Echoes of Empire

Like most English schmucks I can’t speak a word of any other language. This is a real shame and is highly embarrassing when we travel abroad, a habit to confront foreigners by shouting out syllables does no favours to our beef eating and arrogant stereotype.

Yet there are reasons for this. Firstly we are an island nation and like all other island nations we have a more inward looking view simply because we have less face to face contact with our neighbours (but bear in mind Britain, with its comparatively successful acceptance of immigrants, is one of the lesser xenophobic island nations (look at Japan – or perhaps even the USA)). Secondly we do not need to learn any other languages since English is the language of money. And money knows no borders, (passing socialist and fundamentalist check points with equal ease). English is the international language of business and as such we can get along just fine in the wider world without ever once bothering to consider how peculiar this actually is.

While convenient it is also shame. Without ever comparing our language to others we never become aware of the fundamental nature of linguistic structures and the bizarre relationships that man creates between sounds and what it perceives to be reality.

Ever since squandering my high school language education through a combination of individual shortsightedness, French-Canadian incompetence and the degenerate chatter of working class children I have longed to break the barrier of languages and hold my head high in a foreign country. As of yet this is a long way off and the recent developments in electronic universal translators are interesting, but sidestep all benefits of actually learning a new language. The older I get the harder this will be and I am all too aware that time is the most precious thing we have to lose.

I should get started soon. Obviously a European language would be the logical choice But which language?

Spanish means days in the sun and is a growing and dynamic country with lots of Latin American connections. French is the language of a dying race who are too busy butchering their immigrants with outdated concepts of nationality and embracing suicidal economic policies, it has even lost its academic flair in recent decades. So not French then. German is an interesting prospect. Having spent forty years feeling guilty and then the last twenty integrating their eastern cousins it finally appears to be hitting its stride once again, economic and artistic achievements will doubtlessly follow.

I’d like to see more of both before deciding.