Tok Pisin: Simultaneous Creole and Expanded Pidgin

When explaining how European explorers visited or “discovered” a new place, little attention is paid to how they communicated with the people who were already there. Especially if it was the first time a European had landed, natives almost surely did not speak a language the explorers knew nor did the Europeans speak any of the native languages. Most people have been in a situation where they were forced to communicate with someone they share no common language with. These situations often result in sign language, pointing, noises, and guesses at words the other person will understand, be it in the speaker’s language or her best guess at the other person’s language. Much the same occurred when outside traders came in contact with people with whom they shared no language. If contact between two groups is sustained over a period of time, a standardized form of this rudimentary language arises. This standardized trade language, known as a Pidgin language, is native to nobody and contains elements of the languages of the contact groups, though not exclusively. Tok Pisin, also known as New Guinea Pidgin (NGP) is one of these languages. Its vocabulary is primarily English-based, but its grammar is more similar to Austronesian languages (Wurm 65). However, unlike some Pidgins, which die out when a trade situation ends, Tok Pisin has grown, both in its expressivity and its use. Today it is widely used as a lingua franca in Papua New Guinea and is even some people’s first language. This status places Tok Pisin in a relatively unusual position. Today, it is an expanded Pidgin for most speakers, but a Creole, a Pidgin-based first language, for others.

The rise of Tok Pisin has its roots in trading encounters between Europeans and native Pacific islanders in the 18^th and 19^th centuries. The “Pacific Jargon English” that emerged when European traders and the inhabitants of some Pacific islands first came into contact was highly varied and mostly invented by independent speakers. The ad hoc nature of these jargons was caused by the limited, sporadic nature of trade interactions. This caused different jargons to be used in different trade areas, between different groups, and even just for a single trade interaction (Mühläusler, “External” 37-38). After 1860, a new form of economic interaction caused the stabilization and trend toward standardization of Pidgin English in the region. Plantations in Queensland, Samoa, and Fiji used indentured laborers who were recruited for fixed periods of time. These workers had little linguistic background in common and ended up resorting to Pidgin English to communicate with each other and their employers (Mühläusler, “External” 39-40). This more fixed linguistic situation on the plantations forced all members of a single plantation community to speak a mutually intelligible Pidgin English, since it was the only language they had in common. At the end of an employment contract, often two or three years, laborers would return to their home communities and bring with them the Pidgin English they had learned. Because European plantation recruiters used Pidgin English when finding new laborers in these communities, many young people were eager to learn the language of the returning members of their community (Mühläusler, “External” 40). In this way, a relatively standardized version of Pidgin English began to spread within the system of plantation, recruiters, and labor source community. However, there was still no single form of Pidgin English in the early plantation period. Given the geographical and political (owners came from more than one country) fragmentation of the plantation system, no single form of Pidgin English took over. Only within a group of plantations, geographical locale, or area where one group of owner primarily recruited might there be a relatively standard Pidgin.

Tok Pisin is primarily descended from a form of Pidgin English spoken on Samoan plantations in the late 19^th century. This is because the main areas of recruitment were areas that would later become Papua New Guinea, and as stated above, indentured laborers and recruiters eventually brought their form of Pidgin English back to the home communities ((Mühläusler, “External” 46-47). By the end of the German colonization of New Guinea, which ended with World War I, Tok Pisin had become a lingua franca for the colonial administration. Its spread was not only associated with the German colonizers though. New Guinea Pidgin also enabled more effective and widespread cross-tribe communication. Previously elite tribe members would learn the languages of their surrounding tribes. Tok Pisin allowed people to learn one language, unassociated with any other tribe, and be able to have rudimentary communication with any other speaker. By World War I, the administrative and cross-tribal advantages of Tok Pisin in such a linguistically fragmented region entrenched Tok Pisin in New Guinea as a lingua franca, not just a trade language to be used with Europeans (Mühläusler, “External” 49). With the Australian takeover of colonial authority after World War I, the use of Tok Pisin continued to grow. This period was perhaps the most important period for the language in terms of its development apart from European lexifier languages. Previously, Tok Pisin had been heavily reliant on English, and to a lesser extent German, as lexifier languages. Because Australian and British settlers wanted to maintain a social distance from natives, Tok Pisin developed without much European influence. Grammar, in particular, saw significant internal development during the interwar period (Mühläusler, “External” 54).

World War II was a major turning-point for the spread of Tok Pisin and reinforced its use as the lingua franca of the region. During the War, Australia, American, and Japanese armies all used Tok Pisin as the main language of their propaganda aimed at New Guineans. The war also caused displacement of certain populations, which led to their cohabitation with other language groups (Mühläusler, “External” 57). These trends of a Tok Pisin media and integration in living situations continued after the war. The post-war attitudes of the colonial administration also had a significant impact on the use of the language and set it on its current trajectory. The social distance that had existed between English-speakers and native New Guineans began to disappear. Previously, English had been the language of whites and Tok Pisin the language of natives. Natives who spoke English were looked at as having exceeded their social status. Following World War II, the Australian government began to break down this barrier by building English-language schools and encouraging New Guineans to learn English (Mühläusler, “External” 60). English became the language of education in New Guinea because of this new policy and even today with an independent Papua New Guinea, most government education is conducted in English (Smith 21).

Tok Pisin is often referred to as New Guinean Pidgin, a term that while partially accurate, is ultimately misleading. This is because Tok Pisin is also spoken as a creolized first language in some communities. The creolization of Pacific Pidgin English is not necessarily new. In the plantation communities of the late 19^th century, laborers from different tribes sometimes had children with each other and they could only communicate with them in Pidgin English. As a result, their children spoke Pidgin as their first language and somewhat expanded the language to make it more expressive than a standard pidgin would allow. However, most of the expansion was just borrowing from other languages that they heard around them. Due to the fixed duration of their parents’ contracts, these children always returned at a young age to a community with a single common language and ended up learning that language instead. By the time they were older, these children had often forgotten most of the Pidgin English that had been their first language. Mühlhäusler, an authority on Tok Pisin, pidgin languages, and creolization, uses the above example to illustrate that creolization can only occur on a community not individual level (Mühlhäusler, Growth 172-173). The more permanent multi-lingual community that enabled true, widespread creolization did not occur until after World War II. Large population movements during and after the war as well as a growth in multi-tribal, urban centers created communities were people intermarried and permanently lived with other people who did not speak their native language (Mühlhäusler, Growth 173). This situation was ripe for creolization, which would occur when children of first generation migrants grew up speaking primarily the pidgin language of the community.

However, creolization in Papua New Guinea is markedly different from the typical view of creolization, which has been shaped by study of Caribbean language development. In the Caribbean, creoles developed in a single generation. Slaves from various linguistic backgrounds were brought to a single island and, much like plantation laborers in Samoa, formed a pidgin language that all could understand. However, because there were no defined linguistic communities other than the whole one, almost all of this first generation’s children spoke an expanded, creolized version of the pidgin language. In New Guinea on the other hand, people continue to use Tok Pisin only as an expanded pidgin while other people speak it as their primary language. Tok Pisin, therefore, is a language that is undergoing what Mühlhäusler calls “gradual” creolization instead of the “drastic” creolization of the Caribbean islands. He explains this distinction further:

“The transition from a minimal pidgin to a fully-fledged creole is gradual. It must be added that this is also true for the distinction between first and second language. Paralleling the linguistic and functional expansion of NGP, one can observe a gradual decrease in the age at which NGP is acquired. Though the number of those who learn NGP as their first language is small, more and more children learn NGP together with, or shortly after, a local vernacular. At the same time, a considerable number of speakers are using NGP most of the time because they find it more useful than their mother tongue.” (Mühlhäusler, Growth 169)

Therefore, the creolization of NGP is not so much a necessity in Papua New Guinea as it is a convenience. In all, Mühlhäusler believes that NGP is not symptomatic of creolization in general because of the distinctions outlined above (Growth, 170). Instead, Tok Pisin is highly unusual in its position as a simultaneous creole and pidgin language.

In order for a language to develop from basic pidgin to expanded pidgin to creole, it must significantly expand its lexicon. Initially, pidgins are very rudimentary and have only a few hundred words. The various jargons spoken in the islands that would become Papua New Guinea contained no more than 300 words according to various sources compiled by Mühlhäusler (Growth 182). Mühlhäusler believes that in the case of Tok Pisin, “when new expressions were needed they were borrowed from either English or a local vernacular since mechanisms for the expansion of lexicon from internal resources were nearly always absent”. He is unable to find any traces of a “productive derivational lexicon” from the pre-World War I development of the language (Growth 191). This is possibly due to Tok Pisin’s historical role as a secondary language for almost all of its speakers. English, however, was not the only lexifier for the language. In fact, the languages of the local communities around the plantations, such as Samoan, as well as the native languages of some speakers, such as Tolai, appear to have entered the lexicon. In addition, during the German colonial period, Tok Pisin adopted some German words, particularly for construction and carpentry vocabulary (Mühlhäusler, Growth 192). After World War I, Tok Pisin began a period of internal development with increasing use of derivational vocabulary (237). However, with increased English language instruction after World War II, Tok Pisin is being reintroduced to its original lexifier language. Words of German origin and some of the longer derivational terms developed in the interwar period are being replaced by new base words that are usually of English origin. For example, the noun, record, used to be “plet bilon bokis musik,” but has now been replaced by “rekot.” Mühlhäusler point out that replacements like the one above have occurred organically, meaning that they have not come about through any central language planning authority (242).

English, however, is not just a more complicated version of Tok Pisin. In fact, there exists a relatively complicated relationship between the two languages, primarily because of education and different amounts of familiarity with English. While English is the main source of vocabulary, the syntax of NGP remains relatively unchanged from its 1920s internal development. In this way, no matter how many English words are adopted, Tok Pisin will still remain distinct from English. That said, there is strong pressure on the language by English speakers who regularly pepper their language with English. In the 1970s, Mühlhäusler even went so far as to claims that “speech forms intermediate between NGP and English are developing” (Growth 289). The logical conclusion of Mühlhäusler’s observations along with the fact that English language schooling is only spreading would suggest that there is the possibility of simply adopting English as a national lingua franca in place of Tok Pisin. However, there are several reasons why this does not seem likely in the near future. Geoff Smith, who published a book in 2002 about Tok Pisin, talks about a similar variety of English use. He ultimately believes that decreolization is not occurring in Papua New Guinea though. This is because familiarity with English and Tok Pisin is not at the level it needs to be for widespread change to occur. Tok Pisin remains a secondary, trade language for much of Papua New Guinea’s population (Smith 211). “Normative pressure from second language speakers,” he claims, “is likely to mean that more radical changes do not become community norms” (211). He claims that as long as most people are not truly comfortable with English and Tok Pisin, widely adopted change will be very gradual (211). In his initial research in the 1970s, Mühlhäusler noted that pressures from widely spoken Rural Pidgin, which is less affected by English and usually a second language, kept new English lexicon from being introduced too quickly. Most of the print media at the time used standardized Rural Pidgin and was relatively conservative in adopting new, English-based phrases that their rural constituents would not understand (Growth 299). Though English is the main source for new words in Tok Pisin, the introduction of new words into what is considered standard language is limited by how quickly non-English speakers will accept them.

The relationship between Tok Pisin and English is also significantly affected by perceptions of the two languages. English, historically and currently continues to be respected and perceived as a tool for economic success by many New Guineans. In the 1970s, Mühlhäusler noted that the younger generation associated English with upward mobility (Growth 289). Julie Piau, a Papua New Guinean student studying in Australia during the 1980s, wrote about attitudes towards Tok Pisin by people in her country. She associated the status of English in relation to Tok Pisin and its use in government schools. “A large number of Papua New Guineans cannot see Tok Pisin as the language of instruction in schools […] The reason [parents] send their children to school is to learn English because they do not have to go to school to learn Tok Pisin” (489). Piau’s comment shows a clear divide between what many parents apparently see as the language of the street and home, Tok Pisin, and the language of education and business, English. In his research published in 2002, Smith noted a similar attitude. He claimed that English was “widely regarded as the key to social and economic opportunity and continues to be the language of most government education” (21). In this statement, Smith also implicitly links regard for English with its role as the language of education. It seems that throughout the postwar period, English has been perceived as opening up opportunities. This perception seems to be a significant reason for its use in schools and therefore, its use as a lexifier language.

When hearing or reading about Tok Pisin, it is easy for a foreigner to come to many conclusions about the language. Jared Diamond, an ornithologist of Papua New Guinean birds, had a fairly typical initial reaction to hearing Tok Pisin. He gives the examples of the following Pidgin phrase: “Kam insait long stua bilong mipela--stua bilong salim olgeta samting--mipela i-ken helpim yu tong kisim wanem samting yu laikim bikpela na liklik long gutpela prais.” The phrase translates to “Come into our store--a store for selling everything--we can help you get whatever you want, big and small, at a good price.” Hearing and reading phrases like the one above initially led Diamond to the following reaction: “When I arrived in PNG and first heard Neo-Melanesian, I was scornful of it. It sounded like long-winded, grammarless baby talk” (Diamond). However,

“On talking English according to my own notion of baby talk, I was jolted to discover that New Guineans weren't understanding me. My assumption that Neo-Melanesian words meant the same as their English cognates led to spectacular disasters, notably when I tried to apologize to a woman in her husband's presence for accidentally jostling her, only to find that Neo-Melanesian pushim doesn't mean "push" but instead means ‘have sexual intercourse with.’” (Diamond)

The fact that Diamond, an educated person who also teaches physiology at UCLA, initially felt this way about Tok Pisin shows that it is not a trap only uneducated or closed minded people can fall in to.

It is also easy for a foreigner, particularly an English speaker, to criticize the lack of vocabulary of the language. Wurm, author of several papers on Tok Pisin, disputes this notion and claims that it is largely a result of imposing European standards on the expressiveness of the language. Though Tok Pisin is unable to thoroughly communicate what people can express in English, it does an adequate job for communication in modern New Guinean culture. Wurm believes that the language will need to continue developing to reflect changes in New Guinean culture, but that as long as this occurs, Tok Pisin will remain relevant and adequate for the needs of New Guineans (70). Though Wurm’s observations were made more than 20 years ago, Smith’s more recent research, showing that Tok Pisin is still mostly used as a secondary language of intertribal communication, shows that it has remained relevant to the people of Papua New Guinea.

Tok Pisin is a highly unusual language in several respects. Its position on the Pidgin and Creole spectrum is indefinite given its tremendous variety in speakers and levels of fluency. A sizable minority of people speaks Tok Pisin as their first language. However, the majority of speakers still use it as an expanded Pidgin. There is also a divide in how many Tok Pisin speakers also speak English, a divide that leads to conflicting pressures on the direction of the language’s development. These heterogeneous factors, along with the intense fragmentation of language groups in Papua New Guinea itself, make it difficult to understand all of the influences on the language. However, the role of English in education and its apparent pressure on Tok Pisin will likely continue to be very important to how the language develops. Though experts like Mühlhäusler have significantly contributed to the understanding of New Guinean Pidgin and thoroughly documented its usage, further research is still needed. How the gradual creolization of Tok Pisin compares to the creolization of Caribbean languages merits further study, especially given that Tok Pisin is in the process of creolization. Linguistic interactions between creolized, or first language speakers, and less familiar speakers have not been studied sufficiently either. In terms of the historical and future development of Tok Pisin, it will be interesting to see whether comprehensive English language schooling across the country, if it ever occurs, leads to decreolization and adoption of English or heavy lexical borrowing into Tok Pisin, but its continued use and difference from English.

Works Cited

Works Cited

Diamond, Jared. "Reinventions of Human Language." Natural History 100.5 (1991): 22-28. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 6 June 2010.

Mühläusler, Peter. “External History of Tok Pisin.” Ed. Wurm, S. A, and P. Mühläusler. Handbook of Tok Pisin (new Guinea Pidgin). Canberra, A.C.T., Australia: Dept. of Linguistics, Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University, 1985.

Mühlhäusler, Peter. Growth and Structure of the Lexicon of New Guinea Pidgin. Canberra: Dept. of Linguistics, Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University, 1979.

Piau, Julie. “Some Current Attitudes Toward Tok Pisin.” Ed. Wurm, S. A, and P. Mühläusler. Handbook of Tok Pisin (new Guinea Pidgin). Canberra, A.C.T., Australia: Dept. of Linguistics, Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University, 1985.

Smith, Geoff P. Growing Up with Tok Pisin : Contact, Creolization, and Change In Papua New Guinea's National Language. London: Battlebridge Publications, 2002.

Wurm, S.A. “Status of Tok Pisin and Attitudes Towards It.” Ed. Wurm, S. A, and P. Mühläusler. Handbook of Tok Pisin (new Guinea Pidgin). Canberra, A.C.T., Australia: Dept. of Linguistics, Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University, 1985.

Globish as the New Pidgin Language

A new book by Robert McCrum seeks to explain how English has grown and developed outside of English-speaking countries. Jean-Paul Nerrière, a former IBM executive, noticed that clients and colleagues in East Asia communicated better with each other when they were speaking in English than with native English speakers. For example, a Korean businessman and Japanese businesswoman would understand each other's English better than the English of an American colleague. Nerrière dubbed this phenomenon Globish because the language was a stripped down, distinct version of English that was not necessarily easy for English speakers to master.

With a 1,500 vocabulary, Globish is a standardized, very basic form of English for use as a trade language. In many respects, Globish is similar to Pidgin languages that have arisen throughout history to facilitate trade between two language groups. Pidgin languages are not native to any group and often feature small vocabularies and extremely simple grammar. Pidgin languages are also, like Globish, standardized and not just haphazardly worked out by speakers as they communicate.

The use of Globish as a limited lingua franca also shows the extent to which the English language is used, in some form, by non-native speakers. According to the article, less than 5% of the world population speaks English as its native language, but up to 25% speaks English. This estimation probably does not include people who are somewhat familiar with English and speak a pidgin-like version of it.

Globish and the wider use of English by non-native speakers shows that as the use of imperial languages like English grows, often for economic reasons, the assumption that language and culture are inextricably linked is becoming outdated. While people do gain access to a culture by learning the language of that culture, it is not guaranteed that speakers of basic English will in any way associate with the culture of countries like the United States or Britain.

References:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/21/AR2010052101674.html

English: The Language of Colonization

Ndaba Nkomo, a regular opinion contributor to the Botswana newspaper Mmegi, recently wrote an editorial discussing the status of native languages versus European languages. In general, his editorials reflect a populist point of view and utilize a pseudo historical, pseudo factual style typical of political pundits like Glenn Beck. For example, in another editorial he decries the loss of moral standards in Botswana and states that women have the ultimate ability to maintain moral standards because men are unable to contain their sexual urges. Despite his obvious lack factual rigor and reliance on widely criticized cultural assumptions, Nkomo's arguments for what language represents can be seen as representative of widely held beliefs.

Nkomo, like many others, views language as a key to a people's culture and history. As we have discussed in class, this is a very popular point of view and one that is not without merit. People often feel that their native language allows them to understand how their ancestors thought.

However, he also uses fatalist arguments about the inability of Botswanans to learn proper English. He claims: "I have heard parents speaking to their children at home in English, a language they can never get right no matter how hard they try. Unless you are born in Britain or in an English-speaking country, you can never claim knowledge of English in its truest sense." He later points out that American news outlets often use subtitles when people from Botswana are interviewed even though they are speaking English because their accents are too difficult for Americans to understand. All of this means, he says, that Botswanans are learning a form of English that is not even respected by speakers in "English-speaking countries".

Nkomo's argument completely ignores the concept of local dialects and the organic development of language. Though people may be speaking what they consider to be the same language, dialects and vocabularies can develop to accommodate local ways of life. His assumption that the only proper forms of English comes from English-speaking countries is arbitrary and perpetuates the cultural imperialism he seems to advocate ending. With respect to news organizations like CNN placing subtitles under people from Botswana speaking English, he does not consider a much easier and more neutral explanation. Americans are not accustomed to the accent of people from Botswana. If they were similarly unfamiliar with British or Australian accents, they would probably need subtitles for speakers from those places as well. Furthermore, the need for subtitles shows that the form of English is sufficiently distinct in Botswana that it cannot be easily understood elsewhere. This only further proves that people from Botswana are not just blindly speaking an alien language, they seem to have at least somewhat adapted it.

In all, Nkomo claims that if people in Botswana lose their native language skills and only speak English, they will lose their culture as well. While this may be true to some extent, Nkomo ignores the experiences of other former colonies. Often, they have preserved aspects of their cultures and remain significantly distinct from the place their language comes from. Also, as previously stated, language can be adapted to change to reflect the needs of its speakers. This is not to say that there is no cultural value to preserving a native language. Throughout this course, we have discovered that the language we speak significantly affects how we think. If we are not thinking in the same way our ancestors did, then part of our culture will probably be lost. However, many of the simplifications and generalizations Nkomo makes reflect widely held assumptions about the link between language and culture. Though it is true that there is a significant link between language and culture, the post colonial world should be proof enough that the use of imperial languages does not necessitate adoption of that language's accompanying culture.

References:

http://www.mmegi.bw/index.php?sid=6&aid=2508&dir=2010/May/Friday21

Na'vi: The Language of Avatar

Na'vi, the language used by the fictional beings on Pandora, is gaining popularity amongst diehard Avatar fans. Websites like learnnavi.org have vocabulary and grammar lessons, along with forums for members of the growing Na'vi community to interact and practice. The website even alludes to conventions where people can learn Na'vi and refine their skills.

Paul Frommer, a linguist at USC, was enlisted by James Cameron to create the Na'vi language. Frommer decided he would first decide what sounds to include what sounds to exclude. The second criteria is just as important as the first, he says, because a language with too many kinds of sounds would sound unrealistic. The language he developed has characteristics that many people describe as similar to Polynesian languages, however it is not really based in any single group of languages. Frommer attempted to make Na'vi unique and not necessarily to any certain languages. He included sounds and sound patterns that were similar to south-east Asian languages, among others. However he also used some grammatical structures that have never been used in a language before, for example infixed verb conjugation.

By the movie's release, Frommer had created 1,000 words for Na'vi to be used in the movie and its video game, but he was still the only person who understood the structure of the language. After the movie's release, it became clear that Na'vi would gain a cult following similar to the people who learn the Klingon language of the Star Trek franchise. Frommer has stated that he is working on a more comprehensive dictionary for Na'vi to be published at some point in the future. For now, the Na'vi community must remain content with the 1,000 or so words that are currently available, along with the limited information Frommer has given about the language.

References:

http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/movies/avatars-blue-language-on-the-rise-20100514-v45z.html?autostart=1

http://www.learnnavi.org/

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/herocomplex/2009/11/usc-professor-creates-alien-language-for-avatar.html

English as the Official Language in the US

A small town in upstate New York has declared English to be the official language of all government business and all interactions between government entities and the regular population. Jackson, population 1,700, has no city center and only two restaurants. However, its citizens have felt threatened by what they see as the increasing tendency for American society adapt to its immigrants. One member of the city council that voted for the English only measure stated that he believed today's immigrants were less likely than immigrants in the past to assimilate. Jackson's official government business has been conducted in English since 1816 and there seems to be no immediate threat of any other language taking over. The only non-native English speaking group is a small group of Hispanic agricultural laborers.

The law is largely supported in the community, however, its critics have several complaints. The New York Civil Liberties Union finds the law problematic because it discriminates against people who do not speak English. There would be no lawful way for non-English speakers to interact with the local government given the mandate that all communication must take place in English. A more immediate and possibly more damaging threat is the lack of provision for emergency situations and court testimonies. Neither emergency services people like firefighters and police nor court employees can make any lawful effort to communicate with non-English speakers. This means that somebody who did not speak English and who was accused on committing a local crime would have no ability to defend themselves. Also, a non-English speaker would not be able to communicate with their paramedics or 911 operators.

When asked these sorts of questions, the members of the town council seemed unconcerned and in emergency situations, seemed to believe that whatever needed to happen would happen.

On a national level, The American Civil Liberties Union has declared itself to be against any effort to make English the official language of the United States. Beyond the reasons outlined in the Jackson situation, they state that 45 million people (17.5% of the population) in the United States speak a non-English language in their homes, and that many of these people are American citizens. They believe that any effort to make English the official language of the government would constitute discrimination against American citizens.

ProEnglish, a group that supports making English the official language, makes some counters the simplicity of some of these claims. They state that any action to make English the official language would only mean that government work of record could only take place in English. Furthermore, they state that in issues of public health, safety, tourism, and due process (court and police translators), provisions would be made for non-English speakers. The most compelling reason they give for making English the official language of the country is largely education however. They claim that non-English speakers disproportionately earn less money and are part of lower socioeconomic groups. They also claim that efforts to educate children bilingually perpetuate this problem and that children should be taught English as quickly as possible in order to have better lives. While this may be true, the ACLU points out that many of the representatives who support an effort to make English the official language do not support ESL education.

References:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/13/nyregion/13towns.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

http://www.aclu.org/immigrants-rights/aclu-backgrounder-english-only-policies-congress

http://www.proenglish.org/issues/offeng/index.html

Choosing an Alphabet

It is easy to give little thought to the alphabet or writing system of a language. European languages are written with Roman characters; Russian, Greek, and some Eastern European languages use the Cyrillic Alphabet; and Mandarin Chinese is written using traditional and/or modern characters (the two writing systems are related). When discussing how languages affect the way people think, it is easy to overlook how differently their writing systems might additionally influence how people think. Vowels, consonants, syllables, and words are treated and focused on differently depending on which writing system is used, and even which language within the writing system is used.

The question of how to visually represent spoken language was settled generations ago. However, consideration of the advantages of different alphabets becomes extremely important when it comes to creating a writing system for unwritten languages. When we read about Native Americans attempting to preserve their languages, we take the writing systems they use for granted. Logically, it would either be a traditional, unique script or the Roman script used for English. Roman script is used all over the world and can cause people in Western Europe and the Americas to assume that Roman script is the standard with some notable exceptions. Therefore, whenever a writing system is being created for an unwritten language, it may seem only natural that the Roman alphabet would be used.

This need not be the case. In fact, what proof is there that the Roman alphabet is best suited to represent these languages? Would not a more comprehensive choice of writing systems allow language communities to more precisely and efficiently write their languages than if they arbitrarily chose the Roman alphabet? A Korean group is raising such questions with its promotion of Hangul as a writing system for unwritten languages. Lee Ki-nam, a wealthy South Korean, is pushing to make Hangul the writing system of choice for currently unwritten languages. Her group, the Hunminjeongeum Society, achieved its first success last year with the introduction of Hangul textbooks for the Cia-Cia minority group in Indonesia. Ms. Lee hopes to continue helping groups like the Cia-Cia write their languages down with the aid of the Hangul script.

The prospect of Hangul's spread raises questions about how to go about choosing a writing system. Often, the choice is heavily influenced by politics and the desire to make a political statement. It may not be a coincidence that Bahasa Indonesia, the main Indonesian langauge, uses the Roman script. This fact might have influenced the Cia-Cia to choose a script that would be harder to learn and understand for Bahasa speakers. Putting politics aside though, how could a language group determine what writing system would be best for them? Would they choose it based on similarity to their own collection of sounds and speaking patterns? Would it be based on ease of learning, by perhaps choosing to have the fewest number of characters possible? How is the choice influenced by other language groups using the same writing system? Would a group choose a writing system based on the ability to use already established computers, printing presses, etc?

References:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/12/world/asia/12script.html?_r=2&scp=1&sq=hangul&st=cse

http://www.indiana.edu/~koreanrs/hangul.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangul

Arizona's Language Requirements for Teachers

The Arizona Department of Education has decides to evaluate all teachers teaching ESL (English Second Language) classes to determine if their English is accented and grammatically correct. If these teachers are deemed to use incorrect grammar or speak with heavy accents, then they will not be allowed to continue teaching ESL classes. This measure, predictably, has been linked to broader anti-immigrant sentiment in Arizona, particularly to the recent law mandating local police to enforce federal immigration laws. However, a recent article in the Wall Street Journal goes into more depth. The Arizona Department of Education is simply choosing to reevaluate teachers on rules that are loosely mandated by the federal No Child Left Behind Act. NCLB requires students who are learning English to be taught by "fluent" English speakers, but it leaves enforcement and specific requirements to state boards of education. What has really happened is not an instatement of a law, but a reinterpretation of established laws and a drive to interpret them.

The WSJ article highlights the difficulties of these requirements on some school districts in Arizona. In the 1990s, teachers were actively recruited from South American countries in order to provide high-quality Spanish-language instruction. In 2000, Arizonans voted to have all classes in public schools be in English. These teachers were then required to switch their languages of instruction. Many school administrators are now faced with having to fire or reassign some of their most experienced teachers because of their accents. Also, as the article points out, determining fluency invited arbitrary decisions. However, it would also seem that the Arizona Board of Education has the interest of its English language learners at heart. It seems logical that students would learn English best from a native speaker.

However, a study recently conducted in Israel calls this seemingly logical assumption into question. It found that across subjects matters (not only in language learning), students actually processed information faster when the person who they were learning it from someone who shared their accent. Though the study does not seem large enough to conclusively determine this, - it had fewer than 100 participants - it does suggest that our presumptions of who makes the best teacher for an English language learner may be wrong. Assuming that teacher and student both had similar accents and that the teacher was using correct grammar, her/his accent might actually be a aid rather than a hindrance to students learning a language. It would be interesting to see further research in this area to see if the findings of the Israeli study are confirmed. Also, though students may immediately find it easier to understand someone with their same accent, the study does not study long term impacts of having learned a language from someone with a similar accent versus somebody with a native-speaker's accent. Perhaps in the short term it is easier to learn from somebody with a similar accent, but this similarity may also impair one's eventual ability to understand native speakers.

References:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703572504575213883276427528.html?mod=WSJ_WSJ_US_News_5

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/learning/accented-teachers-may-be-bette.html

The Relationship Between Language and Culture

A common theme throughout discussions of globalization and language is the link between language and culture. Language, it is often assumed or implied, is inextricably linked to the culture of the place it comes from. When Native Americans or members of the Academie Francaise lament what they see as the encroachment of English, they are simultaneously lamenting the encroachment of a foreign culture on theirs. Not only is the language seen as part of its originating culture, it is often seen as the key to understanding a culture. Conversely, we often see learning a language as a way to bridge cultural difference and increase understanding between people of different cultures.

Min Byoung-chul, a South Korean professor has been studying the link between cultural differences and language differences between Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and English speakers. He has found that language alone does not allow people to comprehensively understand each other. In fact, though language can go a long way toward helping people understand each other, cultural norms that differ between cultures can often cause misunderstandings to continue. Standards of eye contact, facial expressions, manners at the table, and aggressiveness can vary drastically between countries. Min has extensively studied and documented situations where immigrants or vacationers, though they spoke the local language, were still misunderstood because of their adherence to their own cultural expectations. He cites an example of a Korean dishwasher who smiled when he broke dishes. His boss fired him because he thought he did not take his job seriously, not understanding that in Korea, smiling is a sign of embarrassment.

A series of commentators on the freakonomics blog of The New York Times explains the economic and political reasons for the increased spread of certain languages, particularly English. However, the blog interestingly points out that with the increasing use of languages like English, language are simultaneously becoming increasingly decoupled from the cultures in which they originated. It seems that language can only go so far to assimilate one culture into another. It also seems that the traditional view that language and culture go hand in hand is now somewhat outdated. It is true that there is often a link between people learning a language and consequently, reading the literature and being exposed to the media and culture of the language's native speakers. However, with lingua franca languages like English being used between two people who, natively, might not speak English, we can not immediately assume that speaking a language immediately aligns people with the culture and ideology of its originating countries.

References:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-korea-interpreter-20100501,0,7133237.story?page=2

http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/28/what-will-globalization-do-to-languages-a-freakonomics-quorum/

Bible Translation into Spanish

Original Version:

(1) In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. (2) Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. (3) And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. (4) God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. (5) God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there
was evening, and there was morning-the first day.

Translated Spanish Version:

In the below version, (1)=footnote 1

En el principio, Dios creó el cielo(1) y la tierra. (2) La tierra no tenía forma y estaba vacía, la oscuridad estaba sobre la superficie de la profundidad (3), y el espíritu de Dios estaba encima de las aguas (4). Y Dios dijo, "Que haya luz," y había luz. Dios vio que la luz era buena, y separó la luz de la oscuridad. Dios llamó la luz "día," y la oscuridad "noche." Y era noche, y era mañana (5) - la primera día.

1. "cielo" can mean both heaven, as it does here, but often refers literally to the sky.

2. The use of "Now" in the English version is omitted because a literal translation does not communicate the colloquial storytelling connotation the word has in English.

3. This clause makes as little sense in Spanish as it does in English

4. "Hover" is rendered as "was above" since it does not seem to be used as widely in Spanish.

5. "Era" is used instead of the literal translation of "había" for "there was." This is because using "había" seems too literal of a way to say "there was." Whereas in English "there was" can communicate both the sense of existence and, more remotely the passage of time, in Spanish I do not believe the passage of time to be communicated at all.

French Language Nationalism

Michael Kimmelman's article in the New York Times explores the most recent resurgence of French nationalism surrounding the French language. In the last few months, President Sarkozy has tried to appeal to conservative voters by reminding them of his ideological support for "l’exception culturelle," or cultural exceptionalism. As Kimmelman explains, this technically refers to parts of French culture like music and television, which the French government can continue to subsidize without international penalties. However, it was evolved to refer to the broader idea of maintaining a distinct Francophone culture. Conservatives in France increasingly denounce the willingness of popular culture and diplomats to use English.

However, as Kimmelman notes, the idea that the utility and scope of French-speaking is decreasing assumes a very limited view. French is in fact spoken by 200 million people. But a majority of these speakers are in Africa and only 65 million of them are French. Kimmelman goes on to detail several instances a writer with a foreign name was assumed to be unable to write well in French without any true assessment of his abilities. He also discusses the discomfort of many French people over the decreasing control they have over French-speaking culture. French was traditionally used as a language of indoctrination and superiority over colonized people. This legacy explains why some people in Africa still criticize writers like Algerian Yasmina Khadra. He writes his novels in French to reach a wider audience and because he likes the language. He does not feel speaking French necessarily aligns him with France.

This story again highlights the intense political and cultural associations people make with languages. However, it also shows that colonial languages like French and English can often be willfully adopted outside of their countries of origin. In this post-colonialist situation, a language's association with its original culture and country will likely remain for a long time. However, the accompanying ideology and culture of the country of origin can easily disappear. This situation confuses the traditional notion of language being intricately associated with the culture of its speakers.

References:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/25/arts/25abroad.html?src=me&ref=general

Foreign Language Learning in the US

In his blog on the Washington Post website, Jay Mathews pointedly asks why high school students in the United States spend so much time learning foreign languages when they rarely seem to gain fluency. From his (and my) anecdotal experience, it is often easy to get an A in a high school language class without ever becoming proficient in that language. As a result, students often spend several years in high school learning a foreign language with little to show for it by the end of their language educations.

Mathews questions our true motives and commitment to learning these languages. First, he says that in the Washington DC school system, where language learning is no longer required, he finds that most top students are still enrolled in language classes. However, he believes that this is primarily due to most colleges requiring foreign language classes, a requirement that effectively maintains the language-learning mandate. Second, he claims that in a more general sense, for all of the rhetoric about the value of language learning, the United States imports knowledge and essentially requires others to learn English. To put it more neutrally, there is a large enough body of English-language culture, business, and intellectual discourse that English-speakers rarely feel a pressing need to learn a new language.

The MLA published a report in 2006 about the state of foreign language learning in the United States. The amount of people learning languages in US Universities is at one of the highest levels it has been in 40 years, but it is not growing very quickly. The most interesting part of this report was the breakdown of how many people are learning individual languages and the ratio of advanced learners to beginning learners (testing how many people reach higher level classes). Spanish came out as the clear winner in these statistics, showing the highest number of learners and a low ratio between advanced and beginning learners meaning people often reach high level Spanish.

In general, the MLA report does not support or refute Mathews' argument since it only shows how many people are learning languages, not their motives or ultimate fluency. However, the popularity of Spanish also suggests that Mathews is right in claiming that Americans will not learn languages until they feel they need to. It is probably not coincidental that as Spanish-language learning has increased as a percentage of all language learning, the number of Spanish-speakers in the United States has continually increased. Spanish is both the second most spoken language in the United States and the most learned second language.

References:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/class-struggle/2010/04/why_waste_time_on_a_foreign_la.html

http://www.mla.org/pdf/06enrollmentsurvey_final.pdf

Belgium's Language Tensions

Belgium has two official languages: French and Flemish. These two language groups, though largely mixed throughout the country, are administratively divided into separate regions, one in the predominantly Flemish part of the country and one in the French part. Further complicating the matter is Brussels, which is officially bilingual, and a small German-speaking minority areas called Eupen and Saint Vith. Belgium has historically suffered from tensions and conflict between its language groups, primarily between Flemish and French speakers.

An article in Deutsche Welle reported what some small Flemish towns are doing to stop what they see as an encroachment by French speakers. In Rhodes-Saint-Genèse, town officials have forbidden people from purchasing houses unless they have a connection to the community, effectively forbidding the arrival of newcomers. Other towns have introduced less formal policies or even simple understandings among residents. The effects are still the same and the message is clear: French speakers are not wanted in these towns.

This article and news coming out of Belgium would suggest that tensions are extremely high between these two groups. In an article on ProZ.com, a database and discussion forum for translators and linguists, Maria Karra wrote that in her experience, people of different linguistic groups in Brussels often speak in English rather than force one person to speak the language of the other. English is seen as a neutral language and is sometimes preferred to a choosing between Flemish or French. This is despite the required multilingualism in Belgian schools. By the end of their secondary education, students will have studied two languages (the choices being French/Flemish, English, and German) in addition to their own. In Brussels, French students are required to study Flemish and Flemish ones French. It is interesting then that the choice of English seems to be because of political connotations rather than out of need. This clearly suggests at the association many people make between language, culture, and often politics.

The Belgian government recognizes the importance of language on their citizens' identities and has several policies in place that reflect this recognition. Since 1961, a language census has been forbidden in Belgium making it impossible to accurately gauge which language is dominant and where. Further, the government is set up to equally represent both language groups in various scenarios that are outlined in the Karra article. These scenarios switch between giving unrepresentative weight to French and Flemish at various levels of government. The overall result though, is that both groups seem to be well-represented and few language-preferential laws are able to pass.

References:

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,5475270,00.html

http://www.proz.com/translation-articles/articles/1250/1/The-Linguistic-Conflict-in-Belgium

Language Fluency in US Foreign Service

A huge and increasingly urgent problem for the United States government is foreign language fluency among its representatives. As we discussed in class, few if any troops in Afghanistan and Iraq speak Arabic, making it extremely difficult to connect with the local populations. However, the level of fluency in the US Foreign Service (Part of the State Department) is also shockingly bad. According to the Washington Post article cited below, 57% of US Foreign Service officers in Iraq can not adequately communicate in Arabic. However, even this number pales in comparison to the 73% of officers in Afghanistan who can not speak sufficient Arabic. These numbers are surprisingly high given the administration's stated desires to win the war by establishing relationships with the people on the ground.

It would be logical to assume that this problem exists only because Arabic has only recently become an important language to learn, meaning that there is a lack of qualified applicants. However, this does not seem to completely explain the high numbers. Over all Arabic speaking countries, 40% of officers are considered deficient. It is interesting that the US government has apparently decided to leave many competent Arabic speakers in these other countries rather than transfer them Iraq and Afghanistan where many would argue they are needed most.

Even moving beyond Arabic though, according to the article, one third of all officers did not pass their foreign language reading and speaking examinations. So the specific claim that Arabic is a language whose demand has exploded is not sufficient. It seems obvious that Foreign Service Officers should be required to speak the language of the area they are assigned. Looking on the State Department's website, Foreign Service Officers are generously compensated and a serious attempt is made to attract qualified applicants by matching their current salary. However, the State Department could perhaps better incentivize applicants and current officers by increasing pay for speakers of rarer languages.

Washington Post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/07/AR2010040704503.html

Foreign Service Officer Recruiting:

http://careers.state.gov/officer/employment.html

National Gaelic Language Plan in Scotland

In 2005, the Gaelic Language Act established a committee, known as the Bòrd na Gàidhlig, to improve the status and increase the use of the Gaelic language in Scotland. Scottish Gaelic is a traditional language of Scotland, but its use has been steadily declining for more than 100 years. According to the 2001 Census, only 1.2% of the Scottish population spoke Gaelic. The Bòrd na Gàidhlig aims to prevent the decrease in speakers by actively promoting the use of the language. They intend to do this by improving the status of the language, increasing education, and changing signage across Scotland to be in both English and Gaelic. It is this last goal that was the subject of a BBC article about Glasgow's Gaelic Language Plan. Over the next three years, the city of Glasgow will open a second Gaelic language school, increase bilingual signage, and increase the use of bilingual government communications. In its plan, the Bòrd recognizes the need to increase the use of Gaelic for it to remain relevant. As a result, the Bòrd has outlined several initiatives to increase quotidian use of Gaelic in the workplace and in homes.

The desire to improve the status of Scottish Gaelic and increase its usage is similar to attempts by Ireland to increase the use of Irish (also known as Gaelic) there. Irish is the primary language for 3% of the country's population. However, through wide spread teaching of Irish, the language is now widely spoken. Largely because it is a mandatory subject in middle school, around 40% of Ireland's population consider themselves able to speak Irish.

Though the Scottish Bòrd does not explicitly aim for such widespread usage, it seems that the logical extreme of a desire to reintroduce Gaelic into Scottish culture would be to implement a program similar to Ireland's. In this way, a large bilingual portion of the population would be able to carry on the usage of Gaelic, something the Scottish parliament presumably thinks is important to maintaining Scottish culture.

References:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/glasgow_and_west/8605014.stm

http://www.opsi.gov.uk/legislation/scotland/acts2005/asp_20050007_en_1

http://www.gaidhlig.org.uk/national-plan-for-gaelic.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_language

Political Correctness and Gendered Language

"If people everywhere show greater sensitivity to the impli-

cations of the language they use, a higher degree of precision

Will result. It should be remembered that imprecise word choices

may be interpreted as biased, discriminatory or demeaning,

even if they are not intended to be."

UNESCO Guidelines on Gender-Neutral Language

The UNESCO Guidelines on Gender-Neutral explains that gender-neutrality allows a language to be more precise by only using gendered language when it truly applies to a single gender. Perhaps more importantly, gender-neutral language in English ends the male-bias in words meant to describe all humans like man and mankind. The ideas outlined in UNESCO's handbook are not particularly unique; they are just an explicit set of guidelines for the larger movement away from traditionally male-oriented language. The handbook is full of suggestions on how to rephrase sentences like "Man's search for knowledge has led him to improve scientific methodology" to the un-gendered "The search for knowledge has led to improvements in scientific methodology."

In a piece for Men's News Daily, Theodore Dalrymple criticizes such gender-neutral language as "censorship" by social forces and sub-editors. He argues that though words like "mankind" are gendered, their replacements (humankind) are often longer, in his view uglier, and even gendered themselves (humankind still contains the word man). Dalrymple's argument seems very traditional in his refusal to change his use of English. However, he also raises some valid points, such as the continued presence of male-orientation in words that are supposedly gender-neutral. He is also correct to point out that in some instances, gender-neutral language can cause sentences to be less concise. Like the UNESCO report, Dalrymple's criticisms are not unique, but explicitly lay out some of the criticisms of gender-neutrality in language. However, unlike Dalrymple, we need not immediately dismiss the goal of gender-neutrality in language. Instead, his criticism raises the valid questions of how best to make the English language more precise and less male-oriented. In some cases, a simple replacement of words as outlined in the UNESCO report will suffice. In other cases though, as Dalrymple points out, there does not exist a way to concisely express an idea without suggesting a gender. Perhaps the creation or wider-spread usage of new words and pronouns would solve the problems outlined above.

References:

http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0011/001149/114950mo.pdf

http://mensnewsdaily.com/2010/04/05/feminist-censorship-and-language-reform/

Welcome

Language & Society seemed like a perfect class for me to take given my interest in foreign languages and how they reflect the cultures they grow out of. I grew up speaking both Spanish and English, but since I entered school English has gradually become my more comfortable language. Certain members of my family only speak Spanish though, a situation that has caused me to consider the interpersonal consequences of the languages we can or choose to speak.

At school, I began learning French in 6th grade and have been taking it intermittently ever since. At this point, I feel relatively comfortable with my French and that I am able to express myself in most situations. However, my accent and comprehension of more casual speaking definitely need improvement. Recently, I have begun taking German classes as well. My hope right now is to spend my entire Junior year in France and Germany to be able to significantly improve my language skills.

I am very excited about taking this class and discussing the social implications of how we use language, accent and dialect differences, and the conflicting desires of multilingualism and language standardization.

Below is a map of countries I have visited:

visited 22 states (9.77%)
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