Losing English

I love the English language. It’s my first language. I teach it. I write in it. Finding just the perfect word gives me a little charge of visceral glee that non-lexophiles probably find slightly perverse.But there’s nothing special about English.There’s just as much—or more—beauty, utility, meaning, and nuance in Spanish, Russian, Tagalog, and Navajo.Classic stories have been written in Chinese, Japanese, Lao, and Hindi.Heart-wrenching lyrics are sung in Mongolian, French, Polish, and Inuktitut.One can find Finnish-, Khmer-, Farsi-, and Serbian-speaking performers, scientists, teachers, and data processors.English is just another mother tongue.A foreign-serving missionary once told me, “I’m not doing anybody any favors learning to speak their language. English is the international language. That’s what everybody speaks.”No, it isn’t.About 20% of the world’s people (or 1.5 billion) speak English; only 360 million natively. Nearly as many speak some dialect of Chinese.Oh, you say that most of the world’s business takes place in English? I don’t have any numbers on that, but I can tell you that a couple of thousand years ago Latin had its Golden Age. It remained the favored language of educated people all the way through the Renaissance (14th-16th centuries A.D.).It’s a dead language now. No one speaks it natively.English isn’t special. It isn’t more learned, more cultured, or more valuable than any other language. It just happens to be the set of lexicon and grammar that has flourished in this particular time and place in history.America is changing. Our Hispanic population is quickly overtaking our Caucasian population.And by and large, Hispanics speak Spanish.We may lose English.We have certainly lost the America of the 1700’s and the 1800’s. We’re in the process of losing the America of the 1900’s, too. There are some losses that I consider mourn-worthy. Others are long overdue.Everything changes.Let me correct myself on that. The Amish have done a bang-up job of freeze-framing a pre-industrial lifestyle. So I guess it is possible to hold onto the past.But that’s not nature’s normal. And I don’t think it’s something to which we should aspire.We’re not going to lose English in my lifetime, or probably my children’s or grandchildren’s lifetimes. But the world may lose it eventually.And like everything that goes, there is a genuine loss.But language itself will go on.So when you hear someone around you speaking in a tongue that isn’t yours, don’t get your knickers in such a twist, Brother Amos. It’s just a different set of words. You’re not going to lose your own language, and during your life you’re unlikely to see a time when public discourse in America is wholly foreign to you.Our kids will grow up and adapt to whatever language is spoken around them, as kids always have.It’s all going to be fine.Shalom. Paz. Paix. Vrede. ሰላም. Salam. Мир. Bakea. 和平. Mír. Paco. Rauha. Maluhia. Ειρήνη. शांति.  שָׁלוֹם. Friður. Pax. Síocháin. Pace. សន្តិភាព. Мир. Keamanan. سوله. Тынчтык. Peace.