Yesterday, Colombia publicly accused Venezuela of harboring Colombian terrorists in its territory and demanded that Venezuela open its borders to carry out a multilateral investigation. Sadly, the accusations could not have come at a worse timing or at a poorer venue...Venezuela’s reaction: eliminate all diplomatic relations with Colombia.
It may well be the case that Colombia’s accusations are true——hell, we know that Chávez is not the most enlightened leader on the planet and there exists evidence to suggest that the accusations are true. However, it was extremely irresponsible on the part of Álvaro Uribe (outgoing president of Colombia) to have brought about such a profound dispute right before his handing over of the presidency (he is scheduled to finish his term on August 7th). Venezuelan-Colombian relations were already unstable after a series of spats and in the past year commerce between both nations plummeted as Chávez put barriers to Colombian exports. As it stands now, the situation could potentially undermine any possibilities of reconciliation between Venezuela and the incoming Colombian administration, which by the way seems to favor a more pragmatic approach on its relations with Venezuela.
What’s worse is that by using an extraordinary meeting of the Organization of American States (OAS) as the forum in which to present the so-called evidence, Colombia lost street cred through its lack of decorum and wasted potentially valuable information on an organization that is 1) unable to do anything about the situation and 2) composed of various nations that are not particularly interested in siding with Colombia against Venezuela (e.g. Bolivia, Ecuador, etc.).
This profound lack of professionalism and pragmatism on the part of Uribe a few days before leaving office suggests that he is more preoccupied with his own legacy and personal battles than the welfare of his nation or the future relations between Colombia and Venezuela.
That said, Venezuela’s reaction was equally melodramatic and childlike, but that’s nothing new coming from Chávez. This time, however, his remarks were made even more ludicrous (and awkward) than usual by the presence of Diego Maradona at his side (random...).
We cannot ignore the situation in Venezuela and something certainly needs to be done in order to prevent countries from fostering terrorism. However, carrying out accusations in such an undiplomatic and undignified fashion eliminates the possibility of cooperating to resolve the underlying issues by further alienating petulant nations. Undoubtedly, when it comes to Venezuela, being the bigger "person" is still Colombia's best bet.
On Politics, Economics, Development, Globalization, Culture and Language in the Americas and the World
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Is Globalization Destroying Language? (Part II)
This post is Part 2 of a two-part series.
In the realm of global communications, the English language has taken a central role as it has become the de facto lingua franca of business, travel, academia and technology worldwide. At the same time, according to Ethnologue and the Endangered Language Fund, of the nearly 7,000 languages in existence in our planet 473 (7%) are nearly extinct and close to half of all existing languages in the world will be out of use by the end of the century. In the island of New Guinea alone there are approximately 1,000 living languages, most of which are spoken by only a few thousand people. As Papua New Guinea and Irian Jaya (Indonesia) become more intimate with the rest of the world, the future generations of that island may well end up speaking only three languages: Tok Pisin, Bahasa Indonesia and English (all of which are official languages on the island).
In general, we can think of three different dynamics at play throughout this global process of linguistic consolidation: 1) existing languages that unite different groups will grow and survive, 2) existing languages that divide will wane and ultimately die (with few exceptions) and 3) a limited number of pidgins, creoles and linguae francae will arise to unite linguistic groups that are economically, politically and culturally related.
Within the group of languages that will survive we will have most major world languages of today, namely English, Spanish, Mandarin, French, Arabic, Russian and Hindi. All of these languages are spoken by large numbers of people that culturally identify with them and are already being used as common languages that unify different nations and regions around the world. These languages will survive precisely because they offer a higher level of efficiency in communication between peoples who more and more believe that economic and political integration are valuable.
Within the group of languages that won't survive are all existing languages that are confined to small numbers of people, are considered divisive and are closely-related to neighboring languages (e.g. most national languages). These languages will likely go out of use, as economic, social and political impulses compel us to reinterpret our linguistic diversity as an obstacle to growth and unification. The exception to this rule will be national languages in relatively wealthy countries that are sufficiently distinct from neighboring languages and that have large numbers of speakers (e.g. Turkish and Japanese). Only these national languages will be able to survive as part of a cultural resistance before an economically-charged process of assimilation.
Finally, some parts of the world——particularly those that have high levels of linguistic diversity——will undergo a process of regional linguistic unification. Through this process neighboring countries with closely-related languages and close economic, political, cultural and social ties will either adopt a single predominant local tongue or, perhaps more interestingly, will develop regional creoles that incorporate aspects of one or several local languages.
As a result of these three major dynamics, most countries in the world will experience one of three major outcomes as linguistic unification arises at the national level or as part of a regional effort of integration: 1) the adoption of a major world language, 2) the adoption of a unifying national language or 3) the adoption of a local regional language.
Take Ghana, for instance, a country with 79 languages. In the first scenario, as a country that considers English an official language, Ghana would most likely end up becoming a truly homogenized, English-speaking country. Under the second scenario, which is admittedly least likely to occur, Ghana would create a unifying creole for all its peoples or impose one of the major local languages like Asante or Ewe in all its territory. Finally, under the third scenario Ghana and its neighbors (from Senegal to Cameroon) would witness the rise of a regional language. Unlike the adoption of English, this outcome would allow all member countries to benefit from the economic, political and social advantages of creating a broad regional linguistic community, while maintaining a sense of “localness” and ownership over the spoken language. A possible candidate on which to base such a language for Ghana could be a far-reaching, Niger-Congo language such as Fulani.
If Ghana and all other countries in the world were to adopt major world languages as their official system of speech, we would experience a major loss of cultural diversity, as most world languages are of Eurasian descent. On the other hand, attempting to save all 7,000 existing languages in the world or even just one for every country, although certainly a noble effort, would be nothing more than an unjustified, politically- and emotionally-motivated venture that would be excessively costly and in all likelihood result in failure.
That having been said, global linguistic diversity does not have to be a thing of the past. The possibility of creating and adopting new common regional local languages that unite many smaller, related languages is a viable option (and perhaps the best chance we have) for a truly diversified linguistic future. Moreover, this alternative is not as far-fetched as it might appear at first sight: languages like Swahili, Bahasa Indonesia and Tok Pisin are just a few examples of modern languages that arose as a means of promoting regional unification. In intensely diverse linguistic contexts like Sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia and New Guinea, new concerted efforts to unify closely-related languages and dialects could arise: it would be interesting to see a new language called Neo-Bantu spoken from Equatorial Guinea to Mozambique to South Africa, for instance.
What if this doesn’t happen organically? What if no African languages were to survive at all as globalization runs its course? Should we do something now to preserve at least a minimum amount of linguistic diversity? It is difficult to swim against the current and, historically, efforts to promote minority languages or promote artificial languages intended for unification like Esperanto or Volapük have been limited in scope. It is possible, however, to create linguistic policies that flow not in the direction of separatism as is the case of Catalonia and its beautiful language, but rather towards the realignment of our cultural preservationist goals with the economic, political and social realities of the day.
The case for Neo-Bantu, in my opinion, is a particularly good one: there are approximately 500 Bantu languages in Sub-Saharan Africa, many of which are neither official nor considered national languages, and most of which are intimately related. In an effort to unite the peoples within and between countries like Botswana and Zimbabwe, for instance, it would be a more favorable outcome to create a common language that is inspired in the autochthonous Bantu languages, rather than simply promoting the use of English as a lingua franca. The same could be said for Neo-Guinean, Neo-Turkic, Neo-Fulani and other newly-created languages in Central and Southeast Asia, Europe, Nilo-Saharan Africa and the Americas.
So what will it be? A homogenized linguistic future or one characterized by limited diversity? Only time will tell, but for now we can be sure that some languages will inevitably perish despite our best efforts. We can also be certain, however, that if our efforts are aligned with the spirit of the times, we will be able to keep at least one African tongue...
In the realm of global communications, the English language has taken a central role as it has become the de facto lingua franca of business, travel, academia and technology worldwide. At the same time, according to Ethnologue and the Endangered Language Fund, of the nearly 7,000 languages in existence in our planet 473 (7%) are nearly extinct and close to half of all existing languages in the world will be out of use by the end of the century. In the island of New Guinea alone there are approximately 1,000 living languages, most of which are spoken by only a few thousand people. As Papua New Guinea and Irian Jaya (Indonesia) become more intimate with the rest of the world, the future generations of that island may well end up speaking only three languages: Tok Pisin, Bahasa Indonesia and English (all of which are official languages on the island).
Within the group of languages that will survive we will have most major world languages of today, namely English, Spanish, Mandarin, French, Arabic, Russian and Hindi. All of these languages are spoken by large numbers of people that culturally identify with them and are already being used as common languages that unify different nations and regions around the world. These languages will survive precisely because they offer a higher level of efficiency in communication between peoples who more and more believe that economic and political integration are valuable.
Within the group of languages that won't survive are all existing languages that are confined to small numbers of people, are considered divisive and are closely-related to neighboring languages (e.g. most national languages). These languages will likely go out of use, as economic, social and political impulses compel us to reinterpret our linguistic diversity as an obstacle to growth and unification. The exception to this rule will be national languages in relatively wealthy countries that are sufficiently distinct from neighboring languages and that have large numbers of speakers (e.g. Turkish and Japanese). Only these national languages will be able to survive as part of a cultural resistance before an economically-charged process of assimilation.
Finally, some parts of the world——particularly those that have high levels of linguistic diversity——will undergo a process of regional linguistic unification. Through this process neighboring countries with closely-related languages and close economic, political, cultural and social ties will either adopt a single predominant local tongue or, perhaps more interestingly, will develop regional creoles that incorporate aspects of one or several local languages.
As a result of these three major dynamics, most countries in the world will experience one of three major outcomes as linguistic unification arises at the national level or as part of a regional effort of integration: 1) the adoption of a major world language, 2) the adoption of a unifying national language or 3) the adoption of a local regional language.
Take Ghana, for instance, a country with 79 languages. In the first scenario, as a country that considers English an official language, Ghana would most likely end up becoming a truly homogenized, English-speaking country. Under the second scenario, which is admittedly least likely to occur, Ghana would create a unifying creole for all its peoples or impose one of the major local languages like Asante or Ewe in all its territory. Finally, under the third scenario Ghana and its neighbors (from Senegal to Cameroon) would witness the rise of a regional language. Unlike the adoption of English, this outcome would allow all member countries to benefit from the economic, political and social advantages of creating a broad regional linguistic community, while maintaining a sense of “localness” and ownership over the spoken language. A possible candidate on which to base such a language for Ghana could be a far-reaching, Niger-Congo language such as Fulani.
If Ghana and all other countries in the world were to adopt major world languages as their official system of speech, we would experience a major loss of cultural diversity, as most world languages are of Eurasian descent. On the other hand, attempting to save all 7,000 existing languages in the world or even just one for every country, although certainly a noble effort, would be nothing more than an unjustified, politically- and emotionally-motivated venture that would be excessively costly and in all likelihood result in failure.
That having been said, global linguistic diversity does not have to be a thing of the past. The possibility of creating and adopting new common regional local languages that unite many smaller, related languages is a viable option (and perhaps the best chance we have) for a truly diversified linguistic future. Moreover, this alternative is not as far-fetched as it might appear at first sight: languages like Swahili, Bahasa Indonesia and Tok Pisin are just a few examples of modern languages that arose as a means of promoting regional unification. In intensely diverse linguistic contexts like Sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia and New Guinea, new concerted efforts to unify closely-related languages and dialects could arise: it would be interesting to see a new language called Neo-Bantu spoken from Equatorial Guinea to Mozambique to South Africa, for instance.
What if this doesn’t happen organically? What if no African languages were to survive at all as globalization runs its course? Should we do something now to preserve at least a minimum amount of linguistic diversity? It is difficult to swim against the current and, historically, efforts to promote minority languages or promote artificial languages intended for unification like Esperanto or Volapük have been limited in scope. It is possible, however, to create linguistic policies that flow not in the direction of separatism as is the case of Catalonia and its beautiful language, but rather towards the realignment of our cultural preservationist goals with the economic, political and social realities of the day.
The case for Neo-Bantu, in my opinion, is a particularly good one: there are approximately 500 Bantu languages in Sub-Saharan Africa, many of which are neither official nor considered national languages, and most of which are intimately related. In an effort to unite the peoples within and between countries like Botswana and Zimbabwe, for instance, it would be a more favorable outcome to create a common language that is inspired in the autochthonous Bantu languages, rather than simply promoting the use of English as a lingua franca. The same could be said for Neo-Guinean, Neo-Turkic, Neo-Fulani and other newly-created languages in Central and Southeast Asia, Europe, Nilo-Saharan Africa and the Americas.
So what will it be? A homogenized linguistic future or one characterized by limited diversity? Only time will tell, but for now we can be sure that some languages will inevitably perish despite our best efforts. We can also be certain, however, that if our efforts are aligned with the spirit of the times, we will be able to keep at least one African tongue...
Monday, July 5, 2010
Is Globalization Destroying Language? (Part I)
This post is Part 1 of a two-part series.
Globalization is changing the way we travel, eat, play and even write and speak. As improvements in transport and telecommunications have brought civilizations around the world closer together, the languages we employ to communicate have been affected in various ways: while a few languages have been strengthened by this closeness, almost every other language in the world has been weakened by a constant pressure towards homogenization. Some would even say that if this trend continues to progress unfettered the effects of this globalizing force will whittle away at languages around the world until the entire planet ends up speaking only one: English.
What will be the languages of the future? Will we all speak a single tongue? Will it be English? What will happen to the rest of the languages of the world? Why does this matter?
I love language. Some might even say I am obsessed with languages——world languages, obscure languages, growing, dying and extinct languages alike. I would therefore like to think that the cultural richness we have amassed in the almost 7,000 tongues around the world will survive into the future. The truth, however, is that the vast majority of them will not. Further, it is unlikely that new systems of speech will arise around the world in sufficient numbers to maintain the diversity we have today. Globalization, like every other moment in history that has brought different groups of people together, will gradually change languages, their relationships to one another and the very concept of language itself. This does not mean that languages will all die systemically and that English will become the solitary language of the planet. No. In my opinion, although the vast majority of languages will become extinct in the next 200 years, many will survive and the cultures, stories and myths they enclose will live on with them.
This is an emotionally-charged subject for most of us. There are few things in our lives that we cherish more closely than the very words we enounce every day. We place an identity on every language, we ascribe value to them and we define our lives by them. But as much as we hold our languages in great esteem, the truth is that we have other imperatives beyond our seemingly innate desire to preserve our cultures and languages. We want to eradicate poverty; we want to mature into more efficient societies, economies and polities; we want to become a global community that has learned to live in peace. All of these objectives can be more easily met as a global society if we work together in unison and, arguably, anything that serves to divide us——including language——can disrupt that badly-needed cooperation. Could it be that the price we must pay for progress and peace will be our mores, traditions and speech?
What can we expect from here onwards? Does the future of language necessarily have to be bleak? Again, no. Progress may come at a price, but it does not have to result in a total cultural loss. In part two of this post, I will describe what in my opinion are the characteristics of those languages that are going to survive. Additionally, I will explore possible scenarios and outcomes and a potential alternative that may allow us to realistically maintain a minimum amount of linguistic diversity in spite of the overall trends brought about by globalization. For now I leave you with this preview:
The languages of the future will be those that unite; languages that divide will by that very fact create the conditions for their own demise.
Stay tuned!
Globalization is changing the way we travel, eat, play and even write and speak. As improvements in transport and telecommunications have brought civilizations around the world closer together, the languages we employ to communicate have been affected in various ways: while a few languages have been strengthened by this closeness, almost every other language in the world has been weakened by a constant pressure towards homogenization. Some would even say that if this trend continues to progress unfettered the effects of this globalizing force will whittle away at languages around the world until the entire planet ends up speaking only one: English.
What will be the languages of the future? Will we all speak a single tongue? Will it be English? What will happen to the rest of the languages of the world? Why does this matter?
This is an emotionally-charged subject for most of us. There are few things in our lives that we cherish more closely than the very words we enounce every day. We place an identity on every language, we ascribe value to them and we define our lives by them. But as much as we hold our languages in great esteem, the truth is that we have other imperatives beyond our seemingly innate desire to preserve our cultures and languages. We want to eradicate poverty; we want to mature into more efficient societies, economies and polities; we want to become a global community that has learned to live in peace. All of these objectives can be more easily met as a global society if we work together in unison and, arguably, anything that serves to divide us——including language——can disrupt that badly-needed cooperation. Could it be that the price we must pay for progress and peace will be our mores, traditions and speech?
What can we expect from here onwards? Does the future of language necessarily have to be bleak? Again, no. Progress may come at a price, but it does not have to result in a total cultural loss. In part two of this post, I will describe what in my opinion are the characteristics of those languages that are going to survive. Additionally, I will explore possible scenarios and outcomes and a potential alternative that may allow us to realistically maintain a minimum amount of linguistic diversity in spite of the overall trends brought about by globalization. For now I leave you with this preview:
The languages of the future will be those that unite; languages that divide will by that very fact create the conditions for their own demise.
Stay tuned!
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