THE END OF ENGLISH? I DON'T THINK SO!
I'm the first to admit that, despite running one of the world's most successful translation and interpreting companies, my own linguistic skills leave a lot to be desired. In fact between you and me I was absolutely hopeless at learning languages at school. One could blame the style and quality of the teaching but then one would have to blame all the teachers in all the other subjects too. However, later on in life I was lucky to be able to work in many different counties and lived for a period of time in France and Israel.
When I travelled to one of those counties, which I do a lot, my problem is that when I try and speak their language often the person generously responds in English. I also have to admit my relief as unlike other Europeans I give up and let them speak English. Possibly this is due to our natural British reserve or maybe it is simply because I’m lazy.
There is no doubt that English is not the most widely spoken language in the world, as many of us seem to think – more people speak Chinese and Spanish but certainly English is still the most dominant commercial language spoken and will be for some time.
I was very surprised therefore to read this week that a prominent linguist and author, Dr Nicholas Ostler, speaking at that most English of events, the Hay Literary Festival, said that English is about to lose its dominance. He said that the age of machine translation would mean everyone would communicate in their own languages though hand-held devices that would interpret what they were saying. Admittedly, Dr Ostler has a book to sell (don't we all?) but I really have to take issue with his prediction.
Firstly, the idea that everyone will have a hand-held device is probably news to billions of non-English speakers worldwide. I have no argument with machines interpreting words, quite the opposite since my own company's expertise will sit behind these systems. What does concern me is that Dr Ostler's comments could discourage young people from learning another language. Already we're seeing huge reductions in language learning amongst school children. Only last month the Chamber of Commerce was sufficiently concerned about the lack of language skills in the world economy that they called for a return to compulsory language education for every child.
As dominant as English is in the commercial world we are seeing growth in many other languages, and often growth is dependent on movement of population, for example Polish and Slovakian are becoming widely spoken in the UK as people from these counties move to the United Kingdom. Spanish in the United States is becoming the second language as more people move from south America into the US. As the economies in the developing world move forwards, that will also change the dominance of the languages spoken as we see Chinese and Indian languages moving into the premier division of languages spoken.
On a selfish point of view the more people that require our services the better; that doesn’t mean I am not very concerned about the appalling language training that occurs in many other counties where we have offices, especially in the US and UK. Communicating through a hand-held machine can have its uses but to look into the face of someone with whom you are communicating, without being able to hear the charm of their accent (unless there are from Blackburn or Brooklyn!) and the intonation in their voice is something I don’t believe a machine will ever replace.
I am trying to imagine what my first kiss with my French girlfriend would have been like when, if afterwards, I would have used a machine to ask “would you like a mint?” - I hate the taste of garlic!
I will leave you with that very happy thought and wish you a very pleasant weekend
Larry Gould (Doctor)
