A couple of years ago, I traveled to Canada for a wedding. My aural feast began on the plane with dual language announcements in both French and English.
The bride and groom met while working in Singapore. One is from Canada and the other from Australia. At a gathering of the families on the day before the wedding, I listened to the richness of dialects: Australian, Canadian, French, British English and American English. In the hotel at breakfast could be heard African accents and, in the taxis, Afghani and Pakistani. I was touched at the efforts made by those for whom English was a second language to find the words to communicate with me.
It was evident, too, that many of the people were multilingual. There were those that spoke Polish, Japanese, one of the Chinese languages, Spanish and more. There was something pleasing in this variety of sounds, and no one thought anything of it. People were just being people, going about their play and work, living together in community, serving one another.
Then, the day after my return to my white American world, I attended an event that included men and women from a nearby mosque who came from Senegal, Pakistan and other places.
In this strange time of manufactured rage, we’ve all seen the video clips of “true Americans” berating someone for speaking a language they don’t understand. They appear threatened by their exposed inability to understand another’s language, and there have been calls to make English the official language of this country – a language that did not even originate here. (Ironically, many of these advocates would fail a basic grammar test.)
Since language shapes thought, I bristle at the idea that someone would want to confine us to one language, and one perspective of the world. The American intellect is already deflated by the coarse, often incoherent, ramblings of some political leaders. We need more options for understanding, not less.
I try to hold on to the pleasure of all those languages I heard in those days – the various sounds, rhythms, and turns of phrase – as evidence of a world that is enriched by its diversity. In that linguistic diversity we find the poetry of communication. And if we listen with the heart, the language becomes less and less relevant. It’s the language of humanity we all need to learn.