| Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Charlemagne points us to the latest Eurostat figures on language learning in our European Union, noting the traditional familiarity with Nordic types being very good at learning foreign languages, the traditional monolingualism of the Mediterranean countries (more PIGS headlines anyone?) and the ‘crushing dominance of English as the new European lingua franca.’

He then describes the increasing monolingualism in the UK and how its unfortunate rise is due not only to government policy but also to the rising opportunity cost of Brits learning a foreign language when so many Europeans are apparently getting so good at speaking English.

This is not true, in my opinion, but let’s keep going with the thought for the moment anyway.

Charlemagne is certainly right about the benefits of learning a foreign language: “learning a foreign language teaches you humility, empathy and respect for others.”

But perhaps the answer for Britain’s foreign language woes lies in his next sentence: “In Europe, it teaches you the ancient links that unite our squabbling continent.”

If we look at the practical side of life and how we must deal with the future, perhaps—and it’s only a suggestion, mind you—people in Britain really shouldn’t learn European languages if they think so many European people are getting so good at speaking English.

I say this, of course, as someone who both speaks French, Spanish, some basic Italian and Swedish and someone who has lived in continental Europe for the past twelve years.

Perhaps—if we accept that the French, the Germans and the Swedes are so good at learning and speaking English that it really would take an awful lot of time for a Brit to get anywhere close to the equivalent level in French, German or Swedish—British children would be better served by a redirection of their language learning efforts.

They could opt for Chinese, given that everyone seems convinced that China is the economic powerhouse of the medium-term future. The UK could try to position itself as the European country where Chinese is best spoken and most respected, providing a useful link between Brussels and Beijing.

A second option would be to direct everyone to learn the languages most spoken by immigrants in the UK, in an attempt to forge greater social cohesion and understanding within the nation. Wikipedia tells us that the top three languages in that case would be: Punjabi, Bengali and Saraiki.

The best strategy of all, of course, would be to encourage lots of British people to learn all of these languages—including the European ones—but that is probably too Utopian to ever have a hope of becoming a reality.