Is it still appropriate to refer to our nation’s language as English?
It is, after all, the tongue of our colonial heritage. It was what the Pilgrims spoke when they first arrived on November 11, 1620, and it is that tool they used to establish a foundation in the New World. Part of our anti-colonial attitude today makes a case for reparations to the litany of abuses the settlers and their successors engaged in. My argument isn’t along those lines. After all, as Walter Benjamin stated in his essay “On the Concept of History,” “there is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism.” Any aspect of contemporary culture is marked by violence, even those defined by a pacifist attitude.
To make my argument, let me invoke a strategy the French use when translating foreign books into their own tongue. Ever sensitive to cultural uniqueness, not to mention appropriation, they don’t say, in the cover of novels, in film subtitles, and so on, that it was translated from, for instance, Spanish or Arabic. Instead, they make clear the piece in question was rendered from Mexican, Tunisian, etc. Yes, they dare to call Mexican Spanish Mexican and Egyptian Arabic Egyptian. In other words, the French dare to use the locale where a language is in its name.
This is done, they argue—wisely—, because of the crucial nuances distinguishing Mexican, Argentine, and Iberian Spanish, or Egyptian, Syrian, and Lebanese Arabic. On the surface, these varieties might look alike but their differences are essential.
Similarly, when in France a book is translated from American English, they call it Américaine.
Needless to say, in the United States we frequently avoid giving credit for innovation and other matters to foreigners. Maybe we should consider putting off our blinders for once to embrace the approach. It strikes me at once as sharp and commonsensical.
Linguists nowadays talk about American English, Australian English, British English, Canadian English, and so on, each defined by its own idiosyncratic elements. American English is the globe’s lingua franca, with 1.5 billion speakers worldwide, either natives or using it as a second language. In contrast, there are about 1.1 billion Mandarin Chinese speakers, the vast majority native.