Thanksgiving and Linguistic Diversity

According to EyeWitness to History.com, two members of the Pawtuxet tribe spoke English when meeting the most recent immigrants to their shores, the Pilgrims, at Plymouth. Subsequent interactions between  Native Americans and the new arrivals were also conducted in English, as was the first Thanksgiving in 1621. There is no record of the Pawtuxet requiring these immigrants to learn the local language. By contrast, staff at a recent United States Customs and Immigration Services appointment I had were rather dismissive of anybody there who spoke little English. More disturbing was a comment by a translator (not working in Spanish) during lunch at the recent ATA conference that "there is entirely too much Spanish in the U.S." and that this constitutes "a problem".

It seems to me that translators and interpreters should especially support the right of people to speak their own language -- if for nothing else, because our collective livelihood depends on it. Even if a particular translator does not speak the language in question, positing that one's own language combination is somehow superior to a different set of languages, is misguided, at best. As language professionals, if a specific language is prevalent in our environment, we should attempt to learn at least its rudiments.

Countries can have bi- or multilingual populations, as Switzerland, Belgium and many countries in Africa and Asia have demonstrated. When my children visited Southern Senegal a few years ago, they met a number of other teenagers who were fluent in three or four languages: the two main African languages in the region, Wolof and Mandinka, the former colonial language (which is still the official tongue), French, and English, which was taught in school as a foreign language.

So if you live in the U.S., learn at least a little Spanish. It not only facilitates your interaction with some of your neighbors, but you may even learn something about other traditions, including food. How about substituting platanos (mashed green bananas) for potatoes at Thanksgiving dinner?

If you are in the U.S., have a good holiday!/p>

Catching Up on My Reading

I found out today that the main Brooklyn Public Library's foreign language section just closed for renovations until mid-June. I guess that gives me time to catch up on the books I did take out, but didn't have time to read yet. So here are some books I recently read and found helpful (not all were from the library):

Make Your Contacts Count: Networking Know-How for Cash, Clients, and Career Success by Anne Baber and Lynne Waymon. Not all of their advice is applicable to one-person businesses selling a business-to-business service, such as translators, but there is useful advice, including how to best network at conferences and how to plan for networking events.

Los Mejores Narradores Jóvenes en Español from Granta. A collection of Spanish-language short stories, not necessarily easy, but good for brushing up my Spanish. As with all short story collections, some are more my taste than others (and a couple I just didn't finish).

The New Media Monopoly by Ben Bagdikian. I read a (much) earlier edition of this book back in college when I majored in Media Studies. It's quite interesting to see what has (and -- even more interesting -- what hasn't) changed since then.

I also enjoy reading Wired magazine -- as does the rest of my family, so we have to negotiate who gets to read it first. The May issue is devoted to exploring humor -- what makes us laugh and why. Did you know there is actually an academic field of "humor studies", complete with an International Society for Humor Studies? Now, I think that is funny in itself.

So what are you reading?

PS: The Science and Technology Division of the American Translators Association just published a post I wrote for the the divison's blog. It's about The Society for Technical Communication (STC).

Happy holidays to those of you who celebrate Easter or Passover!

Canada is Bilingual -- Why Not the U.S., Too?

I just returned from a mini-vacation in Montreal and Quebec City, Canada. While I kept struggling to get directions or negotiate payments in French, Montrealers in particular seemed to effortlessly move in and out of English and French, depending on the situation and persons involved. That was even true for some American friends who had moved to Montreal a few years ago and were working in a French-speaking environment. Even in Quebec City, where French is much more prevalent than in Montreal, our elderly host at the Bed and Breakfast where we stayed easily switched to English when he saw me struggling to understand him.

Given that everyone in Quebec learns both languages starting in elementary school and not infrequently encounters situations where he/she needs to use his/her non-dominant language that is not surprising. Since fluency in multiple languages is becoming increasingly important in a ever more globalized world, one wonders why it is so rare outside special circumstances such as officially bi-lingual countries. It seems to me that a similar strategy of early immersion in a second language could be replicated relatively easily at least in large U.S. cities, most of which have a rather significant Spanish-speaking population.

If children here in New York, for example, were to learn Spanish intensively starting in, say, third grade, and then were encouraged to use that knowledge in day-to-day interactions with the city's Spanish-speaking population, we could raise a bilingual generation. That would, of course, also require expanding access to Latino cultural contributions to the mainstream, selling Spanish-speaking newspapers everywhere and increasing Spanish-language programming on TV and radio.

My only problem with that scenario is that if I went to Quebec then, my Spanish would intrude into my French even more than it does now.