Dutch: The lost culture

Learning another language also enables one to dispel any stereotypes previously held. The French do not wear stripy tops, wear berets and carry baguettes around all day long. Equally, the Germans are not all blonde, tubby, moustached Bratwurst-munchers. The Dutch, however, do all speak English. And it’s annoying.

Interestingly, English films and television programmes (40-60% of Dutch TV) are not dubbed, just subtitled, which allows the Dutch to hear, understand and match the English to Dutch. English is taught from primary school, bilingually in some secondary schools and as the exclusive language on many university degree programmes. Contemporary Dutch scientists hardly write in Dutch since there is no incentive to do so. English is beloved by the Dutch so much that they have adopted the often widely-used, albeit incorrect term “Holland” to refer to their country, which by all logic should actually infuriate them.

So it comes as no surprise to learn that 86% of Dutch people speak English according to an EU study. But why? To say that no-one speaks Dutch as a second language is a bit of an overstatement, but it could well be due to the Netherlands’ relatively small size and high trade with the neighbouring UK. It could also be the influence from the incessant stag parties making the pilgrimage to Amsterdam.

Of course, I’m not going to argue that the Dutch shouldn’t learn English. Nor am I going to deny that English is the international lingua franca, which is something I’m not happy about as I don’t believe there should be one lingua franca. Indeed, English is the new Latin in the scientific world and the new Italian in the literature world. It has seeped into the most remote pockets of the world triggered by the British colonialism of the nineteenth century. But this has planted English seeds in different countries, allowing non-native English versions to germinate. One of them is Dutch English – similar to Euro English (with phrases such as “let’s give a party” and “let’s take drinks at the pub”). English now serves as a vocabulary database for the Dutch to pick from as they please.

Conversely, English did the same thing with its neighbouring languages (principally French, German and Dutch) as it developed into its modern form. In fact, the “Netherlands” comes from the Dutch word for their country which literally means “low country”. Nevertheless, as words and structures from English mix with those from Dutch, they create a sort of hybrid language, which is then passed on through mutual discourse. It gives rise to phrases and structures that we would consider incorrect in English, thus giving a false impression of our language that is stubbornly believed to be correct by English learners.

What occur as a result are clumsy hybrid phrases such as ‘How do you underbuild that?’ or ‘Which answer is not good?' What’s more, it is this variety of English that can be heard at institutions across the Netherlands, and the Dutch aren’t doing anything about it. But who needs native speakers from just across the North Sea to teach in English when the Dutch are fluent enough anyway?

I had the misfortune to visit Amsterdam in January. I was actually looking forward to it until I arrived and was not permitted by the locals to speak Dutch. No wonder that the rest of the Netherlands say Amsterdam isn’t really Dutch if I get replies in English to questions I asked in Dutch. 

The English aren’t entirely blameless here. It’s the stag parties in Amsterdam that are forcing their language, their customs and their manners upon the locals, whilst simultaneously providing a false impression of the British, and to be able to cash in on the tourism, is there really much choice for the Dutch other than to sit back reluctantly and watch it happen? Well, yes. Stag parties can easily go to Newcastle. I’m sure there's something else other than the slightly more relaxed laws or tolerant policemen that make Amsterdam so attractive. There is still some element of real Dutch culture that is so appealing.  

The point is that the Dutch are allowing English to threaten their culture that has been built up over hundreds of years. Their clever language, their traditional music, their rich cuisine are all at risk of fading away, when such things should be embraced and encouraged instead. By all means, learn a foreign language, and open yourself to more opportunities in this increasingly smaller world, but don’t forget who you are.

Eurovision 2011 report

The Eurovision Song Contest 2011 held in Düsseldorf pulled in 12.7 million UK viewers on Saturday - that's a third more than last year. It could be that this year we fielded an entry who had actually previously released a song, let alone three albums, rather than Joe Bloggs, 48, from Barnsley. I would rather put it down to the fact that it was the second time in a row that Western Europe had snatched the contest back for about a decade, following a long stretch of Eastern bloc-voting...you know, the old "sorry we went to war with your country, here's twelve points to say sorry." 

The national jury element of voting was reintroduced in 2009 in an attempt to break bloc voting and make the contest fairer by having a panel of politically unbiased professionals judge the quality of the song, rather than the nationality of its singers. By combining the jury vote with a public televote, each comprising 50% of the total vote, abracadabra, Norway won, followed by Germany the next year. Hallelujah, Europe is in equilibrium once again. Oh wait, no it isn't.

The split voting table reveals that public votes alone mean that Norway still would have won by miles. However, with a pure jury vote, the UK's 2009 entry came third (that time Andrew Lloyd Webber got involved), rather than tenth which is how the European public deemed us. Eventually, we came fifth after combining the two votes, a great improvement after sending Jemini (Royaume-Uni: nil points) and Scooch (Royaume Uni: mais c'est quoi ça?? qu'est-ce qui se passe!)

It was Azerbaijan who took the crown this year with a fairly reasonable, albeit soppy, love song (see right). This will be the first time the contest won't be held in Europe. The 2004 contest in Turkey got away with it by holding it on the European side of Istanbul. It will also be the first time the contest will be held in a country with several active military conflicts, reports Cafe Babel, as Azerbaijan is home to several disputed territories and ongoing military conflicts in Chechnya, South Ossetia and Dagestan. Next year will be interesting then.

The reason I was just moaning about bloc voting and how it has apparently been resolved is that the vast majority of Azerbaijan’s points came from eastern European countries. The only Western European country to give Azerbaijan 12 points was Malta, and if you saw their entry this year, you would question their legitimacy in judging musical talent.

Eastern bloc countries now make up more than half of the participants and this has resulted in a shift of weighting towards the east. Russia's win in 2008 prompted long time Eurovision commentator, Terry Wogan, to quit after the country received huge numbers of votes from former USSR states and virtually none from western Europe.

After a two year absence, bloc voting is back, but let's also take into account that the 2011 top ten was equally composed of Western and European countries. Italy, Sweden, Denmark, Ireland and Germany came second, third, fifth, eighth and tenth respectively. So was it really worth re-introducing a national jury, or should we just ban Eastern Europe from entering the contest, because it couldn't possibly be due to any other factor such as sharing a similar cultural background or taste in music.

Bilingualism in Wales - is it just for show?

There have been a fair number of stories in recent years about the English and Welsh on road signs not quite matching up. The latest one is at a Tesco with the arrow for "Exit" pointing right, and "Allanfa" (Welsh for exit) pointing left. 

In the same town, the local council requested a translation by email for a sign which read in English: "No entry for heavy goods vehicles. Residential site only". They then received an automated reply, which they assumed was the translation into Welsh, and put it on the sign. Unfortunately the sign actually read in Welsh: "I am not in the office at the moment. Send any work to be translated."

There's no harm in giving motorists something to chuckle about, but when it comes to translating instructions for pedestrians on crossing the road, it's best not to give conflicting information by telling English speakers to look left and Welsh speakers to look right in Central Cardiff.

So far, we've seen mistranslations which are at least comprehensible, but translation into gibberish just takes the biscuit, even if that's what Welsh may look like to the non native eye. A sign that in English read "pupils' and staff entrance" at a school in Wrexham included a word for staff meaning "wooden stave".

Finally, one of my favourites, was a sign telling cyclists in Cardiff to dismount in English, but that they had problems with an inflamed bladder in Welsh. 

We're all human. We all make mistakes. However, it does call into question the competence of council staff but perhaps more importantly the worthiness of bilingualism in official domains. These mistranslations could have easily been dispelled with a simple proofreading. Yet, councils seem to just be throwing thousand of pounds at bilingualism, without a second thought on how well it is spent, to satisfy the Welsh Language Board who as you can imagine isn't too pleased about these continuous errors. They even offer free translations on their website to businesses to help promote their use of the language and attract Welsh-speaking customers. 

I am by no means against bilingualism in Welsh; I did well in my Welsh GCSE. Nevertheless, if we are going to see our taxes spent on the renaissance of cymraegophonous culture (yes, I did invent that word), let's see it done properly. Otherwise it undermines the translation industry, it undermines native Welsh speakers and it undermines multiculturalism.

Lingua Franca - why would a Norwegian, Australian and Chilean in Iceland automatically speak English to each other?

Language. That unifying and yet dividing factor. Unifying, because it is the one of the most natural and instinctive ways human beings use for communicating. Dividing, because there were and are as many different languages as human cultures existed. And the dual nature of language becomes immediately patent once we cross the borders of our original Sprachraum. 

Many books and travelogues have been filled with anecdotes about misunderstandings, some funny and other rather serious, occurred to adventurous ladies and gents in lands away from their own. Like the Brazilian woman in a restaurant in a Spanish-speaking capital, asking out loud to a waiter to bring her a spoon, mispronouncing the Spanish language in such a way, that it was evident to the amused concurrence that she was expressing her intention (in Spanish slang) to become intimate with the dedicated worker. Or, inversely, a Spanish-speaking lady in a German furniture store, who insisted in wanting to buy a sailor when she in fact needed a mattress.

These confusions, mostly quite humorous and harmless, are better understood when we remember that, although a substantial proportion of humans is fluent (at different levels) in a language different than its own mother tongue (learned from birth on), the fact is that the vast majority of languages are alien to us. Of the estimated 7358 languages in use today, you can be expected to handle 1 or 2 in addition to your own, but it does not by any means enable you to communicate with a substantially bigger number of people. Unless one of those languages you speak is a lingua franca.

Lingua franca is an Italian renaissance term to define a language used as a common tongue for understanding between different peoples, originally used to designate a variety of Italian language heavily mixed with Turkish, Greek, Spanish and Arabic words, that was used by merchants and diplomats travelling across the Mediterranean Sea. An earlier example of such a language is Latin, which was for centuries the lingua franca across the Roman Empire, from Scythia to Hibernia, and was later inherited by the roman catholic church and the territories under its cultural influence (namely, almost all of Europe and its colonies), and even used by scientist to communicate with each other until not too many centuries ago.

The factors that decide which language becomes a lingua franca are multiple and can be analysed from the perspective of multiple social sciences: politics, economy, religion, etc. In different times and periods different languages acquired the very pragmatic role of lingua franca. The aforementioned Latin is a classical example, as well as Ancient Greek was the language of arts and sciences before the downfall of the Hellenic world, and even before that Acadian played a similar role in regions such as Mesopotamia and Egypt. During its time of glory, Arab speaking scholars saved a considerable amount of the incredibly vast Hellenic knowledge in astronomy, geometry, poetry, physiology, mathematics, ethics and engineering, and it is thanks to this scholars that many works of the great Greeks thinkers came to us. Arab was the lingua franca of the Islamic Empire from around 650 to 1500. More recently, German had a predominant role in Sciences and Philosophy during the 18th and 19th centuries, as well French enjoyed a status of diplomatic language from the 17th until well into the 20th century.

Today in the western world this title goes to the English language. We may try to apply the same parameters that once were valid for Latin to try explain why English is nowadays the lingua franca. From an historical point of view, the extension of the former British Empire clarifies a good deal of the geographical extension of the English language, as it was the commercial and political language of territories as diverse as Gibraltar, India, Hong Kong, New Zealand, South Africa and the Falkland Islands. Even in places that were not part of his Majesty's dominions beyond the Seas, important number of British merchants and tradesmen were active in business, bringing with them bits of British culture, and of course, the language. An interesting example of this can be seen in the old port city of Valparaiso, in Chile, where traditional places still carry names like Atkinson's, Brighton, Wanderers, with Anglican Churches in a predominant catholic country, and some streets in the old banking district very similar to areas in central London. Another possible important historical factor in the consolidation of English as a current world lingua franca is the outcome of Second World War and the rise of the United States as a major power in world politics.

But also the structure of the language may help to explain its wide usage. English is a very simple language, written in Latin alphabet, with very few diacritics in use. Grammatically, English does not present many complicated rules or structures, the single article “the” being used to denote all sexes and numbers, without changing endings in articles nor adjectives according to verbs. Actually many people complain that one of the difficult aspects of English is precisely this apparent lack of rules for some things that, in other languages, are strictly regulated, for example pronunciation. This relative simplicity allows a greater number of people to acquire an adequate fluency.

No matter what the real reasons for the rise of a lingua franca are, the fact of is that its existence does really simplify the lives of millions of people around the planet. How could otherwise be possible that a Norwegian fisherman, an Australian surfer and a couple of Chilean doctors enjoy some cold beers and good conversation while in northern Iceland?

Marcelo Espinoza Villacura is a doctor from Santiago, Chile, currently based in Germany and travelling around Europe.

La loi anti-burqa entre en vigueur

Une jeune française a été verbalisée le 11 avril dans un centre commercial dans le ouest du pays après avoir enfreint la loi interdisant le port du voile intégral dans les lieus publics, selon Ouest France. Les fonctionnaires ont condamné une amende de 150 euros à la jeune femme selon la loi interdisant la dissimulation du visage.

Cette loi controversée et difficile à appliquer a connu un nombre considérable de critiques de la communauté musulmane, de certaines homme politiques et des commissaires de police. Le ministre de l’Intérieur, Claude Guéant, a néanmoins insité que la loi «sera respectée», malgré toute difficulté de son application.

L'interdiction a été perçue comme une atteinte aux libertés fondamentales des femmes et aux principes des droits de l'Homme. Toutefois qu'on tienne compte du fait que l'Islam n'exige pas le port du voile et d'ailleurs certains clercs musulmans l'ont dénoncé.

Pour M Sarkozy, quant à lui, la burqa n'est pas la bienvenue en France au nom de la sécurité et de la déstigmatisation. Pourtant est-ce qu'il risque de faire tout le contraire en se tirant une balle dans le pied? Il faut attendre à l'élection présidentielle l'année prochaine pour découvrir la réponse.

La France a depuis longtemps été soumise au polémique entre deux de ses valeurs révolutionnaires contradictoires: la liberté et l'égalité. D'une part tous les citoyens sont libres à exprimer ses croyances réligieuses, mais d'autre part ils doivent être traités également selon le strict principe de laïcité. Il s'agit de trouver un équilibre délicat. Heureusement, le Président de la République a de bons antécédents pour ce qui est délicat. Vous vous souvenez des émeutes de banlieues parisiennes en 2005?

Tuition fee warning over four-year language courses

"University language departments are warning that the increase in tuition fees in England could undermine their ability to recruit students", according to this BBC News article. "Many language degrees include an extra year abroad - and there are fears that students will not want to pay up to £36,000 for a four-year course."

With languages already seen by many aspiring sixth-formers as a side-subject after being rendered non compulsory a few years ago, compared with the urgent need for language graduates in the UK, this is great news for those who deem it necessary to further diminish the number of students taking A-levels and GCSEs in modern languages.

Once seen as a decisive factor in opting to study foreign languages, the extra year spent abroad as part of all language degrees in the UK in which students develop their fluency and cultural knowledge, now counts against its attractivity, incurring up to £9,000 more debt.

The government allegedly recognises the importance of modern languages, but with hundreds of arts organisations finding out today whether or not they face the chop, what's to stop Modern Languages from suffering?

One one hand, Universities such as Essex are role models in fronting the fight back with plans to fund its own subsidy when fees are increased, so that language students will not pay any fees for the extra fourth year.

On the other hand, however, the funding cuts and tuition fees rises have pushed University of the West of England to amputate all modern language courses.

This all forms part of government's plan to salvage the sinking economy, and what better way than to remove the career prospects of thousands and a sector of industry simply vital to trading with the 75% of the world's population who don't speak English?