Cultural Wars: English and World Languages

It must be quite uncomprehensible to native English speakers. After all, they are at the rear of the invasion their mother language has undertaken in other countries. No, there is no conspiracy to erase other languages or infiltrate them with English, for it is the cultural society of other countries that welcomes English and makes it feel at home. And that is the most ironic part of the process I would like to talk about.

Given its wide international usage, English has imbued many languages, from Icelandic to Japanese. Some have more English loanwords, some have less. Despite the magnitude the British Empire reached in the 19th century, English became the truly international lingua franca only after the World War II, with the rise of the USA as a political and economic superpower. Looking up to America as the citadel of capitalism, former socialist countries loaned almost the entire economic vocabulary from English (such words as manager, supervisor, brand, default, sponsor, invoice, billboard and many others).

But more than that, it has been American pop culture that captivated the imagination of millions through its music, cartoons, movies and computer games. For example, my dad doesn't speak English but he knows a lot of English words thanks to rock music he listened back in the 1970s. It brought such words as single, bookseller, star, sitcom, hit, blockbuster, horror, producer.

Science, previously dominated by German terms in some languages, also saw a linguistic shift towards English, especially in space disciplines and cybernetics (words like computer, display, joystick, driver, winchester). Computer games added more English words to learn. Only the conservative world of diplomacy and international post service still adhere to French in their documentation and terminology.

The appeal of American culture is such that English terms are often considered more fashionable and more sophisticated than vernacular ones. For example, the Russian word "nakladnaya" is replaced, in some cases, with invoice, the word "schet" with account. Sometimes, existing loanwords from other languages are replaced with English words. For example, the following traditional German loanwords were replaced with English in modern Russian: "kegelbahn" became bowling, "makler" became broker, "motoroller" became scooter.

One can argue that it is not really the vogue but rather poor understanding of one's own language that brings English words in as they are, without proper research of equivalents or creating new words in one's vernacular.

Inevitably, there is an opposition to English infiltration. Some languages have a rich literature, developed way before before the age of international communication, and one is always free to attempt to revive the practices of one's language in its pure glory. Some nations are not that lucky and their vernacular was a mix of various languages even in its earliest available form. A few years ago I came across a very bizarre, esoteric book. One of its chapters explored semantics and brought in a ominous meaninig to some loanwords. Some of the examples stuck in my memory, such was the oddity:

Office = serpent (ofis in Greek)

Dollar = pain (dolor in Latin)

To invest = to undress (vesto = a dress in Latin; in indicates the opposite meaning, as in incompetent, inertia)

Information = distortion (forma = shape in Latin; see about in in the previous example)

So just think about all that hidden meaning when if you go to the office to make a dollar by investing in an information company! Semantic twists like this may seem absurd but they feed on the aversion of those who feel threatened by the expansion of alien languages. No doubt, though, that without language watchdogs, some languages would have disappeared or lost their core distinct features long time ago. Respect and profound understanding of one's mother language is what strengthens one's culture. After all, language consitutes the definition of a nation.