I would like to share with the members of the Forum the very interesting thread of discussions in my blogspot, Jose Carillo on the English Language, that followed the formal launching of my third book on English usage, Give Your English the Winning Edge.
(http://josecarilloforum.com/imgs/englishtree_image-1A.jpg)
The first response, which I presented in my weekly column in The Manila Times last August 8, was a posting by a Briton, Brian Barker, last July 25:
Dear Mr. Carillo:
Please do not overestimate the position of English.
I live in London and if anyone says to me “everyone speaks English” my answer is “Listen and look around you”. If people in London do not speak English then the whole question of a global language is completely open.
The promulgation of English as the world’s “lingua franca” is impractical and linguistically undemocratic. I say this as a native English speaker!
Impractical because communication should be for all and not only for an educational or political elite. That is how English is used internationally at the moment.
Undemocratic because minority languages are under attack worldwide due to the encroachment of majority ethnic languages. Even Mandarin Chinese is attempting to dominate as well. The long-term solution must be found and a non-national language, which places all ethnic languages on an equal footing is essential. As a native English speaker, my vote is for Esperanto :)
Your readers may be interested in seeing http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=_YHALnLV9XU (http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=_YHALnLV9XU). Professor Piron was a former translator with the United Nations
A glimpse of the global language, Esperanto, can be seen at http://www.lernu.net (http://www.lernu.net)
I posted this reply to Brian that same day:
Dear Brian,
Yes, I agree with you that we shouldn’t overestimate the position of English, but I think that we shouldn’t underestimate it either. In the Philippines, in particular, English is very important to us because it’s our second language next to Filipino, our national language; it’s also a major language of instruction in our schools, it’s the official language of our government bureaucracy, and it’s a dominant language in our mass media. Just in case you didn’t know it, our nation has an English-language heritage of over a hundred years, having been colonized for 48 years by the United States, gaining independence from it in 1946 but absorbing and adopting for keeps many of its values and institutional underpinnings—including a democratic tradition and, of course, the English language. It’s therefore no surprise that we value English in our country more than most countries in Asia and elsewhere in the world do.
There’s one other very important reason why we put a premium to English in our land. You see, unlike Britain and the rest of the United Kingdom that use only English or a few dialects or variants of it, the Philippines has a total of 160 regional dialects—many of them different languages in themselves. Indeed, our official national language—Filipino—is simply one of our regional languages—Tagalog—that we are still in the process of transforming into a true national language. Indeed, Filipino is still very much a national language in the making, and I must point out that one or two of the country’s regions are fiercely opposed to it, each claiming that its regional language has more speakers than Tagalog and should therefore be the national language instead—or else be left alone and be allowed to use its own regional language as its official language of instruction.
Given such a situation, the Philippines needs a language to bridge the various linguistic aspirations and needs of its regions. Whether we like it or not, this is the role being ably played by English in our country today, and the foundations for English being already strong and sinewy in our country, I really don’t see any reason why we should add Esperanto to the babel of regional languages and dialects that our country has to contend with at this time. Moreover, the fight between the English-language proponents and the Filipino-language proponents in the Philippines is fierce and contentious enough, so I’m afraid that the entrance of Esperanto and any other new language to the fray may just befuddle us and lead the country to linguistic disaster.
A Filipino writer from Davao City, Arvin Antonio Ortiz, posted the rejoinder below on July 26:
And if I may add, if English is our linguistic bridge, we may be better off if we use that bridge deftly, not clumsily.
A reader of my blogspot, Betty Chatterjee, posted on August 3 this belated response to my reply to Brian (but I happened to read her posting only this morning of August 13):
Dear Joe,
As an English-born Esperanto speaker I have reaped the benefits from using both languages. Although I would be delighted if Esperanto could play a greater role in promoting international communication I can see your point of view.
In my opinion at the present time the region that would benefit most of all from the adoption of Esperanto as an auxiliary language would be the European Union. Non English speaking member countries of the Union are spending a great deal of their resources on English language learning. Much as I love my mother-tongue it is difficult to learn sufficiently well for effective communication. Travelling around Eastern Europe you can be hard put to find English speakers. Esperanto is easier to learn. Choosing a ‘neutral’ language would also solve the problem of language rivalry in the European Union.
A global world needs an auxiliary language. It could be that it English is THE language, but it could also be worth while seriously investigating the potential advantages of introducing Esperanto.
Yours sincerely
Betty Chatterjee
Here’s my belated reply to Betty, which I posted in my blogspot only today (August 13):
Dear Betty,
I’m very sorry for this belated reply. I had to attend to some very pressing matters and had overlooked checking belated responses to my previous postings in my blogspot.
I never doubted the value of Esperanto as an auxiliary language. In fact, if only I didn’t have to contend with two regional languages of my own apart from Filipino—the emerging variant of Tagalog—and English as well, I would have wanted to learn another foreign language. That foreign language could very well have been Esperanto, but I must admit that there are practical limits to my absoption of a new language now, particularly the availability of discretionary time for learning it.
When I was much younger, of course, I wanted to learn as many foreign languages as I could. I tried learning Chinese for what I thought was its commercial value, but somehow my efforts didn’t prosper. I also tried learning Russian for what I felt was its strange, bewitching allure, but I never got far because there was no one in my hometown I could practice the language with in those days—that time when, mind you, the Internet and the World Wide Web weren’t even a pipe dream yet. And finally I tried learning French, but never got beyond learning a few of its terms of endearment.
So you see, Betty, my language repertoire has by force of circumstance been limited to English, Tagalog (not even the emerging Filipino language with its mind-numbing strange borrowings from Spanish and English), two Bicol languages (some linguistic experts call them dialects but, from my first-hand experience in using these two very different tongues, I know their assessment to be incorrect), and a smattering of a few other Philippine regional tongues—that’s all. And sadly, I must admit, there’s no more room in my brain for Esperanto even if I fervently desired to learn it at this time.
Still, I agree with you that Esperanto would be perfect for multilingual countries with no bridging language yet. As for me and for many of my countrymen, though, we have already found that bridging language in English.
On August 9, I received the e-mail below from a Filipino reader, Mauro Dionisio, in response to my earlier rejoinder to Brian:
You contradicted yourself when you said that ...“the Philippines has a total of 160 regional dialects—many of them different languages in themselves.” A dialect is a variation of a particular language. Therefore our regional languages cannot be dialects. Actually, the government brainwashed students in the 1950s and 1960s into believing that our regional languages are dialects to make it appear that they all emanated from the national language, then known as Pilipino. One example of a dialect is the Tagalog spoken in Metro Manila, as compared to those in Bulacan and Batangas.
Thank you.
My reply to Mauro on August 9:
Thanks for the feedback!
You're right, the term "regional dialects" is semantically inappropriate in that sentence of mine. Now that you've pointed it out, I realize that I should have used the more all-encompassing term "regional tongues" instead to avoid the apparent contradiction.
As to your point that the government had "brainwashed" students to make them think that the regional languages are dialects, I must admit that it's the first time I'm hearing about it. I will therefore need to look more deeply into that point before I can make a response.
On August 10, Mauro then sent me the e-mail below elaborating on his comment about Philippine dialects:
Dear Mr. Carillo:
When I was in the elementary grades in the 1960s, our teachers taught us that Filipinos speak various dialects, and that the national language is Pilipino. I was born and grew up in Manila speaking Tagalog (or Pilipino as our teachers pointed out), and it was ingrained in my mind that Bisaya, Bicol and other regional languages were just variations of Pilipino or Tagalog.
It was only later as an adult that I learned through books that the tongues in the various regions are languages compeletely different from Tagalog. Some Filipinos of my age still refer to our regional languages as “dialects.” I guess the brainwashing they went through in the elementary grades had not been undone.