The problem with English

[Theodarzna]

The English language used to be an asset of the US and UK. Now it has become a weakness.

Let’s zoom out from the Russian hacking of the American election. More broadly, hacking means extracting someone else’s information or inserting the hackers’ own information. English-speaking countries are particularly easy to hack because their enemies understand what they are saying. Being an English-speaking society is like living in a glass house: it makes you transparent. Conversely, foreign countries are opaque to mostly monolingual Britons and Americans. Foreigners know us much better than we know them. This asymmetry probably helped Russia get its favoured candidate into the White House, and it will handicap Britain in the Brexit negotiations.

The role of English has been changing fast. Until the 1990s Russia and China didn’t know much about what went on in western societies. Most Russian and Chinese anglophones had been killed or exiled after the communist revolutions, and were never replaced. Even the KGB was short of English-speakers: much of the intelligence sent to Moscow by British spies Kim Philby and Guy Burgess was never translated.

But from the mid-1980s, the opening of China, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the coming of the internet all boosted English. Chinese and Russian elites sent their children to study in the US and UK. From 1990 through to about 2010, British and American media and films gained unprecedented global influence.

In this period, the asymmetry of knowledge between English-speaking countries and their rivals became extreme. “There are now several million Russian citizens who are essentially bilingual and intimately acquainted with anglo societies,” says Ricardo Soares de Oliveira, political scientist at Oxford university. By contrast, most anglos stopped bothering to learn foreign languages.

This first became a problem after September 11. The US and UK found the Arab world opaque. John Nixon, the CIA’s expert on Saddam Hussein, couldn’t interrogate him in Arabic. Nixon recounts in his new memoir Debriefing the President that, during the interrogations, the CIA’s interpreter would quarrel with the military interpreter: “No, that’s not what he said!” A watching Saddam cunningly took advantage, bonding with the military interpreter.

Just as English let down the anglophone powers in Iraq, so did their other traditional weapon of influence: warfare. They have given up on invasions. The US now spends $597bn a year on its military and still can’t stop Russian adventuring.

The new weapon is cyber warfare, but it works best for the US’s enemies. Hacking foreign files is worthwhile only if you can use the information. Russia and China have lots of well-informed people who can sift English documents looking for intelligence, says Adam Segal, author of The Hacked World Order. If they find anything embarrassing, they can disseminate it through English-language social media or the useful idiots of WikiLeaks. American media can then be relied on to amplify the story. Alternatively, foreigners can simply make up fake news in English.

“It’s harder to do it in the other direction,” says Segal. The US lacks linguists who understand which foreign information matters most. Nor can it easily send the information back to ordinary Russians and Chinese, as China, in particular, censors the internet. The west’s old practice of “democracy promotion” has been superseded by the east’s “autocracy promotion”, says Soares de Oliveira. English-language newspapers and the once mighty BBC now face millions of new competitors on social media.

Britain has its own problems with English. Its twin centres of political power, Westminster and the tabloid newspapers, are almost entirely monolingual. Brits therefore voted for Brexit blithely unaware of how other European countries would respond. The Brexiter fantasy broadly went like this: “We’ll stop immigration, keep free trade with Europe, and sign whizzo new trade deals with everybody else.”

Britain does have a coterie of multilingual experts (mostly diplomats) who knew this wouldn’t fly. But precisely because these people understand European thinking, they are distrusted by Westminster and the tabloids. A case in point is last week’s resignation of Sir Ivan Rogers, the UK’s permanent representative to the European Union.

Just as Donald Trump’s people have ignored the US state department, the UK’s Foreign Office — the one bit of the British state packed with foreign knowledge — has been sidelined ahead of the Brexit negotiations. Instead, the new department for exiting the EU will lead. Its boss, David Davis, is the man who said the Germans would give the UK a good deal because they sell cars in Britain. “The British political class is astonishingly ignorant of the EU, whether they are pro it or against,” says Charles Grant of the Centre for European Reform.

The European principals in the Brexit talks understand Britain rather better. Grant continues: “They do watch the BBC, they can read English, they do read tweets of what the Daily Mail is saying.” Even Angela Merkel, schooled in East Germany, taught herself English by reading the communist Morning Star newspaper.

The US has just been outsmarted by foreigners it didn’t understand. Britain may be next.

(source)

America and to a lesser extent the UK have a problem of monolingualism. Americas especially are a monolingual country with few people speaking more than their mother tongue.

[Varitok]

(source)

America and to a lesser extent the UK have a problem of monolingualism. Americas especially are a monolingual country with few people speaking more than their mother tongue.

It's not my fault that we speak the master language. I can go to a lot of different countries in the world and im pretty close to guaranteed someone will speak atleast a little English, You can't really say that about any other language.

[Theodarzna]

It's not my fault that we speak the master language. I can go to a lot of different countries in the world and im pretty close to guaranteed someone will speak atleast a little English, You can't really say that about any other language.

Of course, it means people can make plots against you and you have no idea what they are saying. Me, my mother, sister and other family can speak to one another and be reasonably certain its practically secret code to the people around us.

[I Push Buttons]

The rest of the world should just knock it off with their heathen speak switch to the lingua franca.

[Super Kami Dende]

Enthay eway illway ustjay avehay otay witchsay otay igpay atinlay.

inkoay inkoay.

They just need some English 101: Remedial Kickass.

[Varitok]

Of course, it means people can make plots against you and you have no idea what they are saying. Me, my mother, sister and other family can speak to one another and be reasonably certain its practically secret code to the people around us.

I don't really live in a country where people actively scheme against me, Even then i'd have to learn a lot of other languages to make sure no one is. I like other languages but I feel secure with only knowing English.

[Amarao]

Perhaps it's time to invest in Anglish.
anglish*wikia*com/wiki/What_is_Anglish%3F

[Atrea]

Of course, it means people can make plots against you and you have no idea what they are saying. Me, my mother, sister and other family can speak to one another and be reasonably certain its practically secret code to the people around us.

So, your "what if" is some astronomically unlikely event?

With that said, it's unfortunate that a second language isn't mandatory in the US education curriculum. With the present administration, that seems unlikely to change.

[Theodarzna]

So, your "what if" is some astronomically unlikely event?

With that said, it's unfortunate that a second language isn't mandatory in the US education curriculum. With the present administration, that seems unlikely to change.

Well in our case we each speak a language that is a minority even in its own homeland, so we enjoy a unique means of communication.

[Holofernes]

i dont think there will ever be any competition for the bbc and radio vatican. Those two are the news channels of the whole world. BBC is heard by everybody politically interestet in every area of the world, and is the voice of the commonwealth, which still consists of roughly 2/3 of the world area.
Radio Vatican is the go to station for news for the biggest religion group in the world.

Whenever you go abroad and have no clue about anything, a radio and those two will keep you informed.

And that monolingual big countries or small islands tend to be lazier in communication is a natural thing. The last time britain was conquered was nearly 1000 years ago, so of course they have no worries about whats out in the world.

But i am very sure, at some point in the not so distant future, the danes will come, and bring some poles and pakistani with them, and take the british throne!

[I Push Buttons]

So, your "what if" is some astronomically unlikely event?

With that said, it's unfortunate that a second language isn't mandatory in the US education curriculum. With the present administration, that seems unlikely to change.

The basics of a second language are mandatory in most schools... But fully learning a second language is both difficult and rather irrelevant here.

It makes sense in the EU... There are several languages all in close proximity, especially with open borders, free trade, etc., between the members.

It makes sense for other countries to learn English since it is one of, if not the primary language of most international dealings/trade/entertainment/etc.

But in the US, short of small immigrant populations and Spanish in the Southwest, everyone speaks English. Like here where I live for example, I took Spanish in high school, then I took German and Spanish in college. I became pretty well versed in Spanish in that time (as much as one can with no native speakers beyond an instructor to speak with)... But I hardly remember most of it at this point and I remember no German at all. I have never needed to speak or know either of those languages at any point in my entire life.

If you don't use the language you forget it and there is no use for other languages here outside of Spanish.

[Nathreim]

My phone has a translator app. I fail to see a problem.

[Theodarzna]

My phone has a translator app. I fail to see a problem.

As of yet a translation app can only go so far in communicating meaning. If your interogating someone or trying to understand militarynintelligence do you really want to depend on google translate?

[Unhinged]

The rest of the world should learn English. It's really their fault.

[Theodarzna]

Do you think we don't have multilingual people working those jobs or at least working with people who work those jobs? I'm sure we need more though. It's fairly easy to get a government job if you're fluent in a few languages.

Well the point of the article is that there is a problem of having too few people with those skills.

[Blobfish]

Thats where babbel comes in at being an awesome website to pick up a new language other than English

https://www.babbel.com/

Its fairly easy to understand as well

[Kronik85]

Yea we should make more effort to speak a foreign language as native English speakers but the article is a load of tripe. Where do you even find this stuff?

[Kellhound]

There are over 7000 living languages, but only a few are widely used. I took French in high school, but I never actually used it and now cant remember more than a few words. I now deal with German, Spanish, French, and Mandarin speakers, and they all communicate with me in English (except for the Germans, who write emails to me in German because my last name is German, going so far as to actually spell my name in the correct German....).

[Khaza-R]

I can't speak for U.K., Canada or Australia, but the US has disturbing xenophobia towards other national multilingualism. It's sad that 3rd world countries can teach children to be fluent in 3+ languages but US is still abiding by its WWII imperialist policies.

[Garnier Fructis]

My phone has a translator app. I fail to see a problem.

Translator programs are incredibly bad, because accurate translation involves context, nuance, and a strong command of idioms (and other language devices).

Star Wars the Third Gathers: Backstroke of the West is what happens when you run Star Wars Episode III through an English to Chinese translator and then back to English. Anything that isn't a simple sentence has a high likelihood of getting butchered.