Caught in the grips of linguistic

paranoia
By Nataly Kelly
What makes the largest military power on earth tremble in its boots? What causes
an entire nation of people - the majority of whom descended from non-English
speakers - to shudder in fear? What provokes outrage at debates and town hall
meetings in the current presidential campaign?
Language, that's what.
Not every language is seen as Uncle Sam's nemesis - just the 6,911 languages that
are not English.
Americans often view other languages as a threat their identity - both as
individuals, and as a nation. It's for this reason that a Pennsylvanian recently stood
up and told John McCain how angry it makes her to see the word entrada at the
entrance to her local Lowe's home improvement store.
Barack Obama dared to suggest last month that American children should learn a
language currently spoken by more people in the world than English: Spanish.
Hillary Clinton even stated, albeit jokingly, that it's time for the United States to
have a multilingual president.
Linguistic paranoia seems to have reached unprecedented levels in recent years, a
phenomenon that would probably shock America's Founding Fathers. After all, they
intentionally decided not to declare an official language for the United States,
knowing full well that linguistic dominance in the world is often in flux, and that
doing so could restrict the country's ability to both compete internationally and
respond to domestic needs.
The White House has a time-honored tradition of multilingualism. America's
second president, John Adams, spoke several languages fluently. He believed in
learning other languages and made sure that his son, John Quincy Adams, studied
four of them.
The third president, Thomas Jefferson, spoke between five and seven languages.
Herbert Hoover and his wife were fluent in Mandarin, and they translated a book
from Latin into English. Jackie Kennedy made campaign speeches in Spanish,
Italian and French to appeal to multilingual voters.

Is Obama wrong to point out the obvious, that when future generations' knowledge
of other languages is restricted, so is the prospective well-being of our nation?
The Quality of Life Index, published by The Economist in 2005, showed that the
five countries with the highest standard of living were Ireland, Switzerland,
Norway, Luxembourg and Sweden. Aside from having a European address, all of
these countries have one key thing in common - they promote multilingualism.
In spite of being the largest economic power in the world, the United States came in
13th, just behind Spain, Singapore, and Finland.
America has the means to be a linguistic superpower. The United States is one of
the richest countries in the world when it comes to natural language resources, with
an estimated 311 languages spoken within its borders - 162 of these are indigenous
languages, and 149 come from other countries.
America's internal linguistic diversity has proved to be an asset time and time again
- Navajo was used for strategic military purposes as a code language in World War
II, and current operations abroad would be impossible were it not for the help of
the many U.S. linguists who risk life and limb each day.
McCain responded to the crowd in Pennsylvania with a plea for appreciating
America's diversity. Obama went on to say that American children should learn not
just Spanish, but other languages as well.
Across party lines, the presidential candidates are acknowledging the important
role of multilingualism both within the United States and abroad. Their campaign
managers also know the importance of the multilingual voting demographic America's last census tells us that 20 percent of U.S. residents speak a language
other than English at home.
So why do the bald eagle's feathers get ruffled every time U.S. presidential
candidates mention language issues? Fear of the unknown. What we are not
familiar with makes us uncomfortable. Accepting that we are a multilingual nation
is a challenge, because it requires looking beyond our borders and outside our
comfort zone. The only solution? Know thy enemy.
Nataly Kelly is a senior analyst with Common Sense Advisory, a market research
firm specializing in business globalization, and the editor of "From Our Lips to
Your Ears," a book about the role of interpreters in society.
In: [http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/11/opinion/11iht-edkelly.1.15175920.html?_r=1]