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<h2 class="gmail-blog__title">They Speak English Here, and Here, and Here</h2>
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<div id="gmail-attachment_51939" class="gmail-wp-caption gmail-alignleft" style="width:310px"><a href="http://www.chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/files/2018/04/IMG_0790.jpg"><img class="gmail-size-chronicle-medium gmail-wp-image-51939" alt="IMG_0790" src="http://www.chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/files/2018/04/IMG_0790-300x225.jpg" width="300" height="225"></a><p class="gmail-wp-caption-text">Tulips at Keukenhof Garden, The Netherlands</p></div>
<p><span class="gmail-dropcap">L</span>ast week was spring break here in
France, and we took the occasion to travel — to Normandy with friends,
then off to Copenhagen and its Swedish counterpart, Malmö, to visit a
friend, and finally to Amsterdam and the flower fields of south Holland,
now in full bloom.</p>
<p>Generally speaking, I am an advocate of learning a bit of the local
language when you travel; and in default of mastering a tongue-twisting
idiom in a short period of time, I am an advocate of asking, “Do you
speak English?” before launching in. The circumstances of this trip have
challenged that position. French, for instance, used to be (literally)
the lingua franca of Europe, at least for the wealthy and educated
classes. Such is no longer the case, but there remain 28 countries
outside France that speak its language, and tourists frequently complain
of French haughtiness when it comes to accepting the reality that
English is now the most common international language. I’ve not found
that to be the case. Rather, it seems to me that the French like to be
consulted when it comes to speaking a language other than French on
French soil, and I’m also aware that many small shopkeepers and people
in service industries did not imbibe English with their mother’s milk.
Our two days in Normandy bore out both these opinions. Once we landed in
Copenhagen, however, the linguistic landscape changed.</p>
<p>Yes, there were moments in history when Swedish and Danish were
spoken by conquered peoples, and Dutch retains a foothold in Afrikaans
and other dialects around the world. But these folks learn at a very
early age that English holds sway. It’s not that our friend Andrea in
Malmö, who is not yet 30, speaks French, Italian, Spanish, Croatian, and
English in addition to Swedish. It’s also that she speaks American
English (which, as far as I can tell, has displaced British English in
these countries) without a detectable accent and without groping for
words. It’s the vocabulary, after all, that gives you away in the end.
In French, for instance, I consider myself fluent, but I got stuck the
other day trying to tell someone I’d strained a muscle because I had
never had occasion to use the very common word <em>hamstring</em> (<em>tendon</em> — a word, like many others in French, that gains its specificity only via context).</p>
<p>Andrea may be particularly adept, but most of the Swedes, Danes, and
now Netherlanders whom we’ve met are not so much resigned to speaking
English as proud of their knack for it. When I ask, “Do you speak
English?” I mostly get a look somewhere between puzzled and offended
before they answer, “Of course.” Once or twice someone has said, “A
little bit,” meaning that they may have to substitute a Dutch word or
two. Gradually, then, the visitor stops asking. A receptionist at a
hotel might say, “<em>Welkom bij Oestsgeest,</em>” but when I respond with “We have a reservation for Ferriss,” the switch flips and we’re thenceforth in English.</p>
<p>This habit can lead one into muddy waters. A quick-witted Belgian
friend visiting the U.S. once told me he felt handicapped because he
couldn’t crack good jokes in English. Last night, at a restaurant where
everyone seemed very friendly, my husband bid farewell to the couple
seated next to us with a mild joke about the weather. They stopped,
frowned, apologized, asked him to repeat what he had said. He had not
detected that they were Italian, not Dutch, and that the server had been
communicating with them in German. In any case, the joke fell flat, in
part because we had grown too accustomed to navigating in English.</p>
<p>There is a limit to the eagerness, or even the tolerance, of these
northern Europeans for the invasion of English in their countries.
Another restaurant neighbor, in Amsterdam, noted that the paucity of
Dutch service workers had led to many restaurant and bar servers being
hired from southern and eastern European countries like Italy and
Croatia. “When they are hired, they must speak English,” she said, “or
they must learn it very fast. But this is my country. My native language
is Dutch. I do feel that I ought to be able to order a meal in my own
land and my own tongue and be understood.” This same fear, quite
bizarrely, infects Americans who fear that English is under threat by
Spanish and who mistake bilingual education for a hostile takeover of
their language. But let’s be clear. Though it’s extremely unlikely that
any of these well-established languages will vanish, the Swedish,
Danish, and Dutch people have know full well that few new speakers will
arise outside their borders. But English is both deeply rooted and
spreading those roots into linguistic territories both friendly and
hostile. Just drop in on a village in south Holland, and you’ll hear
what I mean.</p><p>Forwarded from CHE Lingua Franca<br></p></div>
<br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature">=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+<br><br> Harold F. Schiffman<br><br>Professor Emeritus of <br> Dravidian Linguistics and Culture <br>Dept. of South Asia Studies <br>University of Pennsylvania<br>Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305<br><br>Phone: (215) 898-7475<br>Fax: (215) 573-2138 <br><br>Email: <a href="mailto:haroldfs@gmail.com" target="_blank">haroldfs@gmail.com</a><br><a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/" target="_blank">http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/</a> <br><br>-------------------------------------------------</div>
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