“So it is with you. Unless you speak intelligible words with your tongue, how will anyone know what you are saying? You will just be speaking into the air.” 1 Corinthians 14:9
In one of my writer father’s many files of newspaper clippings, I found a tattered copy of this anonymous poem entitled The English Lesson:
We’ll begin with box, and the plural is boxes;
But the plural of ox should be oxen, not oxes.
Then one fowl is goose, but two are called geese,
Yet the plural of moose should never be meese.
You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice,
Yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.
If the plural of man is always called men,
Why shouldn’t the plural of pan be called pen?
The cow in the plural may be cows or kine,
But the plural of vow is vows, not vine.
I speak of my foot and show you my feet,
If I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?
If one is a tooth, and a whole set are teeth,
Why shouldn’t the plural of booth be called beeth?
If the singular is this and the plural is these,
Why shouldn’t the plural of kiss be named kese?
Then one may be that, and three may be those,
Yet the plural of hat would never be hose;
We speak of a brother, and also of brethren,
But though we say mother, we never say methren.
The masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
But imagine the feminine she, shis, and shim!
So our English, I think, you all will agree,
Is the craziest language you ever did see.
I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough?
Others may stumble, but not you,
On hiccough, thorough, slough, and through?
In truth, English is a bear of a language. It contains never-ending variables and changes and exceptions to rules of pronunciation and grammar. During the twelve years we lived in Korea, strangers continually approached me on the street to ask for help with English learning, because it’s almost impossible for a person to just “pick it up” for themselves without some direct instruction or guidance from a native speaker.
When we moved to Korea in the mid-nineteen-eighties, very few Koreans spoke English well. Although it was taught as a foreign language in schools, most English studies involved rote memory of vocabulary words and grammar rules. Students had scant opportunity to practice conversation with native English speakers. Conversely, few foreign visitors or military personnel on deployment learned much Korean beyond survival phrases. One shopkeeper told me that missionaries were the only ones who bothered to study and use Korean language routinely. And yet in over a decade, not once did I ever hear a Korean person scold strangers for not speaking Korean in public. It was naturally assumed that people would converse with one another in their native tongues. No Korean felt offended or outraged by hearing a language not their own in their own country.
After twenty-four years of living in countries where people’s differences were accepted as normal and natural, I am continually bewildered by some Americans’ insistence on cultural conformity or exclusion. Of all the nations in the world, ours has grown like a great tree of many roots, ingrafted with strong branches of global diversity. That is our unique strength.
The current nonsensical trend toward insistence on monocultural conformity erodes the very soil from which we sprouted. I am bewildered by news stories of people accosting strangers in public and berating them for speaking languages other than English. The whole point of language is communication. Why wouldn’t family members, friends or colleagues maximize the effectiveness of their communication by using the language that is most precisely familiar to them? When did Americans become such linguistic snobs that we object to people using words they best understand? I worry that our national arrogance is spiraling out of control.
Americans are not the only, or even the best, global citizens. Our culture is no better or worse than those of other countries. National pride should not give us license to bully or look down on others. Cultural and lingual differences are not wrong. They’re just…different. And that’s okay. Our shared humanity binds all of us together regardless of any geographical location. Let’s play nice with the whole world, not just our own microcosm of it.
Yes! 👏👏👏👏