Artefacts, new developments and the invasion of english

Every day, people receive some new waft of basic English through advertising messages about brands, devices and imported products. Lately, the family tables of the wealthy have become crowded with imported products bearing labels in English. The jargon invades television, magazines, advertisements and everyday speech. It makes its way into tastes and habits. Children prefer McDonald’s sandwiches. Women prefer “fast food” and “Diet Pepsi.” Property agents call themselves “brokers,” grocery stores “markets,” and car rental companies “rent a car.” And there is all that business of “soft” and “hard.” Fortunately, although the model of society that has descended upon us resembles Puerto Rico, what is happening to the Spanish language among the Puerto Rican citizens of the “Associated State” has not yet happened to us. Consider a sample from one of its “bilingual evening newspapers,” perhaps, admittedly, a mirror in which to glimpse our future.

What is happening in Latin America has parallels elsewhere, although considerably less pronounced. The French are among those most concerned about the invasion of Anglo-American English. They feel that the majestic language of Corneille is retreating inexorably. They understand well the cultural importance of a language: it is not merely a way of speaking, but also a way of expressing oneself and existing. Some even believe that it would be appropriate to strengthen Esperanto as a supranational language. Yet the advance of English seems inexorable. In science and technology, almost nothing can be said except through it. Advertising regards it as an unrivalled medium. Products are no longer stamped “Fabriqué en France”; they are marked “Made in France”…

Other non-English-speaking Europeans are also deeply uneasy. Some already speak of the danger that 280 million people, who will become many more with those from the East, may one day turn away from their national languages. They fear that English will become universal in Europe if the other languages lose their vitality and reason for being, and are absorbed. “That is how it will be,” one writer states, when French, Portuguese, German and Dutch have lost their identity. Language is the privileged foundation of culture. From the perspective of Argentina’s historical memory, the case of the French is paradoxical. In one century, they have gone from imperial rulers to vassals. We remember that only yesterday France was our cultural metropolis. It was so for the leading figures of the period of National Organisation, who immersed themselves in political philosophy through Rousseau or Saint-Simon. It was also so for our wealthy “rastacueros” at the end of the century, who received that attentive description precisely from the French, according to the testimony of Monsieur Huret, the “chronicler of two worlds.” It is advisable, however, to examine the problem through objective conceptual lenses. The main point is to distinguish between the different meanings attached to the uses of languages.

“Language” can possess different hierarchical values. Like Greek in Antiquity, Latin in the Middle Ages and until the eighteenth century, and French in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, English now functions as a universal language, as a vehicular language that facilitates communication among individuals and peoples with different native, vernacular languages.

The former, the “vehicular” languages, possess the qualities of precision, objectivity and univocal meaning. They are concrete, clear and economical, capable of transmitting academic, scientific, technical and practical information effectively, particularly the information belonging to fields in which the countries that shape them hold a position of leadership. The latter, the “vernacular” languages, express each people, their feelings, dreams and experiences. They are subjective, polyvalent, rich and suited to nuances. They possess a broad vocabulary through which every difference and contradiction can be expressed.

Neither Greek, Latin nor French during their respective imperial periods prevented the growth of Italian, German, Spanish or any other language. While Erasmus wrote in Latin, Cervantes was founding Castilian Spanish. While Voltaire reigned, Goethe wrote in German and Manzoni in Italian. The use of a “vehicular” language for communication among the countries of the world is entirely legitimate and necessary. It undoubtedly represents an enormous advantage for everyone. The case of English today is obvious. In a world that, more than ever before, forms a dense network of communication and exchange, this language—which will surely one day give way to another “vehicular” language, as Latin and French did before it—has become an almost absolute requirement of culture and even of daily work.

What should concern us is the tendency to debase our “vernacular” language, the language that belongs to us as a diverse society. Language is a living organism that changes, incorporates new elements and becomes richer, but it must be cared for because it supports culture. It is necessary to organise the coexistence of the vehicular and vernacular languages. Perhaps, as a professor at the University of Paris recently suggested in Le Monde, the best way for people to prepare themselves to learn foreign languages is ultimately to speak better and, above all, to write their own language better. First, then, we must cultivate our own garden.