Re: Why Americans feel no compulsion to learn foreign languages

[Herb Sutter <herbs@connobj.com>]

At 02:13 03.28.1996 -0800, Timothy C. May wrote:
>Yes, this is mostly my point. And it is not just me I'm talking about--I
>don't see a compelling need for 95% of Americans to learn a second
>language...in fact, I'd rather they learned to speak and read English
>properly.
>
>(All of the America-bashers who were chiming in earlier today with their
>anti-American jokes...well, here's one for you: "What do you call someone
>who knows how to speak and write English properly? A European.")

Hold on, hold on... :-)  As the first to post along that line, may I
reiterate I'm in no way "anti-American"?  It's just that some Americans (and
some Canadians, and especially some Englishmen) do have a reputation in the
world for going places and expecting the natives to speak their language.
It gets interpreted as arrogance, sometimes unjustly.  Hence some of the jokes.

Funny thing: I rarely hear someone who does know another language argue that
it's not desirable and beneficial; only among the unilingual do I regularly
find such strong feelings.  As a wise man once said (sorry, source unknown):
"If you do not know another language, you do not know your own."  There's a
lot of truth to that... I never knew English as well as I do now before I
learned French, and German in particular helped immensely.  Fact is, once
you know a couple of languages in that group, the others (e.g., Italian,
Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish) are relatively easy to pick up because
now you start seeing the underlying patterns -- that in itself being a big
part of knowing your own language better.

Or, as a more contemporary souce (I <g>) would put it: "Speaking with only
one language is like seeing with only one eye."  But try to explain colour
to a blind man... :-/

>very few Americans have any _continuing_ way to use the languages we learn.
>Which is a major reason they are being dropped by many schools.

I agree; I haven't used French practically at all in over 12 years.
However, had I never learned it, I would have been diminished (and, worse,
never known my ignorance).  A language is not just about word-communication;
it is about thought, expression, and especially point of view.  There are
things you can say in English that you could never say the same way in
German, and vice versa; which means that there are ideas and viewpoints you
could never fully appreciate without another language.  If some folks feel
this is unnecessary, well, they can get through life quite well with just
one tongue... that's their decision.

Anyway, apologies for starting this tangent here, since its crypto relevance
is zero or less. :-)  I only wanted to express why the word "compulsion" in
this thread's new title already speaks volumes to me, and to help explain
why this sort of thing sounds to outsiders like another form of isolationism
(not that many countries haven't been getting accused of that recently,
particularly in the East; it's not just a Western thing).

---
Herb Sutter
"If ignorance is bliss, why aren't there more happy people?"
"The nice thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from."