On ne parle pas français / No hablamos español / Wir sprechen nicht deutsch

As Alyn Smith pointed out in his blog the other day, and as we were told all over the Scottish media yesterday, the number of Scots today who speak in anither tung is at some scarily new low. This is of course one of these stories that keep on getting regurgitated by the media, kinda like 'Glasgow has the worst murder / heart disease / poverty rates in the UK /Europe / The Western World', and like that other old chesnut, no-one actually does anything about it.

I amuse myself often during the week by listening to the Morning Extra phone-in thats on after GMS, and this morning the topic was all about our inability to speak anything other than English. We like to content ourselves up here that we're somehow better than the Saxon hordes South of the Border who embarrass themselves when abroad by shouting things at waiters like "EGG AND CHIPS! CAN YOU NOT UNDERSTAND?! EGG. AND. CHIPS!", but from the evidence of this show we're just as bad. Why speak foreign? Seemed to be the consensus, although there were a few enlightened souls who were willing to put their head above the parapet and point out that we're letting ourselves down big time. I have a few problems with those monolinguists, as you'd understand, being a student of French and all that.

1) Learning foreign languages is too hard - Is it hell! If I could have a pound for everyone who has said to me "oh you must have such a knack for languages. I tried, and could never do it. Im sciency you see..". Yes, to an extent, you have to 'get' languages, but not to study them at an elementary level. Anyone can get to a certain level in any modern European language (OK, take away the Slavonic ones and Finnish & Hungarian) because all you actually need to do is learn them by rote. I've had folk who could understand long physics equations tell me that they could never learn verb tables. Its a nonsense. We build languages up to be some elite thing that only arty clever people can do, when in fact it is no more difficult, or harder to get, than anything else. Anyone can get to a passable level.

2) Everyone speaks English - It is the world's second language, I'll not dispute that, but it is a myth to think that everyone speaks it, or indeed wants to. And just because you can get by in English doesn't mean you should. To quote Scotland's youngest MEP, you buy in your own language, but you sell in theirs. Even knowing a little can go a long way, if only putting the shitters up someone who's being awkward with you on holiday because you make them think you can speak their lingo.

3) We need to get the 3 R's right before we worry about anything else - Again, utter tosh. I've learned more about the English language, and how to manipulate it, from learning modern languages than I ever have in an English class. When you learn to appreciate how language works, it becomes easier to make it work for you. Being able to step out of one's own linguistic cage from time to time is also immensely important in one's intellectual development. Charles V's famous "I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men, and German to my horse" isn't as daft as it first sounds. Each language has its own strengths and weaknesses. English is a good all-rounder, and posesses a wealth and depth of vocabulary unmatched by anything else, but it sure can't do it all - I spent last year trying to understand things like Mallarmé's L'après-midi d'un faune (ok, cheese baguette!) , and I certainly didn't get there by translating it. The implicit meaning of the poem is lost in translation. That's why the Illyiad is apparently boring a fuck when you read it not in the original Greek. That's why people recite the Koran, and don't always translate it (ok, there are other reasons for that!), shall I go on?

As Alyn pointed out in his blog, most Europeans have got so used to our linguistic sloth that they simply assume no-one speaks anything other than English, and for the most part we don't. What worries me most is the dearth of students learning Modern Languages in conjunction with more applied courses - the year I spent in Marseille I met Spaniards studying pharmacy, Italians studying marketing, and Hungarians studying astrophysics. The EU offers students, through the Erasmus programme, a whole range of options to study elsewhere in the EU. Why are our engineers not going to Germany to study for a year? The biggest exporter of high-end goods in the World, and we're depriving our students the opportunity to go and work there because we're suprised when they want us to be able to speak German? It's bad for our students, because they aren't getting this great experience, and it's bad for our economy, because we're not sending Scots over there, and we're not setting up enough links with Europe.

And the solutions? As Christopher Harvie points out in his excellent wee book Mending Scotland, our status as an anglophone country can be worked to our advantage in this respect. Why should we not be inviting over students and teachers from other EU countries, give them some time learning English in a native-speaker environment, and then as part of the bargain, get them to speak to us in their language for a while, so as many people as possible can see the benefits of speaking something else. The death of the school exchange must be lamented, but this could go some way to remedying it.

Ultimately, why should we not aim to be the best wee polyglot-but-anglophone country in the world? Why should each and every University graduate not be passable in at least one of French, German, Spanish, Italian or something more exotic? We've got to start 'em young, and keep 'em there, by getting more Modern Languages teachers in the primary schools, (so more jobs for me!) and an end to the cop-out of letting people drop the subject before Intermediate 2, because 'it's too hard, Miss'.

But alas, again we probably won't se anything done about it, like the poverty in Glasgow, because it'll probably be too difficult to accomplish, and there is not exactly a whole host of polyglots in the upper reaches of power. When was the last time you saw an MSP speaking something other tha English? Answers on a SAE please...

Don't mention the war...

The second installment of my jaunt was Bonn, just in time for the end of Karneval in nearby Cologne. Unlike the rest of Nord-Rhine Westfalen, I'm sure you will be aware dear reader, Bonn was left relatively intact after the war, and that, and its central position within West Germany made it the best choice for the capital, as my German friends reliably inform me. Bonn is also the birthplace of some guy called Beethoven, and has a not-bad Universität, and so had plenty going for it other than the pretty houses which would be omnipresent elsewhere were it not for the RAF.

We spent a morning in Bonn, all costumed up, like the rest of the revellers, listening to some fantastically cheesy German music, before heading through to Cologne for their celebrations, which are the biggest in the country. More than a million people descend on the streets to eat (sweets, or kamelle, thrown from the various floats), drink (Kölsch, lovely stuff) and be merry in a way which would seem to be most un-German. It was hard not to fell as if stuck in some sort of epic episode of Eurotrash as the tunes, mainly sang by bands like De Höhner, pumped out and the locals, men, women, young and old had a blast.

It was, as I said, most unlike the dour Germany we are led to believe is the only one that exists. Getting pissed with all these friendly Germans allowed me also to indulge in my cheekiest habit in Germany - mentioning the war. I know it could be misconstrued as being little unconstructive in the scope of all us getting along with each other, but trust me, try it with any German / Italian / French people whom you know well enough, and a good time can be had by all. It is fascinating to hear the stories of what everyone else's grandparents got up to - and to hear the stories they were told about us over here. I was able to teach meine freunde the words to 'Hitler has only got one ball', they were able to fill me in on all the war time insults they had for the 'Tommies', most of which, like our German stereotypes, persist to this day. The British Isles are / were it seems, the place of the dark satanic mills, and we were the 'Island Monkeys'.

Most Germans, cannot of course understand why we are still so obsessed with the war, and reminding them of it at every opportunity. All I could offer was that the British press is perhaps baffled as to why Britannia and its allies could have beaten Germany to a pulp, yet it is, 60 years after, the economic powerhouse of Europe. The Germans are the only people whom it is seemingly acceptable to mock without reproach, and they of course are, not only from those commentators on the right , from where it can only be expected, but also from those who really should know better.

Talking of the war with German people of my generation leads inevitably to the expression of regret for the heinous actions of a government they had nothing to do with, and so it probaly should be. But how far should modern Germany go to atone for the sins of the (grand) fathers? And is it not time our government acknowledged the unecessary brutality of some of its own actions, during and after the war? Where are the Channel 5 documentaries about the rape ofGerman women and pillaging of German property? Why no 'The Bombing of Dresden in colour'?

It is obviously very sensitive ground on which to tread, but I see no reason why any expression of regret by the UK Government cannot be made, and why, as many would contend, that this would somehow lessen the expression of guilt made my the German, Italian or Japanese governments. The European project is seen to be most miraculous because it has reconciled people and governments who were at war not so long ago, and could, undoubtedly, become even more remarkable if we could all agree we did certain things wrong all these years ago.

On Tolerance

Apologies for a lack of activity over the last week or so, if anyone does actually take time to read my musings, I've been on holiday for the first time in a while, a wee jaunt to Amsterdam followed by a couple of days in Germany. Twas my first time in that tolerant, Lutheran land, and like most visitors I left mightily impressed. The people are great, the city unlike anything, I guess, this side of Venice, and the museums aren't too bad either.

But this is not a cultural blog, and I am no closer to being a culture vulture than I am securing a transfer to Real Madrid, even if I was rather taken by Vincent Van Gogh's chinese period, if that's what it was called. My cultural highlight was still looking at all the swords and guns in the Rijksmuseum, which is still only partially open, althought they still have all the Rembrandts and Vermeers out on show, which aren't bad either...

Neen, the point of this post was a rather obvious one. As a first time visitor to Amsterdam, you can't help but be distracted by the drugs and the hoeren, as they say in Dutch. I was left rather cold by De Wallen, not sure whether to get all indignant about the whole thing, or to salute the Dutchies for giving them somewhere safe to go, but the coffee shops certainly made more of an impression. While I did only spend the obligatory hour or so in one (smoking, but not inhaling of course) my wee pinko knee-jerk 'free the weed' impulses were strengthened. It was fascinating to see all the folk coming in and buying themselves a wee lump of hash for the evening, like it were a couple of tinnies. Scary looking guys who I'm sure could hold their own in Possil or Pilton were buying their dope from a state-licensed business, and not some unsavoury character who would happily sell them something a wee bit more potent.

For me, it's a no-brainer. Amsterdam is not Babylon, and its burghers are great people who seem to have a rather high opinion of Scotland, although I'm sure that was them just being friendly. The war on drugs is never going to be won, and while there is a growing body of evidence to suggest that excessive cannabis use is more harmful than previously thought, there is little point in any government wasting the money they do in the pursuit of something which causes harm only to a small minority, when they could control its sale, and take the profits away from the dealers and put them into the public purse.

I know it won't change, however. It would take an extremely foolhardy politician from any of the mainstream parties to broach the subject, and thats not going to happen.