From: delval@Csli.Stanford.EDU (Alvaro del Val)
Subject: Re: Oxford Companion to English (fwd)
Organization: Stanford University CSLI
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 04:32:05 GMT

In article <9210061256.AA37791@cpuserver.acsc.com> Miguel Vinuela <mvinuela@CC.GETTYSBURG.EDU> writes:
>
>---------- Forwarded message ----------
>Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 11:21:03 CST
>From: P Hellander <phelland@ADAM.ADELAIDE.EDU.AU>
>To: Multiple recipients of list LANTRA-L <LANTRA-L%FINHUTC.BITNET@PSUVM.PSU.EDU>
>Subject: Oxford Companion to English
>
>Friends,
>
>The following appeared in the London Times. I hope it is of some interest.
>The content sounds fairly chauvinistic; what are other list-members' views?
>
>Paul
>
>PUB DATE         24 September 1992
>PUBLICATION      The Times
>TYPE             Features
>BYLINE           Jim McCue
>HEADLINE         Prostitute of tongues;Books
>
>  THE OXFORD, COMPANION TO THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, Edited by Tom McArthur,
>  OUP, Pounds 25
>

>   The world's wish to speak English is one of the undeclared themes of
>  this book. 

"Convenience" has more to do with it than desire.

[...]
>  province. English, in all its unruly diversity, is probably Britain's
>  greatest asset. The world will come to us. 

Chauvinistic indeed. The funny thing is that this is *British*
chauvinism. Didn't it occur to the author that the dominance of
English is essentially a result of the USA's economical, technological
and scientific might, and has little to do with anything British?  (in
my opinion, of course, and said without any British-bashing intentions
at all)

> Instead of seizing this
>  inestimable advantage, we hobble ourselves by submitting to the Babel
>  of the European Community, which employs 2,700 people translating
>  everything into nine languages. To soothe the pride of the French and
>  others, we acquiesce in this nonsense, even though English is the first
>  second language throughout the EC.
>

This reminds me of something I recently read about ongoing discussions
on making English, French and German the three only languages of some
important EC institution (I don't remember which). Makes economic
sense? To a point only. Mostly, it makes a lot of economic sense for
the British, the Germans and the French. Anything that needs to be
incorporated into the national legislation/regulations of EC countries
will need to be translated to the corresponding language anyway. The
difference is that the EC would only pay the bill for translations to
English, German and French; for other languages, the respective
national governments would have to pay. If we take the *total* cost of
translating EC documents (including the expenses incurred by national
governments if this idea became reality), I doubt there is much
difference in terms of savings with respect to the current 9-language
situation. Many of the EC's 2700 translators would have to go home ...
just to keep doing exactly the same kind of work, now on their
government's payroll.

There might also be some real advantages for these three countries in
litigation, etc., derived from the fact that, though there will still
be 9 versions (at least) of each EC regulation, only three of them
would be official.

So my opinion (at this point, subject to change) is that any such
arrangement would not result in overall savings and gives an unfair
advantage, in terms of both costs and interpretation of regulations,
to the countries whose languages are chosen, at the expense of the
rest.  Therefore I oppose such arrangements. Notice that my reasons
for this position have little to do with "pride" (to use the writer's
phrase for the French) or any other nationalistic motive. It's a
simple matter of economics.

>   A more profound concern is ``linguicide'' (a term the Companion uses
>  but has no entry for). Any language's death diminishes us, for each is
>  a unique perspective on experience. Furthermore, languages flourish
>  through mutual contact. Indeed, responsiveness and absorbency partly
>  account for the success of English, which over nine centuries has
>  ``undergone more dramatic changes than any other major European
>  language'', according to the Oxford Companion. Linguistic diversity may
>  prove to be as necessary as genetic diversity. Yet the predominance of
>  English makes it hard to see how the wealth of other languages and
>  literatures may be preserved.
>
>                       **End of document reached**
>--

Funny how the author insists on the alleged virtues of English (which
I don't dispute) with total disregard for other reasons for the
dominance of language, or, for that matter, without a single mention
to the USA in the whole article! As for the "other languages will
disappear" line, I think it is just a misleading cliche, even for the
few non-English speaking countries in which English is almost a second
nature. Local languages will continue to be the main channel of
communication for almost everybody, and as long as this is the case I
see little chance of these languages and literatures losing their
"wealth" (scientific and technical vocabulary is a completely
different story).

Of course, if I think of possibilities for working back in Europe, it
is a definite advantage if I can count on English (or spanish :-)
being the main language for scientific communication in research
centers, etc., as it is the case in some non-english speaking
countries. And besides, the (unstoppable?) deterioration of almost all
non-english languages in their ability to express scientific concepts
(without importing from english) is a fact that I see little reason to
complain about. In fact, it is awfully convenient. I understand the
concerns about the "spanglish" that is common in technical discussions
in spanish; on the other hand, how many of you would like to be forced
to learn, say, German in order to have access to important literature
in your field? But if you want to preserve a language's ability to
express technical concepts and the existence of non-english scientific
literature, then you should be ready for this situation as well.

Alvaro

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>                     "It's not that I am afraid to die...
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