in was laying the groundwork for the widespread use of English around the world.
So what I'm saying, My Fellow English Speakers, is at this point the British Empire existed and then collapsed so that you can travel to far flung places on the other side of the planet to see things and meet people that would have otherwise been all but inaccessible to you. Do not fail to grasp the gift you've been given thanks to the random fact you were born in an English speaking nation. If you do an Empire that once spanned the globe will have been in vain and your great-grandchildren will spit on your grave.
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| Don't let these glorious people be dead in vain. |
I hope you don't mind my comments. I find your remarks very interesting.
ReplyDeleteI still find the Revolutionary War to be defining, although the Civil War was also. It led to the Constitution and Bill of Rights as well as a single nation made up of states. It was Geo Washington who said that the US is to its states as states are to their counties, although it took the Civil War to settle the issue. Today we are still hearing the treasonous doctrine of nullification from conservatives. This matter was raised right in front of Jackson, a very scary dude, who said, "the Union, it shall be preserved!" This meant that if you tried something like that, he would kill you. Everybody swallowed hard and decided to wait until a better time.
German is a language that persisted in America for a very long time. In the Shenandoah Valley, German was spoken until very recent times, including newspapers in that language. WWI caused its rapid decline. The same in New Ulm, where it disappeared after WWII. The disappearance of these pockets of foreign language was produced by military trauma. American Indian languages are being lost mainly through practicality. The same will be true to some extent of Spanish. The dominant language of business of government has a momentum that is difficult to stop. That's what happened to Hebrew vs. Aramaic. Cajun is still spoken in Louisiana, despite the impracticality of being discongruous with the surrounding linguistic environment. This is partly due to the fact that we have not fought a war with France.
The countries of southeast Asia may look to China as the center of the world since it is so close to them. But if China does not achieve cultural hegemony, the practical aspect may not act in their favor. That China itself no longer views English as mandatory may simply be a nationalistic conceit.
I don't see India giving up English for Chinese, unless they are conquered by the latter. It was, after all, conquest that established English there. It persists as one of the most important unifying forces in that country, which would otherwise fragment into numerous pieces. The same is true of artificial countries in Africa.
It should also be said, that while French is no longer the lingua franca for the world, it still is in large swaths of Africa and a few places elsewhere, and persists in Quebec despite conquest by the British.