Back in 1993, I decided to take an intensive language course to learn Welsh. I had various reasons. For instance, when I was hitchiking a lot in Africa, people who gave me a ride would often, on hearing that I was Welsh, ask me if I spoke the language. It started me thinking more about how language is tied up with national identity.
Anyway, in the early 90s, learning Welsh was certainly not going to help my job prospects. I had a number of arguments, often with monoglot Anglo-Welsh people, sometimes with English people over my plan to attend the course. Some of them seemed to take personal offence at my wanting to learn the language, and a few openly said that they thought the language should die out.
“Why do you want to learn it?”, they would ask, “It’s no use outside Wales – and everyone (meaning, around the world) speaks English anyway.” This was always presented as the the main point – there was no need to learn anything other than English because the world was learning English, and that meant people from the UK didn’t need any other language.
Well, in a way they were right – and totally wrong. Yesterday had a really interesting story in the Guardian about t how the world has indeed learned English – and done it so well that the Brits no longer have any advantage. In fact, in my experience, they may be at a disadvantage because, complacent at being ‘native speakers’, they simply don’t speak it very well. All those people who told me not to bother learning Welsh had better have something ele up their sleeve that makes them competitive….
I’m pretty sure that the experience of learning Welsh intensively is helping me to learn Chinese now (even though I need to make a lot more effort than I have done recently!). And the rest of the world, especially in the developing world, is starting to put the same effort into learning Mandarin as they have done with English. Is the UK? That Guardian article ends with a quote saying yes – but I don’t believe it: where on earth can they get enough teachers?
If the UK stays complacent, it’s going to have trouble staying competitive – which brings me to an interesting Newsweek article by Fareed Zakaria. He’s talking about Europe as a whole becoming globally uncompetitive, with the UK cited as being better than most,but still in trouble.
I don’t really buy his argument altogether – it sounds like typical American triumphalism, quoting productivity rates and innovation. Different social models (including higher taxation but cheap medical care in Europe vs lower taxes but individual medical insurance in the US) mean that many critics in the US have to be taken with a pinch of salt. Still – there are things to be concerned about. And for those monoglots in the UK – remember, lots and lots of people now speak better English than you do…
