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Multilingualism is a
help, not a threat to English
Ventura County Star
October 13, 2006
By Roger E. Hernandez
With a communist madman taking North
Korea nuclear, with an Islamist mystic threatening to take
Iran down the same path, with nobody so far able to stop the
third member of the Axis of Evil from tearing itself apart,
and with the most powerful nation to ever have existed led
by a Yale "legacy" so utterly in over his head that he has
no idea what to do about any of it, one tries to look for
good news somewhere, just for the change of pace.
Ah, here's something from The Associated Press about
Bogota — right here in the U.S. of A., not the
capital of Colombia:
"TRENTON, N.J. — A bid by a town to ask
voters to make English its official language
has ended because the state's highest court
refused to hear its case."
It's a little old, from late September.
But it will have to do. It is fun to
note that Steve Lonegan, the mayor of
Bogota who pushed to make English
official in his town after he grew
alarmed at a McDonald's billboard in
Spanish, embarrassed himself a little
more — if that is possible — when he
called the court's decision a "real
attack on America."
Meanwhile, the FBI finds itself
less able to stop real attacks
on America because it does not
have enough Arabic-speaking
agents. Unbelievable as it
sounds five years after 9/11,
exactly 33 of 12,000 agents have
"even a limited proficiency in
Arabic."
Yet, outside of Bogota,
linguistic news is not all
upbeat. At least four states
are considering making
English official, and a
dozen cities have either
passed ordinances or are
thinking about it, says USA
Today. U.S. English, the
national group pushing
English-only, called it "the
most action we've seen in
about 10 years."
Its action aimed at
a solving a problem
that does not exist,
and which creates
difficulties in
solving problems
that do exist.
Making
English the
official
language is
supposed to
somehow
force
unwilling
immigrants
to learn
English
before we
are all
swamped in a
sea of
foreign
languages.
It's
hogwash.
Eight out of
10 people in
the United
States speak
only English
at home,
says the
Census
Bureau. Only
about 11
million
speak
English "not
well" or
"not at
all."
You
can
bet
the
vast
majority
of
them
are
new
immigrants.
As
to
their
kids,
a
new
study
by
Douglas
Massey
at
Princeton
University
and
Ruben
Rumbaut
and
Frank
Bean
at
the
University
of
California,
Irvine,
forecasts
it
is
foreign
languages,
not
English,
that
are
endangered.
Only
5
percent
of
the
grandchildren
of
Spanish-speaking
immigrants
in
Southern
California
will
speak
fluent
Spanish,
the
study
predicts.
Among
fourth-generation
European
immigrants
native-language
retention
is
only
1
percent.
Even the descendants of immigrants speak English only. How multilingual can other Americans be? Not very. Few native English-speakers learn another language. They can order burritos or remember a little high-school French, but that's about it.
Here in the United States, 43.6 percent of high-school students took at least one foreign-language class in 2002, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, up one-third since 1990. But at the college level, enrollment dropped from 16 percent in 1960 to 8 percent in 2002, according to the American Council on Education.
There are too many misplaced worries about foreigners speaking their language.
And there are not enough worries that having memorized la plume de ma tante will not help Americans do business overseas — or help Americans catch foreigners who are more interested in blowing up things than speaking.
— Roger Hernandez is a syndicated columnist and writer-in-residence at New Jersey Institute of Technology.
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