LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

Reading an old prayer letter of mine from Summer 1994, when I went to Eastern Europe and tried to learn Russian, reminded me of a favorite joke of mine: "What do you call someone who speaks two languages: bilingual. What do you call someone who speaks three languages: trilingual. What do you call someone who speaks one language: American."

Even though there has been a huge push for foreign language requirements in high school and college in the past 10-15 years, we Americans can't hold a candle to the rest of the world as far as our linguistic flexibility. Because of our political and technological prowess, it's all too easy to expect the rest of the world to learn our language. Indeed, the rest of the world is.

But it's more than just the pervasiveness of the English language. For Hungarians are more likely to know German and/or French, in addition to English, than the typical American. When we Americans visit foreign countries, we expect to be able to speak English and be understood, dammit. And woe be to the intelligent foreigner studying in the states, who is looked down upon as dumb just because she speaks with an accent and can't quite understand everything that's being said.

I don't buy into the media's hyping of the world's growing anti-American sentiment; that is a polar viewpoint of a much more clouded global opinion. I will say, though, that language and culture are inextricably linked, and so it doesn't represent us Americans well when we are so lazy and conceited when it comes to speaking English. (And to think that no less a man than Benjamin Franklin himself once proposed that German be the official language of the newly formed United States of America, in order to further distance us from the British.)