So I came across this post from the very liked (by me) Jean Quatremer of "Libération".
In that article he elaborates on the fact that the English language is all too pervasive in the EU institutions and how that's bad for everyone, particularly his country's elite. His argument, although I don't agree with it, should not be dismissed altogether. As the national of a small country with a beautiful and flexible language and a phenomenally imponent body of European, African and South American literature, I understand the "saudade" we may feel towards our own languages but to use it to argue what he argues seems insulting, sad and oh so cliché for a Frenchman to do.
His hypothesis runs something like this: "Language is an important channel of communication. Some ideas are inherently better articulated in one language than in another, if for no other reason that they might have developed in the context of the evolution of that (language's) society. So to favour one language to another (or many others), deprives us of the contributions (intellectual and, in this specific case, political) originating elsewhere (where another language is spoken)."
This is tantamount to arguing that some ideas are inherently French, or for that sake, English, Portuguese, Hungarian, Swedish, or whatever. And not in the sense that they belong to that culture, but that they can only be expressed in that language. So I don't agree.
In my understanding that view is "fantaisiste". It attributes properties to a "vehicle" of communication that it cannot have. Of course some ideas are inherently French or British or American. But the language is not the root of the idea. It is the tool used to express it. The origin of the idea will have been its original environment. Of course the final result, the consumed word, will be the consequence of linguistic evolution and thus will appear to have a characteristic local taste.
My point is that language does not exist ex-nihilo. However the argument he makes seems to argue so, by spinning the chain of causality on its head, making language the cause of ideas, rather than ideas the cause of language. I may have just engaged in "reductio ad absurdum", but I wouldn't be surprised if I hadn't.
Moreover language is a living adaptable tool. As our environment changes, so does it too. If his attitude had dominated linguistic evolution we'd still be speaking some impossibly limited Indo-European proto-language.
But the issue of language is still interesting. I agree with him in that eventually all of our languages will have to co-habit with English in our home countries, and may be some day we'll all be speaking some weird Europeanish language where English dominates, with a mix of French, German and Spanish, regardless of how far that day is. But that's not necessarily bad.
What he seems to miss, in his endearing patriotism, is that there's a number of good reasons for English to have assumed the role it has. First of all, it satisfies a need for a vehicle for communication to circulate. Secondly, it is a simpler language than French or German, in the sense that it is more efficient. Thirdly, for those specific ideas for which no word exists in English, we now happily use its French or German original. So we say "vis-à-vis", "Schadenfreud" and "Zeitgeist", but unless we want to be a bit ethnic we don't say "siesta". A "nap" or in my own language a "sesta" does the trick. Finally, I'm sure the information technology played an important role, as did globalisation and the dominance of the USA in world politics and business.
Regarding the more general accusation that English is used to convey British neo-liberal ideas, this is an admirable effort at convincing oneself and one's audience that Post Hoc Ergo Procter Hoc is a decent way of arguing any point. Just because one thing follows another it does not necessarily imply the first caused the second. Thus, because English is becoming the language of the land while there's a perception that what the French call "libéralisme anglo-saxon" is becoming the dominant policy approach, it does not follow that the first caused the second. This is like saying that if I went to sleep woke up and fell on the floor as I stepped out of bed, the cause for my falling was that I woke up. I understand that the French miss the good old days where their Colbertist version of corporatism reined supreme and unchallenged at home, but arguing that English is the cause of it's demise is insulting for the reader. Could it simply not be a better idea? ( Note to be fair that he never brings up Colbertism. I'm inferring, and possibly wrongly so...)
Among other things this "anglo-saxon liberalism" criticism amalgamates a number of rather distinct cultures into one odge podge of un-Frenchness. No English speaker prides him or herself in being confused for an American. No self-respecting Irishman, Scot or even Welshman will let you get away with calling them English. Moreover if you look at their governments' policies they are rather on the left side of the spectrum, as their recent letter to the Chancellor testifies.
I would nonetheless support the view that there is some intrinsic unfairness to this whole deal. After all the poor Brits only end up speaking one language while the rest of us get to enjoy the richness of many.
In conclusion, I think it's a hard point to argue to say that some ideas are better expressed in some languages and so we should all stick to those languages to express those ideas. I wonder if that point is only applicable to French or if he'd be as inclined to applaud Portuguese and Czech officials addressing large audiences in their mother tongue, rather than to consider them uneducated "paysans", or to use the English equivalent "hill billies" or "hicks". Either way his path is really not the way to rebuild Babel. Although it might be the way to "reconstruire Babel"...
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