Sad But True

A few months back, I spent some time in Namibia, a country where Afrikaans is the predominant language (Afrikaans is an Indo-European language derived from Dutch. It came to Southern Africa when the Dutch settled there in the 17th century). Now, I've been picking up some Afrikaans here and there, but I'm not a very proficient speaker yet. Still, everywhere I go people assume that I can speak Afrikaans because I'm white. One man, after realizing that I was from America and couldn't really speak the language, told the following joke:

What do you call someone who speaks three languages?

Trilingual.

What do you call someone who speaks two languages?

Bilingual.

What do you call someone who speaks only one language?

American.

I had to laugh at the joke, but I found it sad and, generally speaking, quite true. As I've traveled the world, I've found that in most countries people grow up learning multiple languages. Take South Africa, for example. In primary school, most kids are already studying English and Afrikaans. And for most black South Africans, these languages are in addition to their mother tongues spoken in the home. In my experience here, it has been very common to find a young kid that is fluent in four, five, or even six languages. It's insane.

This emphasis on multiple languages is not contained just to Africa either. Even in China, I found that children now grow up studying Mandarin and English from a very young age. The Chinese see great value in their next generation's ability to speak English, the dominant language in the world right now.

And then there's America. In America, kids grow up learning one language. On the one hand, it makes sense. I mean, in today's shrinking world, you can go almost anywhere and get by speaking just English. So why force kids to learn a second language, right? On the other hand, I think we are missing out on something huge here. For one thing, children have an incredible capacity for linguistics. So the question that should really be asked is: why not teach our children a second language? With the growing influence of Latino culture in the States, why not teach Spanish as a second language in our elementary schools? Or what about the rapid growth of China and Japan in the global economy--why not teach Chinese or Japanese as second languages? Seriously, we should just pick one and give our children the gift of a second language.

Sure, we can keep raising up children who will one day grow up, travel the world, and expect everyone to conform to American standards, or we can raise up children who learn to embrace other cultures and connect on a deeper level with different kinds of people through the languages. I think we are really missing an opportunity here...

Thoughts...???