My friend Kristin spent all of last year in France and, besides coming home with an incredible collection of scarves and an intense hatred for her French family, she also brought back this joke:
What do you call someone who speaks three languages? Trilingual.
What do you call someone who speaks two languages? Bilingual.
What do you call someone who speaks one language? American.
Isn’t it comforting to realize that foreigners perceive us as single-minded, egotistical sillies? I agree with them, though. We are.
Sure, we may know all about creme brulee, Joan Miro and Mao Tse-tung, but when it comes to communication, we’re usually at a loss for, um, words.
When I came to Northwestern, I was shocked to realize Medill didn’t have a foreign-language requirement. To think, I eventually was going to enter a profession in which I deal with people – all kinds of people – on a daily basis, and I was required to know only English. Even funnier to me was the fact that someone majoring in mathematical methods for the social sciences had to spend six quarters mastering an unfamiliar tongue.
Other than Weinberg students, most students don’t have to study a foreign language. In the School of Speech, it’s only the radio-TV-film majors who have a four-quarter language sequence. (Maybe it’s because they have to watch a lot of foreign flicks, my R-TV-F roommate told me.) McCormick, Music and Medill all pass on the cultural growth as well. And to round things out, Education doesn’t see the point. Tragic, isn’t it?
I spoke to the assistant dean of Medill last week to find out why. If we add a language to our list of requirements, he said, then what do we take away? The curriculum would have to be rearranged. Do we drop the art history requirement? Do we give economics the boot? Do we lessen the number of electives? Learning a foreign language is very valuable, he said, but is it more valuable than learning something else? He had a point. But to me, yeah, it was. As a journalism major, I have to take statistics, but I don’t have to study Spanish. There’s something terribly wrong with that.
Besides us crazy Americans, people all over the world begin learning other languages as soon as they hit kindergarten. Everybody knows English. Doesn’t that make you feel guilty? Sure, you can make the “superpower defense” argument and say that they have to learn English in order to compete with us, but come on. Why are we allowed to assume that we can get by on “hola” and “una cerveza por favor” when we visit Mexico?
And this isn’t just a vacation issue. The United States is filled with non-English speakers, and in my opinion, that “melting pot” idea makes this country great. Taking the time to learn another culture’s language shows respect, and I think that’s important.
So even though many of us are not required to study another language, we can require it of ourselves. We also can talk to our curriculum committees and suggest they make a change. Until that change happens, though, take Spanish, learn Japanese, study French. Become a more interesting person and, in turn, prevent yourself from being the butt of many bad jokes.
