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Language As The Perfect Instrument Of Empire?
“When introduced to a construction of Spanish grammar in 1492, Queen Isabella of Spain was perplexed. She wondered what purpose grammar could serve.
In response to her confusion,the Bishop of Avila replied:
“Language is the perfect instrument of empire.””
This quote comes from ESL Pundit, a new English language site which caught my eye recently. I’ll post my thoughts on this topic here, and encourage readers to contribute their own thoughts either here or at ESL Pundit in the form of comments. Be warned, my post may be slightly off topic from what the original post was speaking about…but I find this area interesting anyhow.
Is English an instrument of empire?
In a sense, yes; there’s no denying that people learning English has positive ramifications for English speaking countries, too numerous to detail here. Though I acknowledge that the fact that millions of people throughout the world learn and speak English often gives native English speakers an advantage, there is more to it than that.
What complicates the situation is that many many people are not learning English so they can move to England, Australia, South Africa, Canada, or the US or so they can do business with people from these countries; they are learning so they can communicate with people from any number of other, non-English speaking countries, all the languages of which they couldn’t learn in their lifetime.
I’ve heard from more than one speaker of a Slavic language (and Slavic languages are somewhat mutually intelligible – for example a Slovak might be able to understand half of what a Bulgarian person is saying without ever having studied or heard Bulgarian before) say that they still speak English with their other-Slavic-language-speaking friends. This doesn’t even take into account, say, a Chinese person who wants to do business in Hungary.
Similarly, in countries with multiple languages, English might actually seem a more neutral lingua franca than other options. Flemish speakers in Belgium might prefer to speak English (rather than French) with another Belgian whose language is French but who doesn’t speak Flemish. English, despite the history of the UK in India, is often considered more neutral than Hindi in that country.
So while there is no denying that language can and does function as an “instrument of empire”, it seems nearly impossible to quantify the results of the dominance of English, even as generally more positive or negative. Would, for example, people in Lithuania or Thailand be better off if they couldn’t communicate or do business with their neighbors? Or if people had to learn three or four or ten languages in order to do so?
Don’t get me wrong – while the work of EFL teachers depends on it, I most certainly realize there are pros and cons both to the spread of English. I just don’t think it’s a black and white issue.
If you’d like to share your views on this topic, please post them here or visit ESL Pundit to leave a comment.
By Katie | Permalink
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I have to argue with this point of English being an instrument of empire. First, it seems to imply that English as an empirical tool (in other words, a weapon) is and was intentionally used as such. I think the truth here is beyond any individual’s capacity to wield it as a weapon. English being the lingua franca of the times is more an accident of history and a long chain of events and individual choices.
Second, it is strange thing to be considered as a tool for use by the ‘empire’ (which I loosely take to mean an only-somewhat loosely connected collection of English-speaking countries). At first glance, it appears that the onus is on the rest of the world to learn English to do business with us, but I think that is a very myopic and self-centered view. English is another tool in the toolbox for the non-native-speaker and while at first it might present a challenge to learn, in the long run, it presents nothing but opportunities and advantages over other people who speak only a single language, including those who only speak English (the empire).
Lastly, one might argue that it is ‘cultural imperialism’ to have English as the lingua franca of the world. Some believe that a dominant English language is corroding or destroying other cultures. While it is certainly true the culture and language are tightly bound what is not true is that learning English somehow supplants the mother-tongue or even diminishes use of other languages. Language is not like religious conversions - convert or die. Nor is analogous to a new technology replacing an old one - the typewriter and email, or in-head math skills and the calculator. English and all language is simply another way to communicate.
No, my friends, language is not the perfect instrument of empire…in fact, it will do nothing else but bring about the end of empire. Look at Latin - once the language of clerics and the religious class. It was not accessible to the masses and this ignorance or guarding of the secret tongue enforced the divisions of society. Profusion of the English has far more in common with the invention of the printing press - a democratization of communication.