As English spreads, so do fears of cultural imperialism
Ted Anthony
LOME (Togo): Those jumbo round ears. Those earnest wide eyes. You can't help
but recognize him, peering from the side of the road. It's Earth's most
famous rodent: Mickey Mouse.
In the middle of West Africa, Disney's flagship critter is putting in a
trademark-violating cameo appearance on a sign for "Master Hands Car
Washing." And here's the kicker: It's in plain English, right on the streets
of the French-speaking capital of Togo.
American commercial icons and English words - a potent combination. Together
they are circling the planet, helping each other seep into every corner and
troubling people in many lands who consider it nothing less than cultural
imperialism.
As English becomes a global tongue, it becomes clear that language and
culture cannot be separated. And everyone from the French to the Indonesians
worry that where English goes, America will follow.
"The imperialism of the English language has to have a limit somewhere,"
Louise Beaudoin, Quebec's minister for international affairs, said last
month, reacting to Air France's decision to require pilots to use English to
land at their own airport in Paris. "Scandalous," she said. Earlier this
month, Air France backed down - at least for now.
Until World War II, colonialism propelled English's spread. But new cultures
that transcend political boundaries changed that - entertainment culture,
commercial culture and Internet culture, all driven by American interests.
Examples abound. McDonald's and KFC just off Tiananmen Square.
Kodak film sold on the streets of Ulan Bator, Mongolia. Coca-Cola served at
Uncle Father's Nippy Spot near Cape Coast, Ghana. The kid with the Penn
State basketball T-shirt in remote Gusau, Nigeria. All are icons of American
mass culture, and all carry shards of English into other lands.
"So many people thought that politics was going to shake the world. And
before that, it was religion. But it turns out that it's consumption that
shook the world," says James Twitchell, author of Lead Us Into Temptation:
The Triumph of American Materialism.
"The lingua franca is advertising," he says, "and advertising is dominantly
English."
For Togo, the writing's on the wall - in English. A ride around Lome reveals
at least two other illicit Mickey appearances (one alongside Minnie) and
dozens of Coca-Cola signs. Most people in the capital speak some English;
Westerners are accosted by hawkers in English. Scores of Togolese youths
study it at Lome's American Cultural Center.
"To be able to speak English in Togo is regarded as a matter of pride," says
Theodore Ganyon, a business teacher at a Lome school. This sort of attitude
not only spreads English, but helps it infiltrate other languages.
In Germany, "echt cool" is an expression of approval. China's word for
chocolate is "qiaokeli." And in Israel, where many Hebrew plurals end in
"-im," sealed-beam headlights are called "silbim." French speakers in the
Ivory Coast who want a Coke ask for "un Coca." Even in France, you'll hear
"l'Internet" and "le Big Mac," much to Francophiles' chagrin. Japanese
imports English words with gleeful abandon: A stereo is a "sutereo," for
example, and a task force a "tasuku forsu."
Some call it pragmatism; to others it's pollution, proof that American and
British tentacles reach everywhere. "How much English can Switzerland take?"
the Swiss Review wondered last year - in English.
"There are a lot of forces that have resisted English," says linguist Anne
Soukhanov, US general editor of the Encarta World English Dictionary. "It's
always had a backdrop of warfare and violence and defeat and revolution
associated with it."
Resistance is spreading. Many nations - France, Germany and Poland among
them - have passed laws to protect their languages from English's onslaught
as Europe unites and does more business across cultures. France has promoted
its language aggressively in former colonies like Cambodia.
"Francophonie can and must be an alternative to the cultural and linguistic
uniformity that threatens the world," French Culture Minister Jacques Toubon
said in 1993 at a summit of French-speaking nations.
Iceland, too, is protecting its language from linguistic invasion. The
government appoints "word committees" to create new terms when they're
needed. Technology words are born like this; "farsimi," for example, means
"mobile phone."
"Everyone should be able to speak about computers and everything else, for
that matter, in their mother tongue," says Ari Pall Kristinsson, director of
the Icelandic Language Institute.
Ultimately it is a question of perspective. "What is felt by French people
as American imperialism is probably felt by Americans as simply spreading
the culture," says Bertrand-Romain Menciassi, a linguist at the
Brussels-based European Bureau of Lesser-Used Languages.
The disputes, and the trepidations, can only increase as multinational
corporations grow and the need to communicate across cultures becomes as
important as cultures themselves. A new economy, sewn together in convulsive
fits of progress, can expect nothing less.
"All language arguments end up not being language arguments. They're about
status, class, goals and quality of life," says David Crystal, author of the
Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language.
"With language," he says, "identity is never far away."(AP)
For reprint rights: Times Syndication Service
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