Official English

I received a questionnaire in the mail awhile back from the late S.I. Hayakawa. You remember Hayakawa. He was a former semantics professor who my fellow California residents once sent to Congress. Hayakawa was a believer in the Jeffersonian admonition that that government is best which governs least and so he dutifully slept his way through one term in the Senate.

For a time Hayakawa had a brief flare of re-fame as the titular head of something called the Campaign For Official English. Hayakawa was the ideal front guy for this group. He was a member of a racial minority and so provided a measure of cover for suspicions that this whole business is racially motivated, he was a linguistics professor so he was a language expert in some sense, and he had demonstrated a sleepy-eyed approach to things which guarantees that he wouldn't look too closely at the inner workings of the group.

It turns out that this was just the first of many communiqués I was to receive from many would-be defenders of the purity of American culture. There was that appeal for funds from U.S. English. There was the letter from that Republican congressman from the South who assured me that he and dozens of his colleagues in the House of Representatives felt as I did

about the need to proclaim English the national lingua franca. There were those endless editorials in conservative (and some not so conservative) newspapers lamenting the threat to English from the horde of foreigners washing up on our shores. It began to seem like this just may be the most important issue facing America today.

Anyway, Hayakawa wanted to ask me lots of interesting stuff about my love of language and my attitudes toward immigrants and other things like that. It's clear, as these questionnaires always are, what the right answers are, and so I dutifully answered them all in precisely the opposite way, sealed it up, and sent it right back ASAP. It's also clear that ole S.I. and his cohorts would take one look at my questionnaire, trash it, and promptly remove my name from their computers database. Which is why I sent it back.

You see, the game is they don't really expect people who disagree with them to answer the questionnaire, they expect us to throw it in our trash. And they aren't really interested in surveying attitudes on any of these issues. What they are looking for are people who already share their attitudes, who will feel emotionally charged by the opportunity to say so, and who, it is hoped, will also put their money where their emotions are. In fact, I may be the only person surveyed who returned my questionnaire with a set of contrary answers. On the basis of which they will probably announce that their survey has discovered 99.99% of America shares their views.

Anyway, the avowed purpose of this group is to generate enthusiasm to have English designated as the country's official language. Sounds harmless enough. After all, last May 25th was Tap Dance Day and no great damage was done. So why not decree that English is our official language.

Well now, my fellow citizens, come let us reason together.

First off, I wonder just which of the hundreds of dialects of English the group has in mind. Robert MacNeil's wonderful PBS series "The Story of English" showed me many amazing things, not the least of which is that there are plenty of people in America who speak a brand of English I can't understand at all. All I have to do is take a short drive over the Bay Bridge to Maryland's Eastern Shore and then down to the tip of the peninsula to Tangier Island. This is a place where I will need an interpreter just to get directions to the bathroom. I wonder, if the Tangierines decide to designate their notion of English as the Official English could old S.I. pass muster?

Oh well, let's not linger in the details.

Surely English is the de facto national language of these United States anyway, and the second language of much of the world. Is English an endangered species which needs official government protection in some way in order to thrive? It wouldn't seem so.

And what a strange notion of language that one could imagine an official language could ever be mandated. People try of course, the idea isn't exactly unique. In Canada the French-speaking residents of Quebec insist on French as their official language so as to exacerbate their political differences with the rest of their neighbors. In China they changed all the names of their cities to purify them of contamination by western tones. That's usually how official languages are used--to divide people into us vs. them.

Languages are lively, sloppy, careless creatures; evolving in all sorts of unpredictable, messy ways. Languages are notorious thieves as well. English is heavily loaded with thousands of words it simply appropriated from other tongues. I wonder if Hayakawa has ever had a barbecue, or seen a plaza, or wondered how tornadoes work, or eaten a tomato--all words borrowed from those Spanish-speaking immigrants whose tongues his group wants to scrub clean.

Well then, what's the point?

The point dear friends, is not that Hayakawa wishes to designate English as our official language in the same way the Congress designated last May 25th as National Tap Dance Day. No. If English is the official language of the U.S. then the full force and power of the state can be used to actually change something. What the group has in mind that needs changing are such things as "bilingual education."

Bilingual education is used in this country almost exclusively to teach the children of Spanish-speaking immigrants in Spanish as well as English in the public schools. Our Hispanic citizens seem to think this is a helpful way to make the transition to productive citizenship. And also they see it as a way to help preserve their cultural heritage.

Attitudes and practices concerning bilingual education go through phases. When my wife was going to school 25 years ago she was forbidden to speak Spanish at school. This was a serious offense which could result in expulsion. She had to learn her Spanish covertly at home, and remember to switch gears each morning on her way to school so she would be thinking and talking in English by the time she arrived.

In the late 60s this attitude toward Hispanic language and culture underwent a change, with Hispanics taking deep offense at the repression involved. They saw it, rightly or wrongly, as an expression of intolerance and prejudice. They demanded, and got, the right to have their children taught in Spanish as well as English. Lots of non-Hispanic citizens, especially in places like California, have come to resent this more liberal treatment. Their attitude is: "Hey, if they want to live here they should learn to speak the language, same as everyone else."

Learn to speak the language, same as everyone else. Now that's an interesting thought. How does "everyone else" learn to speak English?

Well for immigrants, there appears to be a natural pattern, almost an anthropological law. My boss, who is a third generation Italian American, tells me his grandmother came to this country late in the 19th century. Even though she lived here almost 50 years she barely learned six words of English. His mother, by contrast, was thoroughly bilingual. She grew up thinking there were two words for everything, and that this was God's own natural order. My boss and his generation speak only English, having lost the Italian language entirely. He laments this fact now and allows as to how he feels culturally impoverished in some important way. And I think he's right.

My mother-in-law, who was from Mexico and who lived in the U.S. longer than I have been alive, spoke no English. My wife and her brothers and sisters are fluently bilingual. Our Hispanic nieces and nephews speak Spanish about like I do--which is to say, not at all.

There is a built-in pattern of acculturation; the process seems to take about three generations. The first generation of immigrants snuggles within its own, maintaining its language and its customs and its culture as far as possible. The second generation has a foot in two worlds. By the third generation the transformation is complete and brown-faced Latino kids from Van Nuys speak "Valley-ese" with the best of them.

So what's the hurry? The tidal wave of Spanish-speaking foreigners will look and act just like everyone else soon--alas. The rush to force the evolution in the first or second generations is an attempt to force the natural anthropology of human culture--it's like not giving a damn about the artifacts buried just beneath the surface as we begin excavation for the new baseball stadium. "Hey, hurry up and play ball man."

There is an interesting difference in the attitudes of the wave of 19th century immigrants and the current surge from Latin America. Many of the earlier immigrants made it a point to discourage use of the old language and customs, insisting that the kids speak only English, in order to better assimilate and improve their lot in life faster. Which resulted in George Failla losing his culture and his grandmother's tongue. The new immigrants seem to have garnered some wisdom on this issue and make a concerted effort to preserve their old language and culture. Which is why they insist on things like bilingual education.

Of course, the Campaign For Official English, U.S. English and all the rest, don't wish to be seen as bigoted or intolerant. They see themselves as urging a reform which is for the immigrant's own good. They would argue that continued dependence on the mother tongue just delays assimilation and so impedes the immigrant's progress.

A couple of points: first, the death of a culture and the extinguishing of its language do not make America or anywhere else a richer place--they have the opposite effect. Second, I am in a position to report to you that the folks you purport to want to help don't see it that way. In fact they tend to see the expression: "this is for your own good," as code for: "Duck!" I might even suggest to you that if you are genuinely motivated by concern for the immigrants' best interests, it would seem advisable to ask your would-be clients whether they in fact want your help.

S. I. old sot, if you were really motivated by concern for what is in America's best interests, you would appear to be laying your mandates down on the wrong side of the street. In America we do have a genuine problem with languages, and that problem is that we are not learning the other languages of our world. American school children only need to learn English (more or less) to be considered educated. In Japan every student must take six years of English, beginning in sixth grade. The Japanese realize that to compete in the global economy they need to learn the language and culture of their competitors. How many American schools teach Japanese language and culture? Would it surprise (and I hope disappoint) a former linguist such as yourself to realize that there are more American students studying Latin and ancient Greek than are studying Japanese and Chinese? In general, the foreign language skills of Americans rank among the lowest in the world. To put it bluntly: our problem is that there is too much English spoken in America and not enough Japanese and Russian and Spanish and Korean and German.

S.I. Hayakawa wants to know whether I am a lover of the language, and whether I think immigrants ought to be forced to join in this embrace.

Well sir, if you, like me, are a true lover of the language, you will recognize that Official English is an attempt to kill language, to render it rigid and surreal, to drain its color and pound away its shapes and curves. There can never be an official language because language is alive, and most things official soon are not. And as to America's immigrants, I have always found that those who are forced to join in a lover's embrace tend not to welcome the embrace nor feel the love.

Official English? No sir, I think not. As H.L. Mencken said in his classic work on the American variety of English: "A living language is like a man suffering incessantly from small hemorrhages, and what it needs above all else is constant transactions of new blood from other tongues. The day the gates go up, that day it begins to die."

And that's plain English, bub, in case you don't recognize it!