John and Erich Thanks for your support.
I think Erich made a good description of the language situation in Europe (and yes, Portugal is the only monolingual country in Europe, and the oldest too as it has been independent since 1143). This gives a tremendous difficulty to all negotiations in the EU, as every paper has to be translated in many languages (that will be more very soon). This is further complicated by the problems you reported about Italy (they frequently don't speak French or English, even at high levels of management) and France (they have an official French translation for every foreign word; in many cases they understand English, but they don't understand "unequal relations" - in a negotiation, if the other part speaks in English (or Germany, or...), they will insist in speaking in French and have a translator; what they don't understand - and I think they are right - is the "arrogance" of the English speakers that impose their language to the others and don't even try to speak other's languages and treat the others as "equals" in something so fundamental as its own language. (The some is true about Russia by the way). So the only people that are really open to English are Germany, the Nordic countries and Portugal (as we accept every language and normally try to speak (very badly) in the other's language - that is almost the only Portuguese quality to compensate our many incapacities.... In fact, in high school Portuguese students have to learn two foreign languages - the first one was French until 1975 and is now normally - but not always - English. And if they study humanities they will normally have to learn more languages (including Latin, but normally no longer Greek). But, as you have so correctly put, Erich, that European disadvantage is also an advantage. The majority of the Europeans speak at least two different languages, many speak three, and a lot speak 4 or more. Not to speak about the Pope that speaks almost 20. This is an advantage now, but I think will be a much greater and competitive advantage in the years to come. The point is that, IMHO, one is indoctrinated in a language and a culture and our views are always limited, as other peoples have other habitudes and ways of looking at the world. This will not be corrected "visiting many countries on holidays". This can only be corrected through "equal relations" and "intimate relations" with people from many other nationalities. And this implies that one speaks the other's languages. For two reasons - there is no intimacy if there is inequality; only understanding the language can we see the differences, as there are words and expressions that cannot even be translated. The reason why this will be a competitive advantage should be very easy to understand to the OST community - it gives more "mental diversity" that is fundamental for innovation and creativity. So I think that natives of English have a tremendous disadvantage that will aggravate in the next years. During 20 years, in the 70's and 80's, I followed almost one hundred courses and seminars in the IBM European Education Center, in la Hulpe, Belgium. The students would came from every country in Europe and some from other countries, and the teachers would come from anywhere in the world. The official language was English but with many different pronunciations - oh, SO different!!!. And, you wouldn't believe, but the two groups of people that would less understand the others and would be less understood by the others would be people from the UK and - a bit less - from USA. Interesting, isn't it? Of course, the group discussions in class would be in many languages and out of class (it was residential) people would ALWAYS join other with the same native language - not necessarily from the same country...And the employees in the restaurant some times would speak French but not English... So, I think that today no one can claim to be an "intercultural specialist" if one doesn't speak at least two foreign languages and, in some years, no one will understand anything that really matters in the world without speaking at least 3 languages and having the experience of being in those countries and living "in" the language - and not only "using" the language. So, Erich, the point is not "how will we, Europeans, overcome the situation". We will overcome. The problem is how will the others overcome the much greater monolingual limitation. I think that this will be a very big challenge to the English speaking countries on how they will educate their younger people - but never mind, we will be here to help... Best regards Artur PS: Erich, in Portugal "Artur" does not have the "h". As the Spanish "Arturo". * * ========================================================== [email protected] ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of [email protected], Visit: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html
