In the past year I’ve been traveling a lot in Europe, more or less for the first time in about a decade. One major change I’ve noticed (aside from obvious ones like: where did all the internet cafes go? and how much easier it is to travel thanks to the internet) is how much MORE widespread the English language is now than it was even ten years ago.
Don’t get me wrong: in the late '90s and early '00s it was never that hard to get around if you just spoke English. But it could still be something of a logistical challenge: those little Berlitz foreign language phrase books were still actually useful. Nowadays they just seem archaic. In an increasing number of stores and restaurants in remotely touristy areas, if you are greeted in a local language and hesitate at all the person speaking to you will automatically switch to English. That is if they didn’t greet you right off the bat in both languages. Signs in English are everywhere.
One interesting phenomena is that all this is apparently independent of whether or not native Anglophones are present. Chinese, Spaniards, Germans, French - they all appear to automatically switch to English when traveling around the continent. This weekend I met a group of Brazilians living and studying in Budapest. None of them spoke a word of Hungarian - they got along just fine with English.
I’m not sure what my question is other than: anyone else notice this? Will this trend continue? (I’ve mostly been talking about capitals, big cities, and other highly visited areas - out of the way towns are still a different matter.) Is there going to be a backlash? Or is everyone apparently just deciding to use English as the second language of choice just the eminently practical solution to the problem of having dozens of languages crammed into a tiny continent?
I wonder if the reason is due to the Common Market and the ease of worldwide travel nowdays. In other words, other people are finding out just what you did and this encourages a common language, which is going to be English, at least in Europe.
All over the world kids learn English in school, it’s the international language, and you need it to understand the lyrics of popular music or to become a rock star yourself (either literally or figuratively). This is not a change in recent times, just the trend maturing. And of course, everyone understands English if you speak loudly enough and gesticulate wildly as you speak.
Everyone has somebody nearby that understands English when you are trying to spend money. I was at a flea market in Milan and was trying to buy a sandwich at a stand but couldn’t communicate with the man running it; so he called over a young girl from the street and she knew enough to understand what I wanted and finalize the transaction. Gotta love Europe; people are generally friendly and open minded.
English is ‘cool’ to European kids. It’s also, most importantly, a way of improving your job opportunities – with so many companies having multiple offices across multiple countries, speaking fluent English is often a requirement at management level, eg my girlfriend works for the british Division of a french company which, in turn, is owned by a Belgian company. The common official company language is English. Another eg, if you’re Spanish teenager looking at the horrific unemployment statistics in your country for under 25s, and yet hold an EU passport which means you can work anywhere in the EU, then English is your ticket out.
It is very apparent amongst the young southern Italians I know that they all speak English a LOT better than even their older siblings, and they all dream about moving to London.
And I dream of moving to London to with a young Italian. Please tell me more about these friends of yours. Are they female and do they like well mannered, professional, chubby, balding , middle aged guys?
It’s quite a natural development. Most people in northern European countries (Scandinavia, Finland, Netherlands, Germany) already spoke quite a bit of English to begin with. Add to that the popularity of American TV shows and music, and you have a couple of generations who speak or at least understand the language quite well.
When it comes to southern European countries, the catalyst has been a different one. Countries like Greece, Italy, Portugal or Spain depend to a huge extent on tourists from northern Europe - either native English speakers or people who will switch to English when abroad. So it’s only natural that more and more people have had to learn the language as a professional investment.
I say this as a native Spaniard. People here are still generally terrible when it comes to speaking English, but I’ve noticed an improvement during the past decade or so. Many of my friends have made an effort to learn the language, and tonnes of people are trying to at least achieve some basic skills in order to communicate with tourists. Still a long way to go (thanks, film dubbing!) but we’re on the right track
I was in Iceland last year, and definitely noticed it. Many business and official signs are bilingual, and I saw a lot of signage that was in English only. Tourists seemed to speak their native language amongst their countrymen, but with Icelanders and tourists from other countries, English ruled the day. Every Icelanders I met was remarkably fluent in English.
I taught English classes in Germany and Switzerland for over 14 years. Most of those who took the classes were planning on traveling to various countries or needed it for business reasons. For them, English was a necessity to do what they planned on doing.
While living in Europe, it was not uncommon for me to see, for instance, a German and an Italian speaking English to each other -as neither knew the other’s native language. Wasn’t always perfect English, but it worked. It was the default “go to” language when nothing else worked.
One thing I do despise is the current over-use of English in everyday German. On TV shows in Germany, people will throw in English words for no particular reason - often with bizarre German grammatical rules attached. Even some advertising in Germany is in all English or uses so many English words it becomes a total miss-mash of godknowswhat.
To me it sounds somewhat pretentious - as if the person speaking is trying to prove they are so cosmopolitan they just have to show their grand English speaking skills.
And even though there are very good equivalent German words, it is not uncommon for Germans to only use English words, especially when discussing any new technology or trends.
I think a good example of all of this is in television shows with upcoming musical talent - be it a variation of “American Idol” or “America’s Got Talent” - in the German versions of those kinds of shows, most contestants sing in English, even though they really don’t speak English conversationally. I suppose their hope is that if they become popular, they can perform world-wide to a larger audience. Even the European Song Contest now lets each country sing in any language, and the vast majority will sing their songs in English.
Perhaps I am a purist, but it just seems that more and more English words are creeping into other languages (at least in Germany) that just seem to be out of place. I guess at this point, it is simply the cool thing to do.
The Dutch group Focus sang in English (early 70s).
In the 19th century the aristocrats dropped French and occasionally an Italian or German expression into their conversations.
Oh, whatever happened to Yiddish as the lingua franca?
My elderly aunt (long since deceased) got all into folk dancing – especially Jewish folk dancing – and traveled to international Jewish folk dancing shindigs. One such is (or was?) held every year in Caracas, Venezuela, of all places.
So, according to the story she told, she’s sitting out a dance on the sidelines, next to some other elderly lady. She turns to the lady and says רעדט איר ייִדיש ? (Redt ir Yidish? – Do you speak Yiddish?) So they had a good conversation with my aunt’s (probably rusty) Yiddish, in Caracas.
Don’t fret too much. Most of them were probably French, German, Latin, or Greek words to begin with anyways. We borrowed them, no reason you can’t as well.
Unless you are lucky enough to speak English as your native language, monolingual is the new illiterate.
If you aren’t at least able to understand English reasonably well, then that will hurt you in all areas of life.
Taking Germany as an example, there are several reasons why the usual level of English is highly generational. I suspect that in many ways the situation in many other countries is comparable.
Firstly, in West Germany English did not become almost universal in schools until after WW2. In (former) East Germany this didn’t happen until the 90s.
Secondly, starting in the 60s higher education opened up to completely new demographics. On average people receive far more formal education than they used to and that includes more foreign language instruction. In addition to that, English became increasingly important in academia. In many fields it is simply not possible to get an undergrad degree without a certain level of English, even if the program is nominally German-language. Students are expected to read literature, give presentations and write papers in English as a matter of course. Of course those won’t live up to native standards, but it is sufficient if they are in Bad English, the proverbial linga franca of science. In any career with professional pretensions seriously bad English is a black mark on your resume.
Finally, the net has caused a more recent change. People seek out more media that were never really “meant” for them. Before the net people tended to comsume media that were actively marketed to them and in practice those were predominantly in German. Sure, you could order everything in English, but people rarely did without a good reason. Every bookshop had a meager shelf containing mostly Penguin Classics commonly assigned in English classes, but its influence on most people’s reading habits was limited. The same was true for art house cinema or imported videos. These days people who wouldn’t have been caught dead doing “schoolwork” for fun a decade or two ago are following Game of Thrones as it airs in America.
I am for this reason so incredibly glad that English is my native language. I always wonder: how small must your world seem if you are born in, say, Slovenia, or Estonia, and you have a hard time picking up other languages? Heck, you don’t even have to pick as small a language group as that: say you’re Italian and speak no other language. The great majority of the time it’s no big deal because there are plenty of Italian language books, movies, and websites, and Italy is a big country with lots of places to visit. But it’s a very globalized world and travel is easier than ever, and you’re going to have a hard time visiting Prague or Copenhagen or Hong Kong and expecting to find Italian-speaking shopkeepers and waiters. Once you leave your country’s borders…you’re probably going to need English!
Iceland has been that way for a long time. When your language is spoken by only about 300,000 people, you learn other languages quickly. This is even true of much larger countries like Norway or The Netherlands. I spent a bit of time in Norway in the 80s, and everyone (even the gas station attendants) I interacted with spoke excellent English.
It’s true. When my daughter was teaching in Germany on her Fulbright her mentor was involved in a multinational school project. Participating countries were Turkey, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Germany and Romania. All meetings were held in English and my daughter got to go lots of cool places to edit the meeting publications.
She also got a Masters in International Business in Germany - which was also taught in English.
I figure we native English speakers are just too dumb to pick other languages up - (at least I am) - and the US in which you can go a long time without needing another language is a powerful influence.
The only exception she found to the prevalence of English was in what used to be East Germany, where older people knew Russian. But that will vanish soon.
I’d say it’s already replaced it. Even in Indochina, it’s generally the elderly who still speak French. I think English is the most popular language to study in school in Vietnam.
