Sarah Palin in an interview with CNN. Photo: screen grab/CNN. Recently, Sarah Palin - who you may remember from her 2008 candidacy as US vice president and numerous media appearances since then - decided to weigh in on the race for president in 2016. Asked about Jeb Bush, who is fluent in Spanish and at times responds to reporters in Spanish, she opined that "It's a benefit of Jeb Bush to be able to be so fluent in Spanish, because we have a large and wonderful hispanic population." But as for the rest of America's foreign language speakers, Palin thinks it's time they "learn to speak American."
Now, Palin is a controversial figure, and her comments naturally generated a wave of backlash. Take the blog Politicus USA, which calls her statement the "ultimate gaffe", and goes on to remark, "Sarah Palin doesn't speak English like the rest of us. She speaks American, but there is no such language as American... We speak English in this country, and from my personal experience, I can tell you that the majority of immigrants that I have met speak better English than Sarah Palin." I certainly have my own thoughts on Palin's politics, though that's for a different blog. But, regarding her insistence that immigrants speak "American", despite the fact that "American" isn't actually a language, it does point to a fundamental truth about how even minor differences in our speech and dialect have a big effect on how we perceive things. Let's say, for instance, that you're a native speaker of United States/American standard English, and you want to do a test to find if you're color blind. You do a search for it, and for whatever reason, the first page you click on is a test to find if you're "colour blind". What's your reaction? You immediately know that the site is either British or from some other area that uses British standard English - in either case, outside the US. This might produce a number of different reactions; maybe it would make you want to listen to a Beatles song, or perhaps drink some tea. The point is, you would process it much differently than if the phrase had just appeared as "color blind". Interestingly enough, in Spanish, the language that bore the brunt of Palin's criticisms in her interview, there are significant differences between regional dialects as well. In Spain, for instance, many parts of the country are seeking independence, due to the fact that the country is made up of territories where many different languages are spoken, such as Catalan and Basque. In some cases, what we think of as common Spanish is referred to by Spanish speakers as "Castilian", in reference to the central region of Spain. It's actually not that different from referring to American English as simply "American". Spanish in Latin America varies greatly from country to country as well. One of the biggest challenges for me was learning how to deal with a word that seems like it should be simple to translate: "you". In most Spanish speaking countries, this is translated as "tú". But in parts of Colombia, the more formal "usted" is actually considered informal. And other countries don't use either of those; "you" is instead translated as "vos". Sound complicated? It is, even for people who grow up speaking Spanish. Of course, this doesn't apply to just English and Spanish, but to Portuguese, German, Arabic, Chinese... you name it. Even for languages we already speak, even minor differences in phrases, slang words, and grammar stand out. But the question then becomes, why do they stand out? For some, these differences are a nuisance, and perhaps even a warning sign that anyone speaking with an unrecognized dialect (let alone an actual foreign language) is not to be trusted. I think it's safe to say Sarah Palin probably falls into this camp. But for other people, these differences aren't a nuisance, but an opportunity. Different languages may be tough to deal with at times, but they also help us to see things in different ways, to grasp concepts in ways we wouldn't otherwise, to think outside of the proverbial box. Sure, it's a good idea for many of the immigrants who come to the United States to learn English. And in fact, most of them want to, and do. A study last year revealed that roughly half of immigrants who come to the US speak "very good English". Palin would probably be happy to know that, more specifically, the English they learn is American English. But that doesn't mean that they should give up their original languages either. In the right context, being exposed to foreign languages is a huge benefit, and makes people interested in them better as people. People in America should learn to embrace foreign languages, not fear them. Comments are closed.
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