English in Asia, Asia in English

Maintaining heritage languages

2011-12-31T03:58:00.000-08:00

A great many Asians migrate to English-speaking countries every year. In 2004, 12% of the people living in the United States were born overseas, and about a quarter of these were Asians (the second biggest group after Latin Americans). Between 1990 and 2000, the Chinese American community nearly doubled, from 1.6 million to 2.9 million. Koreans increased from 100,000 in 1970 to 1.2 million in 2000. In Canada, Asians comprised almost half of immigrants in 2004. Bryan Ray of the University of Ottawa notes how this has reversed the pattern of the 1970s when two thirds came from Europe and only 12% from Asia. In Australia 7.2% claimed Asian ancestry in the 2001 census, and over 10% in the city of Sydney.

Asian immigrants tend to have a positive image in the countries they migrate to. Their children often do better than average at school, even though English may not be the language spoken at home. This success is often attributed to a traditional emphasis on education and in particular to the networks of community schools they have established. But ironically, these schools seem to have been less successful in achieving the purpose for which most of them were originally set up: to maintain the heritage language of their parents or grandparents.

According to Richard Alba of New York State University, only a minority of immigrants maintain bilingualism into the third generation, and the numbers of bilingual Asians is especially low. A few decades ago, it was commonly believed that raising children bilingually was likely to confuse them and impede their progress at school. Many immigrants to English-speaking countries wanted their children to use English only. Nowadays, few doubt the benefits of bilingualism, not just because of the access it gives to different cultures and ways of looking at the world, but because bilinguals often seem to do better than average academically and to be more flexible and adaptable. Nevertheless the difficulty of raising children to be balanced bilinguals is often underestimated.

Koreans in the United States are known as high achievers both in schoolwork and in music. As well as attending English-medium schools, many get extra education in Korean at hagwon cram schools. Yet 78% of US-born Koreans use only English at home. Korean-language schools are heavily concentrated in a few areas, such as Los Angeles. Moreover, the pressure to do well at school means that many students concentrate all their efforts on studying only in English.

At first sight, the 10,000 Japanese in Sydney seem to do better at maintaining their heritage language. Oriyama Kaya of Victoria University in New Zealand found that nearly 9000 of them claim to speak Japanese well. Many of the children go to hoshuukoo, or special Japanese schools that supplement the classes they take at local English-medium schools. The Australian government provides funding if there are more than 20 students. However, the high level of Japanese is largely accounted for by the fact that most Japanese families do not settle permanently.

According to Nakane Ikuko of Melbourne University, the proportion of Japanese who emigrate long-term is now increasing, and their children, more of whom are being born in Australia and going to English-medium schools, are consequently using less Japanese. Discussions I had with Japanese residents of Auckland suggest that the picture is similar in New Zealand, with short-term residents able to maintain proficiency in Japanese but those settling down there starting to shift towards English.

The Australian government is increasingly concerned about another community of Asian immigrants, the Lebanese. Rosemary Suliman of the University of West Sydney claims that far from being bilingual, many Lebanese children are semilingual: unable to read or write Arabic and speaking it less and less with their parents, yet falling behind at school because they are not fully exposed to English until later than the other children.

The Tamils who left Sri Lanka during the recent civil war are finding it particularly difficult to maintain their language in countries such as Canada, the US and the UK. Suresh Canagarajah of Baluch College in New York found that while 38% of the younger generation in Toronto, where there are over 150,000 Sri Lankan Tamils, use both languages, but 41% now mostly use English. The picture is similar among the 50,000 Tamils in London, with 44% favouring English and only 36% preferring Tamil. One of the reasons for the shift is that many feel it is unlikely they will ever go back to Sri Lanka after the bitter divisions of years of ethnic conflict.

Medium of instruction

2011-11-01T00:15:00.000-07:00

Bhutan and Singapore may be the only Asian countries with English-medium national education systems.

However, there are several other countries, especially former British or American colonies, where English is not taught as a foreign language but used rather as the medium to teach certain subjects. In Brunei secondary schools, English is used more than the ‘national language’. In the Philippines and Malaysia it is used for science and maths, with more culturally- or socially-orientated subjects taught in the national languages. English is the main medium of instruction in many Indian secondary schools and most universities. Gandhi once complained that he could have mastered maths and science in half the time if he had been allowed to study them in his native Gujerati .

Interestingly, English is starting to be used as a medium instruction in some countries that were never anglophone colonies. In China’s Guandong Province, for instance, 200 state school have been teaching certain subjects in English since 2003. English-medium instruction is expanding particularly fast in the private sector.

Beijing’s Harrow and Eton international schools (named after prestigious British schools) were originally targeted at foreign residents but are increasingly popular with wealthier Chinese.

Harrow also has a branch in Thailand. Some Bangkok schools have an English-medium stream for children whose parents pay higher fees. They also get air-conditioning for their extra money.

Not surprisingly, the practice of paying extra to have children educated in English is controversial. On the one hand, many parents say they should be free to give their children what they see as an important advantage for their future. Some feel that since most scientific research is published in English nowadays their children should study it in that language from the start. A recent letter to the Malaysian online newspaper Malaysiakini claimed that children liked studying science in English because there was far more scientific information on the internet in English than in Malay.

On the other hand, for over fifty years there has been a consensus among educators that any subject is best taught in one’s mother tongue, at least when children are younger. Some parents fear that standards of maths and science will decline if they are taught in a second or foreign language, without any compensatory improvement in English standards. One contributor to Malaysiakini described how the teachers at one school had to simplify content when they were ordered to teach in English ten years ago. This is in contrast to a 2010 UN report suggesting that not only English, but also science and maths, had started to improve in Malaysian schools after the introduction of English instruction. Another contributor pointed out that science and maths standards are high in countries like China and Taiwan, where they are not taught in English, than in the Philippines and Malaysia, where they are.

In addition to pedagogical arguments, the debate over medium of instruction has economic, social and political dimensions. English-medium instruction can divide societies between the English-speaking rich and urban and the non-English speaking poor and rural. In this sense, countries like China and Thailand are not so different from former British and American colonies. When Malaysia started teaching maths and science in English ten years go the new policy was popular in cities like Kuala Lumpur and Penang, and even persuaded some parents to keep their children in the state sector rather than send them to private schools. But it was less popular in the countryside, where many teachers did not know English well enough to teach in it and children had few opportunities to use English outside school.

Malaysia recently decided to go back to teaching everything in Malay. So now it is parents in the cities who are unhappy. The basic problem lies in trying to have one policy for the whole country, when the circumstances of each area and even each family differ so much. But many politicians, and even some educators, say it is quite natural for a country to have one common national language policy.

“Only English speakers need apply”

2011-10-24T02:08:00.000-07:00

If you ask an Asian student why they study Spanish or Japanese you will probably get a variety of responses. But if you ask why they study English there are two answers that always come at the top of their list: Because it is compulsory. And To get a job. But is it true that English will help you get a job? We have to consider two types of workers: those who go overseas in search of work, and those who stay home.

During a visit to Dubai the only worker I encountered who wasn’t a foreigner was the immigration officer who stamped my passport on arrival. Clearly English was indispensable to most of the hotel employees, such as the Sri Lankan staff at the taxi desk and fitness club and the Filipino receptionists. Even the Nepalese room-cleaners and Indian cooks could manage basic conversation. I was a little surprised to see that the only job ads I saw in Gulf News that specifically asked for English were for security guards, but I imagine that is because it is so obviously necessary for accountants and executives that the ads don’t even mention it.

However, I never got to talk to any of the thousands of construction workers and manual labourers in Dubai. The likelihood is that they don’t need much English in their jobs. They probably don’t need much Arabic either, being supervised by middlemen speaking their language and living with compatriots (around the city you come across posters offering “bed spaces for Nepali bachelors” or other specific nationalities). Willingness to work for low wages, rather than English, is surely what recruiters in Israel are looking for when they take on Thais to work on agricultural kibbutzim there.

Malaysia is trying to make basic English a requirement for all foreign workers but perhaps they should focus on Malay instead. I once sat on a plane next to a Burmese man coming to work as a builder in a small Malaysian city. He was studying an English-language booklet for immigrant workers published by the Malaysian government but I wonder how often he would need to use English. For a middle-sized developing country, Malaysia has a relatively large proportion of foreign workers. The waiters and hotel staff in the centre of the capital city are definitely employed mainly for their English skills. But the foreign workers employed in factories or on construction sites probably won’t need it much.

What about Asians looking for a job in their own country? Where English is widely used in business, such as Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines, not knowing it well makes it almost impossible to get a well-paid job. Multinational companies in Thailand pay on average twice as well as local firms, so there is no shortage of people spending money on English courses they can ill afford in the hope of switching to one. However, English shouldn’t be a key factor for getting a job with a local firm in a country where business is mostly done in a local language. And yet it often is.

Beijing Time Out, a magazine aimed at foreign residents but read by many young Chinese, often carries advertisements for bilingual receptionists at small hair salons where few customers are likely to be foreigners. Nowadays most Korean students spend one or two semesters overseas, whatever their major, because they know companies may evaluate them according to their English proficiency – even if they won’t actually need to use the language at work.

Things used to be very different in Japan. Many students were actually reluctant to spend time overseas because they feared the delay would harm their chances of getting a job. Indeed the number of Japanese studying overseas has declined in recent years as the economic crisis there has worsened. This is partly because people do not have as much money as they used to. But it is also because competition for jobs in Japan has become so tough.

However, there are signs that things are changing. Many Japanese companies want employees with high TOEFL or TOEIC scores. In some cases English may be important for them to compete with foreign companies. In other cases, they simply want some way of narrowing down the thousands of students who apply for just one or two positions. Students themselves are also beginning to feel they may need English to work in Japan, because so many Japanese companies are hiring foreign staff nowadays (especially Chinese who can speak Mandarin, Japanese and English). Furthermore, students who have not been able to get a job may feel that they might as well go and study overseas rather than stay in Japan unemployed.

Whether it actually leads to better job prospects or not, my prediction is that the number of Japanese going overseas to study is set to increase again.

Globish (2): Some questions

2011-06-11T21:49:00.000-07:00

Last time I wrote about Nerriere and Hon’s book on Globish. I like their idea that we need a simple tool for international communication. I agree that I sold the house to that man is easier than He’s the man I sold the house to and it means almost the same thing. But I have some questions.

Does Globish really not have any cultural viewpoint?
Nerriere and Hon use some words that are not in their list and not explained. It is not unreasonable for them to assume that words like phone are already global. After all, the French say téléphone and Germans Telefon, and Japanese used to say terehon kad (with mobile phones almost no one uses a telephone card now). But for Japanese, ‘phone’ is usually denwa or keitai, for Chinese it is dianhua or shouji, for Thais, torasap. Deciding what is ‘international’ does involve cultural assumptions and generalisations.

Is Globish enough to explain technical things'?
They explain many ‘technical’ words that are not on their list using Globish. But they do not explain 'technical' until page 35. The explanation is ‘tied to a trade or an industry.’ Is this enough?

Is correct spelling so very important?
They say English spelling rules are too difficult, but we need only 1500 words, so we only need to learn the spelling of these. English spelling is indeed difficult and the words in their list include some of the most difficult. (In fact, longer and more difficult words are often easier to spell.) But most incorrect spelling is close to how words sound, so I can usually guess words that are spelt incorrectly. But maybe I think like this because I make many spelling mistakes!

Are short sentences easier than long ones?
They also say it is best to use short sentences. So Globish is very useful for short messages, like the ones we send from our phones. At the back of the book they change a speech by Barack Obama into Globish. The Globish version might be easier. But it is much longer.

Is it easier to learn one expression with several meanings than to learn several words with one meaning?
For them, the center of Globish is limiting the words we use and making sure everyone understand basic words. It’s not a bad idea. In fact it is an old idea. Basic English, invented 80 years ago, has 850. Perhaps it is easier to learn 'go up' instead of 'ascend', and 'go out' instead of 'exit'. But 'go off' can mean 'depart' or 'explode' (which are in the Globish list) and 'rot' and 'proceed' (which are not). And is 'sleeping without clothes' clearer than 'sleeping without pajamas' or 'sleeping naked'? At first that expression was not easy for me to work out.

Are short words easier than long ones?
I tried to write these two entries about Globish in Globish. But when I checked my writing, I had to change 'advantage' to 'edge' and 'mentioned' to 'wrote in passing'. But I am not sure if these are easier to understand. Both 'edge' and 'pass' have a lot of different meanings.

If we know part of a word, is it easy to understand all of it?
To my surprise, 'adaptable', 'entry', 'expression', 'figurative' and 'guideline' are all in the Globish list - because it has 'adapt', 'enter', 'express', 'figure', 'guide' and 'line'. If we know 'mind' and 'set', do we understand 'mindset'? I am still not sure if I should use 'activity' or 'effectively' or 'maybe' (the list has 'act', 'effect', 'may', and 'be').

However, Nerriere and Hon say that few native speakers of English fully understand how useful Globish is, so my questions may be unreasonable. I would like to hear the opinions of ESL speakers.

Globish (1): Some good ideas

2011-05-31T07:02:00.000-07:00

In the entry on international understanding 18 months ago I wrote in passing about Globish. This is a simplified English that Jean-Paul Nerriere observed non-native speakers using effectively with each other when he worked for IBM. By chance I just came across a book that he and David Hon wrote about this. Of course they wrote it in Globish – with a few additional words that they explain in Globish, like pajamas and punctuation.

The first part of the book is about why we need Globish. In an increasingly globalized world, more and more people use English. Most are non-native speakers. They have no time, and no need, to use English like native speakers. But they can learn Globish easily. Globish cannot take the place of English for Americans and Britons. It cannot take the place of Spanish for South Americans, or Hindi for Indians. But it is enough for most international communication.

Nerriere and Hon also explain how non-native speakers of English have an edge over native speakers. They are more adaptable. They are used to hearing different kinds of English. They know how to make good use of simple words. And because they are using a foreign language, they are not forcing their own cultural ideas upon anyone.

The second part of the book gives some details about what Globish is. There are few hard rules, but there are guidelines. For example:

We need only 1500 words. (They give us a list.)
We should use short sentences.
We can improve understanding with body language when speaking.
We can improve understanding with punctuation when writing.
We should avoid figurative language.
We should use the active voice. (He wrote it, not It was written by him.)
We should avoid humor. (Unless we know our listeners well.)
We should spell correctly.
We should stress words correctly.

But we do not need to sound like native speakers. A 2009 experiment showed about seven sounds that are difficult for most non-native speakers to say. Native speakers and other non-native speakers may not understand them when non-native speakers say them. If we master these sounds and use stress correctly, it is enough.

Globish is a good idea. It is similar to other ideas that I wrote about before, like EIL. I agree with many of its aims. I do not think all English should be like American or British English. And I do not think native speakers always communicate better than non-native speakers. However, I also have some problems with Globish. I will write about them in the next entry.

Tsunami and Ganbare

2011-05-22T21:05:00.000-07:00

Sometimes an event in one part of the world attracts so much attention that it creates a new global word. This was the case with tsunami after the disaster in the Indian Ocean in 2004. This Japanese word was already in use in English but not so widely known, and few people were clear about the difference between a tsunami and a tidal wave. After 2004 almost everyone in the world knew what to call a sudden rise in the sea level caused by an earthquake or volcanic eruption.

The next time everyone around the world was saying tsunami was March this year, and this time the focus was on Japan itself.

There is almost nothing good about this Asian addition to English and many other languages. Perhaps 20,000 people have already died. Thousands have lost their homes. Entire towns, together with their factories and farms and fisheries, have disappeared and may never be rebuilt. And now people throughout Japan are worried about the possible effects of damage to nuclear reactors.

Yet there is another Japanese word that is also becoming widely known around the world and has a more positive meaning: ganbare. I found nearly half a million hits on Google for Ganbare Nippon! and another 200,000 for Ganbare Japan! All of them led to English-language websites. Many of these concern fundraising activities by Japanese groups overseas, such as the Japanese Red Cross Branch in Hong Kong (see picture above); So Restaurant in London; Leicester University’s Japan Students Association; and an organization for Canadian Nikkei. But many more have no direct connection with Japan.

For example, an interactive media firm in Cambridge is collecting artwork to raise awareness for the tsunami victims:
http://illustrationrally.blogspot.com/2011/03/japan-tsunami-appeal-ganbare-nippon

A university in Florida held a charity concert:
http://www.fullsail.edu/news/minute-2-minute/2011-04-19-ganbare-nippon

An elementary school in New York posted a video on Youtube in which children from almost every background except Japanese shout ‘Ganbare’ to encourage people in Japan:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4JTHnFrka

You can also find Ganbare mugs, Ganbare T-shirts, and even a music complication by UK-based DJ Gilles Petersen called Ganbare Nippon!

Ganbare gets translated into English in various ways, including: 'Don’t give up!', 'Fight!', 'Hang in there!' and 'Stay Strong!' Petersen’s English title for his music mix is ‘Pray for Japan’. But in many cases the word is not translated at all because it is assumed most people will know it.

When people around the world think of Japan I hope they will not think only of tsunami. I hope they will also think of the spirit of ganbare.

Some languages are more equal than others

2011-02-06T10:49:00.000-08:00

恭喜发财and Happy Year of the Rabbit！

While in Beijing recently I read an article in The China Daily about the dissatisfaction of people who had trained to become teachers of Chinese as a foreign language. A few weeks ago I described Chinese as ‘the other world language’, with over 30 million people learning it around the world and the Chinese government promoting its soft power through language and culture classes at a rapidly growing number of Confucius Institutes. And yet this article claimed that the great majority of people qualified to teach the language to foreigners in China end up doing other jobs, such as doing deskwork in government offices or translating for private companies. The main reason seems to be low pay.

In this occasional blog, based on experiences travelling, working and studying around Asia, I try to emphasise my view that not only all varieties of English, but also all languages, are equally important and valid. However, sometimes I read something or talk to someone and wonder if my view is too idealistic or romantic.

According to the China Daily piece, newly qualified teachers of Chinese can expect to earn only 30 to 40 yuan (about $5) per hour, compared with thosese qualified to teach English, who can get 120 yuan. Despite the apparent boom in demand for the language, the economic value of Chinese thus seems to be only a quarter of that of English! The situation of one qualified teacher is especially poignant: he was earning about 40 yuan an hour to teach Chinese while paying 200 yuan per hour to learn English – from a teacher who was probably less qualified than him.

Of course the value of a language can never be reduced merely to how much money it is worth, but we can guess that the main problem for these teachers is that there are simply far more people in China needing English than Chinese. In a country where speaking Chinese is a matter of course, and where the number of foreigners is still relatively small, this is a matter of simple arithmetic. However, the value of English is augmented by the fact that English-speakers in China, whether they are foreign or Chinese, and whether they use the language as a first, second or foreign language, are generally wealthier than non-English-speakers. The noticeboards in the clubs and community halls of areas of Beijing where foreigners and wealthier Chinese live are targeted by maids, cooks, child-minders, drivers and many other people anxious to advertise their English skills in order to get jobs with a better salary than they could expect from working for people who never use English.

The situation in the rest of Asia is not so different. Whether we like it or not, the fact is that English skills command better salaries than other languages. Some countries, such as Malaysia, have tried to redress this imbalance by requiring government employees to have qualifications in an Asian language; but the result is that many graduates with good English skills ignore the public sector and get jobs in the better-paid private sector.

We cannot assume that English will continue to have the most economic power, however. If the number of people learning the language continues to grow as it has done, some day sooner or later it is likely that most people around the world will speak the language, at least to some extent. Knowing English will become a matter of course. When that happens, it will be the languages that people know in addition to English that will attract the higher salaries. But that day may still be quite far away.

Younger and younger

2010-12-03T04:28:00.000-08:00

When out cycling around my Tokyo suburb I sometimes see a group of small children playing in the park with their teacher. Most of them look Japanese, but he looks European. And they all chatter away in English. They are from a pre-school popular not only with the small number of foreign parents in my locality but also with many Japanese who hope their kids will grow up to be bilingual.

It was not until this year that English classes were officially introduced into the Japanese elementary school curriculum, after many years of experiments and debate about whether this would mean too much work for children and teachers alike. But increasing numbers of parents are circumventing the standard education system by finding opportunities for their children to learn English. In 2006 it is estimated that 21% of Japan’s five-year-olds were taking private lessons. Are their parents’ expectations realistic?

Yuko, a Tokyo housewife who tries to teach her daughter basic English after she comes home from elementary school, feels Japan’s education system is in crisis and wants her child to have chances that she never had because of her own poor English - including the possibility of going to an overseas university. Doubts about Japanese higher education are growing as the decline in the birth-rate forces many universities to lower standards in order to compete for fewer and fewer students. But for Akiko, an elementary schoolteacher, Yuko’s views are unrealistic. Teaching English to young children means either increasing total classroom hours or reducing time spent on other subjects. And she worries that ability to read and write Japanese will decline.

Almost everyone knows of some child picking up two or more languages quite easily by being in a multilingual environment. But the evidence that young kids learn languages much more easily than older ones is not as clear as many people think. One of the strongest factors in language acquisition is the amount of exposure. It is rare for older children, let alone adults, to be able to immerse themselves in another language because they have so many activities in their lives. But if they did, perhaps they could learn quickly too.

Many other Asian countries have been much more enthusiastic about early English. In the major cities of China and Taiwan, children start the language from grade one, and those parents who can afford it have their kids in private English classes from much younger – a practice that is increasingly common in Saudi Arabia too, where state schools don’t offer English until age ten. In South Korea, where English starts in the third grade at state schools, 74% of children get a head start by taking private lessons in the 1st and 2nd grade. There are even English DVDs for babies. In a survey conducted by Park Yaku of Gyeonggi National University of Education, over a third of parents of 1st- and 2nd-graders said they spent $60 – 100 a month on these classes. Significantly, parents said they would be likely to spend even more on private English if the government carries out plans to introduce the language from the 1st grade. “It’s not that I’m so crazy about English,” one young father told me. “I just don’t have much choice. If I don’t send my son [to private English classes] he’ll fall behind the others.”

Bangladesh

2010-11-30T07:19:00.000-08:00

In many of the countries frequently mentioned in this blog, English is a practical tool of communication for people with different language backgrounds. India, for example, has hundreds of languages, thirty of them spoken by communities of more than a million people. Although Hindi is widely understood in the north, it is less well-known – and less loved – in the south. English is often the choice for inter-regional communication, and is also favoured by the educated elite. In neighbouring Bangladesh, however, the picture is quite different. Except in a few remote areas, virtually all of its 160 million people speak Bangla/Bengali.

Indeed Bangla, which is also spoken in India and ranks sixth among the world’s languages, was a major reason for the creation of the country. Formed originally into East Pakistan when India was divided into Muslim and Hindu territories at independence in 1947, the Bengali people came to feel isolated and disadvantaged by policies made in more powerful – but less populous – West Pakistan that favoured the Urdu language. Reinforced by economic problems, linguistic nationalism led to a war with the West resulting in the foundation of Bangladesh in 1971. Bengalis remain proud of their language and less than 3% of them speak English. Rabindranath Tagore, who was from over the border in Calcutta but owned land in what is now Bangladesh, was the first Asian to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. Although educated in London, he wrote mostly in Bangla.

Despite all this, English has a prominent position in Bangladesh. It is used widely in higher education and law – indeed it is the only language of the higher courts, and lawyers who are poor in English cannot expect to get well-paid work. It is also considered the key to business success. The streets of Dhaka are full of advertisements for English courses.

Why should English be so important even in a country where most people speak the same language and are proud of doing so? Perhaps it is partly because of economics. While conditions have improved greatly in recent years, Bangladesh remains one of the world’s poorest countries. Trading, working and studying overseas are seen as crucial to economic improvement.

God's language or devil's tongue?

2010-10-20T03:03:00.000-07:00

Sightseeing at a small temple in Phnom Penh, I noticed a group of young monks busy studying in a corner. At first I thought it better not to disturb them, but when some of them saw a foreigner they shyly approached me. Instead of reading Khmer books about Buddhism, as I had expected, they were holding photocopies of Headway, a textbook for learning English. I soon found myself helping with their conversation practice. Buddhist temples have always been a place for general education, as well as religious studies, so it is unsurprising that English is on the curriculum for many monks. Most Southeast Asian monks enter temples only for short periods of their lives, so many of them think that English will be useful when they have to look for a job.

However, English is also increasingly connected to the Buddhist religion. More and more books are being published in English on the subjects such as Buddhist doctrine and meditation. Several temples in Burma, Sri Lanka and Thailand offer courses on Buddhism and meditation for foreigners in English.The World Fellowship of Buddhists is based in Bangkok and has a Thai president, but its executive members include Americans, Australians and Malaysians, and its general conferences are in English.

English and Christianity have a long connection in Asia. Of course the religion originated in the western part of Asia, where some of the world’s oldest communities are found. But more Asian Christians, especially in the east of the continent, were influenced by missionaries from America and Europe. Some of them were attracted to the religion through the English language.

Initially, British colonial authorities were reluctant to support Christian missionaries, fearing they might interfere with local power structures. So in India, missionaries went into remote areas that the colonisers knew little about and offered education to people who had been economically and politically isolated. In such places few people had a use for English, so the missionaries were quick to learn local languages and to translate the Bible and prayers into them.

Until the late 19th century Japan resisted missionary activity, but industrialisation brought a new interest in western education and new opportunities for Christians. Sophia University was set up by Jesuits in 1913 and remains one of the leading choices for students who want to study in English. Aoyama Gakuin was established by Methodists in 1949, and in the same year International Christian University was set up after a fundraising campaign by churches in New York. English-speaking students can enter ICU without knowing Japanese, and 7% of its undergraduates are from overseas, the largest numbers coming from the United States and South Korea. Koreans preferring to study at home might attend Yonsei University, an amalgamation of the Presbyterian Jejungwon Hospital, founded in 1885, and Chosun Christian College (1915). It offers many courses in English and is considered one of the country’s top universities.

Some of the most interesting debates about English and religion are in Muslim parts of Asia. Many Muslims remain concerned that English helps to spread non-Islamic values. Education in some Muslim countries emphasises English for scientific and economic advancement but not for cultural and social subjects. In a survey by Saudi linguist Sultan-al-Hamza (1), 82% of students at King Saud University, and 96% of students at Jordan University preferred to study religion, history, literature and education in Arabic, while wanting English for science. On the other hand, Malaysia’s International Islamic University teaches nearly all of its classes in English. As Malaysian linguist Asmah Haji Omar points out, to know English is to have access to a vast store of Islamic literature.

Small country, many languages

2010-10-05T09:13:00.000-07:00

When East Timor (Timor Leste/Timor Lorosae) became the first new country of this century in 2002, language was hardly at the top of its list of problems. 500 years of colonial occupation but little economic development by Portugal, followed by 24 years of oppressive rule by neighbouring Indonesia, had left the country poor, divided and isolated. Worse, when the Indonesians withdrew in 1999, their army and its supporters destroyed most of the infrastructure and killed or kidnapped thousands of people. Although finally independent, the Timorese had little choice but to turn to foreigners for help, and various UN-related organisations are to be seen everywhere dominating educational, economic and social policy. Slowly, this country on the southeast edge of Asia is getting back on its feet. But language problems are occupying more and more of the government's time.

With a population of only a million or so, Timor Leste has at least 26 local languages. One of them, Tetun Prasa, is understood quite widely, but it has never been used much for education, business, government or law. Portuguese was the main language of education for the people who fought against the Indonesians and now control the government. But less than 15% of the population understand it, and Timor is far from from other Portuguese-speaking countries such as Brazil, Mozambique, and Portugal. Indonesian is more easily learnt and remains widely understood not only because of the occupation but also because many teachers continue to train in Indonesia. But many government officials are reluctant to promote the language of their former enemies. And then there is English. Australia, only 90 minutes away by plane, is the most active country in the UN bodies helping to rebuild the country. Other UN and NGO workers mostly use English when they consult each other. And increasing numbers of Timorese are interested in learning the language so they can study or work overseas.

Timor's 2002 Constitution makes both Tetun and Portuguese official languages while giving a role to Indonesian and English as working languages. But can a small, poor country afford to support four languages? And what about the 25 other local languages? As in many poor countries, most people take a very pragmatic view, learning whatever language they think can best get them an education and a job, and often speaking several of them very well. Meanwhile the government is allowing Tetun to be used in the legal system and making efforts to modernise the language. Thousands of technical terms have been borrowed from Portuguese, and some from English and Indonesian. But this makes the language even more difficult for people far from the main towns to understand.

The other world language

2010-07-02T23:37:00.000-07:00

All around Asia there seems to be an irreversible expansion in the use of English. Even corners of the continent that resist Anglo-Saxon-dominated capitalism are not immune. North Korea’s national news agency, Naenara, regularly publishes articles in English in order to reach a wider audience. English is used for propaganda on the banners displayed at international sports matches in Pyongyang. However, we should be cautious about assuming that the growth of English is inevitable.

For one thing, the language gap between Asia’s influential, affluent elite and its urban and especially rural poor remains huge. Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, has middle-class areas where families use English more than any other language, but it has far more areas where children get very little schooling at all, let alone in English. While every child in Seoul studies English, there is a big contrast between some wealthy suburbs south of the river (Kangnam), where there is an English-language kindergarten on almost every street, and the older, poorer Kangbok districts to the north where it can be hard to find a shopkeeper or taxi-driver who understand even a few words of English. English-language skills are often cited to explain the rapid modernisation of India’s economy, but it must be remembered that perhaps no more than 4% of the population can use the language proficiently.

For another, as British linguist David Graddol points out, while English continues to grow as a second language, the proportion of the world’s population speaking it as a first language is actually falling. Hindi and Arabic speakers are increasing faster. Chinese has far more first-language speakers, and while population growth in China is slowing, the number of non-Chinese learning Mandarin is exploding.

It has been estimated that over 30 million people are currently studying Chinese. South Koreans are especially enthusiastic, aware that their country now does more trade with China than America. But Mandarin-learners are also growing in the UK, where there are now over 80 secondary schools teaching the language. At Hawkesdown House, a private school in an affluent part of London, four-year-olds are learn it. Some British parents even hire Mandarin-speaking nannies for their children. Still greater interest can be found in Australia and New Zealand, where courses for European languages and even Japanese struggle to compete. America is not known for its enthusiasm for foreign languages, but the Senate Foreign Relations Committee recently considered allocating $1.3 billion for Chinese language and culture classes in public schools.

The strongest motivation for studying the language is economic, of course. The economies of China and several of its neighbours consistently outperform the EU and US. Recently the Asian Development Bank predicted that less than 1.25% of East Asians will be living below the poverty line by 2020. The world has never seen a manufacturing expansion like the one occurring in China now, and it seems everyone wants a piece of the action. Aware of the economic and also cultural advantages to be gained from global interest in their language, the Chinese government has set up Confucius Institutes around the world. The first opened in Seoul in 2004, and there are now nearly 300.

The number of Britons studying in China has grown since 2004 from 650 to 1400. Many have business or other professional qualifications and feel that adding Chinese language skills will give them an edge over competitors. Concerned about the possibility of foreign businessmen taking jobs from its own citizens, China’s Securities Regulatory Commission now requires high-ranking executives in the financial services sector to take a government test requiring a good standard of written and spoken Chinese.

While the expansion of China’s economy looks unstoppable, it is difficult to say whether current interest in its language will continue to expand. Over 200 million people are studying English in China, and it is likely that far more of them will become proficient in the language than the number of Americans and Britons who will become fluent in Chinese. The International Herald Tribune suggested that rather than pour dollars into learning Chinese, US high schools would do better to concentrate on improving maths skills, which are now below the standard of schools in China.

The other imperialists

2010-06-18T04:03:00.000-07:00

English is a relative latecomer among the languages brought to Asia by European imperialists. Long before the British or Americans had any bases on the continent, Portuguese traders were active from the Middle East to Japan. By the 17th century their language had become a lingua franca for many Southeast Asian seamen. Portuguese words adopted by Asian languages include almariya (cupboard) and iskolaya (school) in Sinhala, jendela (window) and meja (table)) in Indonesian, and pan (bread) and tabako (tobacco) in Japanese. Some people believe arigato comes from obrigado.

Despite the long colonial influence, however – Macau was the first European colony in Asia (1557) and also the last, returning to Chinese control in 1999 – how many Asians today speak Portuguese? While it continues to be an official language of Macau and remains important in the legal system, Cantonese is far more widely spoken, with 93.4% using it as a first or additional language. Many people in Sri Lanka have Portuguese names, but very few can speak what was once a lingua franca there.

We see a similar situation with other European languages. The Philippines were a Spanish colony for 350 years and both Tagalog and Philippines English are full of loanwords such as fiesta and presidente; yet a mere 2,658 of the 93 million Filipinos use Spanish as a first language. The Dutch, who controlled the East Indies for 400 years, brought numerous everyday words such as hantuk (towel) and kamar (room) to the Indonesian language. We also find many Dutch words in Malay and Sinhala. But very few Indonesians, Malays or Sri Lankans speak the language.

In all the above countries, English is now much more important than European languages that preceded them. Even in Macau, which was never a British colony, over 12% of Macanese claim to speak English, compared to only 2.7% using Portuguese as a first or additional language there. The fate of Portuguese, Spanish and Dutch in Asia seems to suggest that colonisation is not the main reason for the spread of languages. Military alliances and access to jobs and global trade may be more important.

In recent years, some Asian countries have re-emphasised their links with former European occupiers. In August 2007, for example, Philippine President Arroyo announced that Spanish would be reinstated as an official language. But it will be trade with Spain and Latin America rather than government policy that determines whether the language increases in importance.

There was some surprise when Timor Leste chose Portuguese as an official language when it gained independence from Indonesia in 2002. Most of its 220 million speakers are in far-away Europe, Africa and South America, and few Timorese know the language as well as Indonesian or the local lingua franca, Tetum. However, Timor had been a Portuguese colony for 500 years before being invaded by Indonesia, and Portuguese had symbolic importance for groups resisting Indonesian rule. Tetum was considered too underdeveloped to be used exclusively for education and law, and Indonesian is too closely associated with the military occupation. So Portuguese and Tetum were made co-official languages. This complex situation has created a growing unofficial role for English, which many locals hope will help them get jobs with Australian and other international NGOs operating in the country.

In recent decades France has gained a reputation for resisting the global spread of English, promoting French language and culture through L’organisation internationale de la Francophonie, which now has 55 member states. It might therefore be expected that French would have fared better than Portuguese, Spanish and Dutch in former Asian colonies. But it is probably only in Lebanon, in the far west of the continent, that French is as important as English. Although neighbouring Syria was under French rule for as long as Lebanon, it has been less exposed to international business. Few Syrians know any language other than Arabic, but those who do are more likely to speak English than French.

We find similar stories in the region once ruled by France as Indochine. As late as the 1970s most private schools in Laos, and the one public lycée (secondary school) in Vientiane, taught in French, but Lao seems largely to have displaced the language in the public sector and English in the private.

The first wave of Vietnamese escaping communism tended to know French and headed for Paris, but subsequent groups were more interested in the United States and English. In Cambodia, French – and even Russian and Vietnamese – were more important than English until the 1990s, but in recent years Phnom Penh has seen protests by university students against compulsory French classes.

Military exercises

2010-06-04T21:37:00.000-07:00

When a friend and I were trekking in Nepal twenty years ago we found very few locals able to speak English, but every so often we would pass someone working in a field with whom we could chat fluently. Usually these were older men who had been Gurkhas – Nepalese soldiers who serve with the British or Indian army.

Under international law the Brigade of Gurkhas are an integral part of the British army, yet only in 2007 were their pensions raised to the value of those of their UK comrades; even now the Ministry of Defence appears to be trying to reduce its financial commitment through a policy of early retirement. But there is no shortage of support when it comes to strategies to promote military efficiency, and language is at the centre of these. The Gurkha Language Wing organises courses “to equip Gurkha soliders to operate alongside multinational forces,” including a 9-week English programme for new recruits.

Clearly it is crucial that participants in international training exercises and actual operations are able to understand each other, and the number of such collaborations is increasing. NATO has expanded beyond the group of 12 North Atlantic nations which formed it in 1947. Turkey has been a member since 1952, and the break-up of the Soviet Union led to Individual Partnership plans with several other Asian countries including Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan. In 2004 the latter created a military language institute in Almaty to train officers in French, German, Turkish, Chinese and above all English.

Military English is now a significant and growing business. In 2005 a series of coursebooks for teaching military peacekeepers was shortlisted for an Elton, the ELT world’s equivalent of an Oscar. UK-based Military English Language Training Ltd advertises itself as far away as India as a “combination of English language teachers and former military personnel” with experience from British, NATO and UN operations. It targets members of overseas armed forces expecting to take part in multinational operations and its website http://www.military-english.co.uk/ includes pages in Arabic. The British Council has been particularly active in this field, managing a programme of Peacekeeping English projects on behalf of the UK’s Ministry of Defence and Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

But British military involvement in Asia is dwarfed by that of the United States, whose emergence by the end of the Second World War as a global military power was a major impetus behind the globalisation of English. In South Korea, for example, General Hodge set up an English military school in 1946 whose cadets included future president Park Chung Hee. The Korea Military Academy sought to adopt not only America’s military practices but also its doctrines and culture, with English language a key discipline. Today the Academy’s intensive English programmes target the whole cadet corps and aim “to cultivate officers capable of performing joint military operations with UN forces”. These include the four main annual exercises of the SK-US Combined Forces Command: Team Spirit, Ulchi Focus Lens, RSOI and Foal Eagle.

All the examples of military English mentioned above have been tools of powerful governments, but it should not be forgotten that English also has a small but significant role among Asia’s anti-government movements. Many of the ethnic-based forces fighting the Burmese government make extensive use of English to stay in contact with each other and the outside world. And when a faction of the Japanese Red Army hijacked a Japan Airlines flight in Dhaka in 1977 they refused to speak Japanese, even to the Japanese negotiator flown to Bangladesh. The tapes that survive from the incident reveal some of the communication problems that can occur when a well-educated but English-deficient group of hijackers try to convey threats about time limits and hostage executions to negotiators who either genuinely do not understand them or claim not to do so as a delaying tactic.

Police policies

2010-05-30T08:06:00.000-07:00

The first time I got into trouble with the police in Japan was about two years after I’d started living there and already spoke the language fairly well. I’d borrowed a friend’s car but hadn’t been able to return it before going away on a 3-day skiing trip, so I parked it in a quiet suburban street. When I returned I found lots of plastic tags tied to the car’s wing-mirrors. In some countries, when you park a car illegally they clamp the wheel or tow the vehicle away. In Japan they just clamp your mirror, believing that drivers will be embarrassed into paying their fine immediately. I am not easily embarrassed. But I didn’t want to cause my friend any trouble. So I phoned to say I would go straight to the police. “Just be very apologetic, “ she advised me. “And don’t speak Japanese!”

When I arrived, a huge cop led me into a small room with bars on the windows. So it was easy to feel apologetic. However, since he didn’t seem to speak English, it was hard for me to avoid using Japanese. But I decided to speak it as badly as possible. The big cop told me I had committed a very serious offence and the fine would be heavy. Then he looked up and changed to English. “Hmm, seem you not live in Japan so long. Maybe not understand Japanese customs. Ok, just go. But next time no parking.” I have often wondered how much I would have had to pay if I had spoken in fluent Japanese.

I realise some foreigners don’t get treated so kindly (especially if they are from Asia or Africa). But I’ve heard many tales from English-speaking friends about how they escaped trouble – as long as they didn’t use Japanese, or Chinese, or Korean, or whatever the language of the place they were in. Perhaps it is because the police are busy and don’t want to go through the embarrassment of explaining things in English unless a serious crime is involved.

While most Asian police officers hardly speak English, I have come across several exceptions, such as a very fluent young Tokyo cop who came to investigate when my New Zealand colleague had his apartment burgled, and a Bangkok friend who had to study English, often with foreign instructors, in order to enter the commando force there.

And then there are the tourist police. Countries whose economies rely heavily on tourism, such as Indonesia, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Thailand, have special police forces to deal with crimes against (or sometimes by) tourists, and they have to be fluent in English.

Thailand’s Thammasat University has produced a textbook entitled English for Tourist Police. Its chapters, which include Giving Directions (“Make a left turn.”) and Complaining and Showing Sympathy (“Oh that’s too bad!”), give an idea of what situations Thai police expect to encounter when dealing with foreigners. A section on robbery has a story of a foreigner being given whisky with sleeping pills in it; another is about getting refunds from jewelery shops who overcharge tourists.

China made English lessons compulsory for officers in Beijing during the Olympics. It even produced a 252-page book: Olympic Security English. This has the usual sections on traffic accident, thefts and lost passports, but seems to hold the view that foreign men are likely like to get drunk and molest local women. It is full of expressions such as: “Please blow into the intoxiliser” and “Don’t take too many liberties with the waitress”.

Common law – common language?

2010-05-26T07:54:00.000-07:00

It is sometimes claimed that English law is the last bastion of British colonialism and of the English language. Long after their countries gained formal independence, lawyers throughout the Commonwealth continue to study laws that evolved centuries ago in England. Many of them still complete their training in London. And all of them require a high level of proficiency in the English language. Because of this, lawyers often have a reputation for trying to preserve ancient privileges and outdated practices. But if we look at the situation of the law in several Asian countries we can see that there are often good reasons for the conservatism of the legal profession. Moreover, it is no easy task to change the language of the law from English to an Asian language.

Most of the Asian countries that inherited English law continue to rely on the English language to administer the law. A great deal of Singapore’s legislation dates from the colonial era; new laws are drafted in English and court proceedings are conducted only in that language, with a centralised system of courtroom interpretation for witnesses and litigants who prefer to use Chinese, Malay, Tamil or other languages. Law in Brunei, which was once a British protectorate, also operates in English, and some of the judges come from Britain.

In the Philippines, a mixture of Spanish and common law is used since the country was a Spanish colony before being occupied by the US more than 100 years ago. But hardly any lawyers use Spanish now. Nor do they use Tagalog, the national language. Almost everything is in English.

However, there are some countries that have tried to introduce another language into the courtrooms. Nearly all cases in Myanmar are now heard in Burmese. In Pakistan, Urdu is commonly spoken in the lower courts (but English remains the language of the constitution, statutes and higher court proceedings). Several state-level courts in India permit Hindi or official regional languages in court. All laws in Hong Kong are written in both English and Chinese, and trials may be in either language. Malaysia started using Malay in its courts in the 1980s, and it is now the main language in the lower courts and in criminal cases. However, English is still used extensively in the higher courts and in civil cases, and even cases conducted in Malay often use a lot of English words.

Since trials are public events, it makes sense for courtrooms to use the language that most people understand best. But changing the language of a legal system is easier said than done. A Hong Kong lawyer who trained in English may not be comfortable speaking Cantonese in court, even if she uses it at home every day. In Malaysia, many laws are yet to be translated into Malay, and so many lawyers feel it is natural to speak English when referring to them. The thousands of previous cases, or precedents, which lawyers base their arguments on all over the Commonwealth and in America may never be translated – there are simply too many of them, and some have been in use for hundreds of years. An attempt to use Tagalog in some courts in the Philippines has had limited success. Not all Filipinos speak Tagalog, and many court clerks and recorders were trained in English and do not have time to retrain.

Some lawyers also worry that by changing the language of the law the meaning of the law will somehow change. After all, even changing the language of old English laws into more modern and simple English is not easy.

Many Asian legal systems have adopted a compromise, adopting both English and a local language. Sri Lanka has a trilingual system of law. In the lower courts, Sinhala or Tamil is used, depending on where the case is held; English is used for the higher courts.

While some common law countries are starting to use more Asian languages, alongside English, one or two countries that never used English in their legal systems are stressing its importance. The Thai government, for example, is encouraging judges to study in English-speaking countries so that they can deal directly with business documents without having to wait for a translation. In Macao, the legal system operates bilingually in Portuguese and Cantonese, but nearly all lawyers are fluent in English. If they weren’t, they could not collaborate with law firms in neighbouring Hong Kong, which is much bigger and richer.

Asia writes back

2010-04-20T06:50:00.000-07:00

When Kiran Desai won the 2006 Man Booker Prize for Inheritance of Loss it came as no surprise that yet another Indian-born writer had won the Commonwealth’s most prestigious literature award. Previous Indian winners include Ruth Prawal Jhabvala (Heat and Dust, 1975), Salmon Rushdie (Midnight’s Children, 1981) and Suzanna Arundhati Roy (God of Small Things, 1997). No less than three of Anita Desai’s novels have been short-listed for the prize.

Indians have made an enormous and varied contribution to English writing, from the intellectual Rabindranath Tagore – one of only four Asians to win the Nobel Prize for literature – to the hugely popular R.K. Narayan and Raja Rao, whose long careers spanned the 20th century. Nowadays Vikram Seth consistently makes best-seller lists throughout the English-speaking world, while Shobha De’s steamy novels have sold over a million copies. Although some Indian authors achieved fame overseas before becoming known back home, such as Harvard-educated Preeti Singh and Oxford PhD-holder Amitrav Ghosh, many write very much with the domestic market in mind. Chetan Bhagat’s One Night at the Call Center specifically draws Indian readers’ attention to the mixed blessing of English-language skills in a world where educated locals end up doing boring outsourced work for less-educated Americans.

The University of Delhi’s Radha Chakravaty has claimed that the best writing in English comes from regions where English is not the people’s mother tongue. While this ignores the fact that most of the literary class of South Asians were educated primarily in English rather than a local language, it does remind us that many authors there are multilingual: Sudha Murty, a renowned social activist who together with her husband set up India’s largest software company, publishes novels in both English and Kannada.

Literary success should not mask the fact that most Indians have had something of a love-hate relationship with English. Narayan and Raja Rao used the language to create a different image of the empire from that depicted by British writers like Kipling and E.M. Forster. Prominent nationalists such as Gandhi and Nehru condemned English as a foreign imposition while using it expertly themselves. Arundhati Roy was angered on a recent British TV show when it was suggested Indian writers adopted the language freely: in her novel, children are punished for using Malayalam at school. She told radio listeners that even though English was her first language, “The empire has interfered with my deepest thoughts.” In fact the colonial period had instances not only of Indians being forced to learn English against their will, but of others wanting to learn it but being discouraged by the British.

J-pop, K-pop and Asia-pop

2009-12-25T22:22:00.000-08:00

Most Japanese pop songs contain English phrases. Some even have English titles. This is quite interesting since, unlike Malaysians, Filipinos and Indians, Japanese rarely switch into English when speaking to each other. In the 1980s and 1990s, Nakamori Akina had a string of best-selling Japanese singles with titles such as Southern Wind and Everlasting Love. Mr Children’s albums include Everything and Kind of Love. SMAP’s singles include Can’t stop loving!, Triangle, Dear Woman and Mermaid.

In addition to English titles, Japanese pop has a tradition of including a few English phrases in their lyrics. Amuro Namie’s Can you celebrate begins

Can you celebrate?
Can you kiss me tonight?
We will love long long time [sic]
Eien te iu kotoba nannte shiranakatta yo ne
[You didn’t even know the word forever, right?]

Glay’s Happiness includes the lines

Don’t wanna hurt you any more
Tell me the meaning of your happiness
Anata ga ikite yuku koto no kotae ni nari wa shinai darou
[I can’t be the answer you’re looking for]

Hip hop has fostered new ways of bringing English into Japanes e songs. Dabo’s Lexus Gucci inserts repetitions of ‘Yes, y’all on and on and on and on’ and ‘Hey hey hey’ into rapid Japanese spoken with an Americanised accent. Rip Slyme (which in Japanese sounds just the same as ‘Lips Rhyme’, the title of their debut album), has a rap song called ‘Bring your style’ that includes

Yo bringin that, Yo bring that style
Jinrui saigo no freaky side
[Humanity’s final freaky side]

Is there anything more to this fondness for English apart from playing with words? SMAP member Katori Shingo is involved in a TV programme encouraging people to improve their English and his own limited ability in the language seems to work to his advantage with audiences. His book English Berabera (‘English fluently’) was one of the ten top bestsellers of 2003.

Alastair Pennycook of University of Technology in Sydney thinks bands like Rip Slyme are “native users of a new English, a blend of Japanese and English.” He uses rap in Japan and Southeaast Asia to support his view that traditional distinctions between languages are no longer valid.

But Andrew Moody of the University of Macau thinks it is more a question of Japanese singers paying tribute to American music by adopting English song titles and phrases, and in the case of performers like Nakata Keisuke, singing Japanese in an Americanised way. There is also a tradition of playing with words so that, when sung rapidly, they could be heard either as Japanese or English. For example, Mika Nakashima in Cry no more sings ‘I don’t wanna cry…ato dono kurai (how much more)’, the Japanese kurai being sung exactly the same as English ‘cry’. For many years, one very popular programme on Japanese television has included a section called Sora Mimi – lyrics in American and British songs that somehow sound like something strange and funny in Japanese.

A sign that J-pop may be becoming more international is the popularity of Utada Hikaru. Born in New York to Japanese parents, she has written several songs in English. Her third English single, Easy Breezy, includes the line ‘I am Japanesey’, suggesting that she is Japanese – but not typically so.

Pop music in other parts of Asia also shows a fondness for English. I need somebody by Thai singer Bie includes the refrain

Need someone to look into their eyes
And make my heart feel weak
Be thinking of me, be thinking of me.

South Korea's BoA, who is also very popular in Japan, has released albums of Korean songs entitled ID Peace B; Atlantis Princess, My Name and Girls on Top. Many of her songs, such as Don’t start now comes in Korean, Japanese and English versions. The lyrics of the Korean version of ID Peace B include ‘Peace B is Network ID’ and ‘Connecting is my Neverland.’

Polite is right

2009-12-13T19:18:00.000-08:00

While all societies value politeness, certain behavior that is tolerated in some places may be considered rude in others. Who speaks first in a conversation? When do we give a gift or open one that we receive? Where should we sit at a dinner party? How close should we stand to the person we are talking to? Such social rules can vary quite a lot. And it is probably true to say that most Asian cultures pay more attention to social and age differences than English-speaking societies.

The different ways in which Asian societies demonstrate politeness tend to influence the way they use English. Most Thais feel it is rude to speak loudly in public, for example, and so they speak quietly in English as well as Thai. Japanese say sumimasen a lot, even when they don't feel they have done anything wrong, so not surprisingly they also say sorry very often when speaking English. One information video at Narita airport even warned travellers not to say sorry if they had a car accident in the USA in case American lawyers exploited this as an admission of their guilt.

All languages have a wide range of ways to say the same things more politely or less politely, but in many Asian languages the choice can be complex. Korean and Japanese have different sets of verbs and even nouns to indicate the relationship among speakers. At my university, for example, professors were recently advised to use polite forms when writing material to be read by students, so I had to change all the verbs in a document I had written. In Malay, the choice of pronoun depends on the relative positions of speakers. When people are not sure, they often use English pronouns such as “I” and “you”. In Javanese, the different levels of politeness are so distinct they are really separate languages.

Even greetings can be complex. Before getting to the point of a conversation, Arabs often spend a long time expressing wishes and exchanging enquiries, and since it is not easy to find cultural equivalents for Guwwa (May God give you strength) or Eshloonik (What is your colour?), such phrases are often left in Arabic when people speak English. Many Pakistani friends greet me with As-Salamu alaikum (Peace be with you) and expect me to reply Wa-alaikum salam (And also on you), but I have some Indonesian friends who think it inappropriate for non-Muslims to use such phrases.

More casual greetings around Asia include 'Have you eaten?' (the polite answer is always Yes!) and 'Where are you going?' (you don't need to reply accurately). Most languages have a set phrase for when people start to eat or go on a journey. However, there are certain experiences that some cultures acknowledge and others ignore. Japanese has a phrase used after sharing a journey or tiring experience (otsukaresama) which really has no English equivalent. Indonesians wish you Selamat mandi(Have a good bath). On the other hand, few Asian cultures acknowledge a sneeze, so ‘Bless you!’ is not often heard among Asia’s English speakers.

In one of her novels, writer Amy Tan jokes that Chinese visitors to an American home could starve. When offered food, they refuse out of politeness, expecting the offer to be repeated until eventually they accept. But their American hosts may assume they are not hungry and never ask again.

Asian students are often taught that English is a straightforward language in which people say exactly what they think. So they may be surprised to learn that most Americans are actually very polite. It may be true that many English-speaking cultures are less formal than Asian ones, but it would be wrong to suggest that English speakers are always direct. In fact it seems to me that although most Asians tend to be rather formal with strangers, with their friends they are more direct than Americans or Britons.

Conversely, visitors to Asia who expect everyone to behave politely may be surprised to get blocked by Singaporeans pushing on to the train before they can get out; or to be asked how much money they earn by Koreans!

What’s in a name?

2009-12-08T04:14:00.000-08:00

Until fairly recently, most people around the world had only one name. Only the rich, with property to pass down, or those who travelled far from home, needed anything more than a personal name. Even today, many Indonesians go by a single name.

When Chinese started using family names these were often borrowed from their local lord. Thus whole communities in some parts of the country have the same name. For example, most people called Huang claim a connection to Huang Di, the Yellow Emperor.

While the English tended to form surnames either from their fathers’ personal name (Johnson, Richardson, Williams, Edwards) or from their profession (Carpenter, Mason, Smith), the Japanese turned to the natural environment, producing Fujibayashi (wisteria woods) Tanaka (in the middle of the field), and Yamashita (below the mountain).

It can be difficult to know which is a family name and which a personal one. Some Asian communities place personal names first, as in most European societies (Thaksin Shinawatra). Others begin with the family name (Lee Kwan Yew, Abe Shinzo). In many Muslim communities it is common to put your father’s personal name after your own personal name, but it is not the same as a family name because it changes with each generation. And so in Malaysia, Zubaidah Ibrahim is listed under Z, her personal name, and not I, the name of her father.

Even if we can distinguish personal and family names, we still need to know which one to use. Thais hardly ever use family names. They either use a personal name – Khun (Mr) Abhisit – or a nickname (Daeng = red; Yai = big; Lek = small). Sometimes I only learn the real names of Thai friends when we travel together and I see their passport.

In contrast, there are some Asian societies where personal names are rarely used. Goh Chenchuan may not mind being called Chenchuan – or even Charlie – while in America, but he may expect his colleagues to call him Mr Goh back home in Hong Kong.

Many Chinese around Southeast Asia have English personal names used alongside Chinese ones. A Singaporean child might be called Kelvin by his schoolfriends but Chun Pay by his grandmother. The practice is also spreading to Singapore’s Malays, such as actors Sharon Ismail and Aron Aziz. It is also happening in China, where many people make very imaginative choices. While there, you may meet a Jackal Chang, Apple Zhang, Weenie Wang or even Satan Han.

In many situations we have to address people whose name we don’t know. This can be difficult in English ('sir' and 'madam' may only be suitable for formal occasions), but most Asian languages have a wide range of titles, such as the Japanese terms untenshu-san (driver); sensei (teacher); onii-san (‘older brother’) or obaa-san (‘grandmother’) for people of appropriate professions or ages. These practices often get transferred when Asians speak English. For example, many Indians and Chinese call middle-aged ladies ‘aunty’ even if they have never met them before.

English villages in the British Hills

2009-12-01T03:31:00.000-08:00

Although native and highly proficient speakers of English can be found all over Asia, many Asians seek to learn the language by immersing themselves in a ‘native-speaking’ culture. Where better than Britain, the small island where a minor Germanic tongue was gradually transformed by absorbing huge amounts of French and Latin vocabulary and then spread around the globe by commercial and naval power? But Britain is too expensive and distant for most Asians. Never mind. For Anglophile Japanese, a three-hour journey into the mountains north of Tokyo brings them to British Hills.

This impressive collection of houses, built painstakingly in various historical styles with imported materials, boasts a medieval-style hall, bedrooms where modern royalty have slept and a pub where you might run into the British ambassador. Its Latin motto is Pax per Linguam (Peace through Language).

Built in the early 1990s by the Sano Foundation (which owns several educational institutes including Kanda Foreign Languages University), the venture underwent many years of financial difficulty. But its fortunes were turned around by an American tragedy: after the 9.11 attacks many Japanese got nervous about going overseas, and flocked to a “Britain that anyone can visit without a passport.”

Despite the unintended gift from the US, John Renaldy, who runs British Hills with a discipline acquired in the army, never employs Americans. Ideally, cultural instructors, receptionists, cooks and waiters come from the UK. If there is a shortage, Australians, New Zealanders and Canadians will do. But no Americans, with their “lazy English”.

The main weekday visitors are high school students taking English courses while studying British history and customs. Weekend activities there might include anything from seminars for businessmen to calligraphy classes for housewives. Or even weddings.

Over in Korea, another cultural transplant is facing its own decisions about how to make a profit. English Village is less than an hour north of Seoul, close to the DMZ. It too has gone for a British theme, with a model of Stonehenge outside its castle-like gates. But here you do need a ‘passport’. Built by Gyeongi province for local schoolchildren, but now looking to broaden its income base, English Village encourages visitors to use English by creating the illusion that they really are going abroad, with a ‘check-in counter’ at the entrance, coffee shops staffed by Romanians (well, they probably speak better English than most visitors) and even a branch of a Korean bank with English signs and English-speaking counter clerks. The typical visitors are high school students on ten-day courses taught by foreigners. There are also day-trippers seeking an educational theme park.

Just as the creators of English Village made countless trips to British Hills to get ideas (“They still come,” sighs John), educators from around Korea turn up in Gyeongi to see what they might learn. When he was president, Roh Moo-hyun announced plans for a huge English village on Jeju Island as a “substitute for overseas English study trips.” Internationally famous Koreans such as Manchester United’s Park Ji Sung were employed to publicise the project.

Behind these attempts to recreate ‘English culture’ is a genuine belief that Asians should not have to cross the globe, often at considerable financial hardship, to immerse themselves in English. But some believe they will never provide more than superficial cultural experiences, much like Thames Town, a pastiche of an English village being built near Shanghai for very rich Chinese wanting an ‘English lifestyle’ without any intention of speaking English. Meanwhile poor but studious Chinese continue to practise their English with each other at the ‘English corners’ which spring up in large parks everywhere at weekends.

Funny in English - or just funny English?

2009-11-13T03:26:00.000-08:00

At home in Tokyo recently, I received a phone call from a lady wanting to sell me a burial plot. I replied (in Japanese) that, as a foreigner, I would return to my country when I felt like dying. She praised me for being so practical, we both laughed and the short conversation ended pleasantly. Later that day I bought an ice cream from a convenience store. Handing over my money, I told the sales assistant “Please don’t bother to heat it up for me.” The result: a puzzled stare. Sometimes humour works, and sometimes it doesn’t.

Humour is less likely to succeed when people have different language backgrounds. We need a good command of grammar and vocabulary both to make and to understand jokes in another language – if we have to think, or ask for an explanation, the humour disappears. Also, we need to know when it is appropriate to use humour. Japanese, for example, tend to be rather serious with strangers (only foreigners make jokes in Tokyo convenience stores), whereas Indonesians have few such inhibitions. Another problem is that it may be difficult to know when someone from a different culture is joking. Many Australians and Britons, for example, prefer ‘dry’ humour and keep a straight face when joking.

Few comedians work in foreign countries. Japanese Ogata Issey has given performances in London and New York, but using Japanese with English subtitles and relying on visual jokes. On the other hand, Mark Rowswell, a Canadian who is very fluent in Chinese, is famous throughout China as Da Shan (‘Big Mountain’), a performer of a traditional form of comedy known as Xiangsheng

A recent Japanese TV show took up the theme of cross-cultural humour. Local comedy duo Obeikaa performed for bilingual youngsters from an international school. Then, a Japan-based Australian, Chad Mullane, performed before them in Japanese. Mullane got more laughs, but it wasn‘t a fair competition since his Japanese was much better than Obeikaa’s English.

Teacher-trainer Luke Prodromou has studied how English native speakers bend language to demonstrate cultural solidarity with each other. For example, they may describe light rain as ‘kittens and puppies’ (instead of ‘cats and dogs’, a typical expression for heavy rain). Yet when non-native speakers try to bend English, native speakers often think they have made a mistake. So when one British teacher said “You can say that again!” (meaning ‘I completely agree with you’) and her non-native colleague joked back “Ok, I’ll say it again”, the Briton thought she had been misunderstood. When I was in Seoul I saw a shop called Buy the way. To me it was clear that the shopkeeper was playing with the words by and buy. But my friend thought it was a spelling mistake.

Of course some funny English is a mistake. I don’t think humour was intended by the Indian hotel that announced “No one is stranger here” or the Iraqi hotel notice that said “No consummation whatever may take place in this foyer.” As a foreigner in Japan I am constantly causing humour without intention. Trying to tell my students that a judge had given a decision in court (hanketsu wo kudasaimashita) , I actually said hanketsu wo dashimashita (he showed half of his bottom).

Skill in humour is an indication of having made a language one’s own. www.talkingcock.com is a website run by people who are fluent in standard Singaporean English (which is similar to British English) but fascinated by Singlish, the colourful mix of English, Hokkien and Malay spoken in the streets but discouraged by the government. When a trailer for their film, Talkingcock.com –The Movie, was banned because of its use of ‘bad English’, they remade it with exactly the same words but spoken in a very posh British accent. This made the new trailer even funnier.

Cross-talk

2009-10-27T06:25:00.000-07:00

After spending years mastering the sounds, grammar and vocabulary of a language, we expect to be able to communicate successfully. But communication depends not only on recognising words, but on understanding the various meanings that speakers attach to them. It can even depend on silence.

If a man’s wife simply tells him “Tomorrow’s Tuesday,” for instance, it may be enough for him to understand she is reminding him to put out the rubbish. But if speakers don’t know each other very well, they may require more specific communication.

Interestingly, communication is sometimes easier between non-native speakers because they tend to avoid ambiguous or culturally-specific expressions. Conversely, people sharing the same first language may think they understand each other when in fact they don’t. If a Briton makes a joke, a Californian may think he is serious (or boring, or strange); black and white Americans can listen to the same politician’s speech but hear different messages. This kind of misunderstanding is cross-talk: speakers talk across each other rather than to each other.

In general, however, the risk of cross-talk is higher when speakers have different language backgrounds because of cultural differences. For example, many East Asians avoid direct refusals when speaking to strangers. I once interpreted for an American friend trying to sell artwork in Japan. If someone said Kentou shimasu or Ocha wa ikaga deshou ka”, it didn’t help him if I simply translated this as “We’ll look into this” and “How about some tea?” I had to explain that they were probably saying “No thank you”.

There is plenty of advice available for people visiting and

doing business in Asian countries. But it tends to contain
sweeping generalisations, such as ‘Politeness is very
important to Thais ” or ‘Chinese people hate to lose face.
As American Rachel DeWoskin found when she starred in a
Chinese TV drama (Foreign Babes in Beijing, 2005.),
no one, in China or elsewhere, likes to lose face.

Language classes generally include some kind of cultural information. But people can be very vague about what they mean by culture. It covers superficial and obvious differences such as how people greet each other and what they eat, but also differences about how people see the world that may be deep-seated and hard to change. US psychologist Richard Nisbett even claims that the different educational practices of Asia and the West produce different ways of reasoning (The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently... and Why, 2003). Moreover, teachers of English find it especially difficult to teach culture because the language is used by people from so many different countries.

We can’t learn the cultural norms of everyone who uses English. But we can increase our awareness of the causes of communication. Even before opening our mouths, for example, we should think about body language. Do we maintain eye contact? Is it okay to touch someone? When on the phone should we listen quietly or continually make noises so that the other person knows we are still there? If we talk loudly will people think we are confident, or rude? Li Yang, a popular English educator in China, tells learners to speak foreign languages as loudly and quickly as possible in order to lose their shyness. But for some people, his Crazy English may sound …well… crazy.

And what about the conversational topic? A Korean magazine recently warned against discussing marriage, relationships, health, age, religion or money with Americans, even though these are acceptable topics in Korea. So what areas are safe? The weather? Family? Most Asians love to discuss food, but whereas Singaporeans never tire of this subject, Pakistanis may find you superficial if you don’t soon move on to something deeper.

Conferring and conferencing

2009-10-13T06:13:00.000-07:00

While there are obvious connections linking the Muslim societies of the west of Asia, or those in the east that have Buddhist and Confucian traditions, there are few strong links across the whole continent. While pan-Asian identity remains weak, new Asian networks are gradually evolving through the work of international bodies based in Asian cities. Many of these function largely in English. UNESCAP (the Bangkok-based United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific), for example, requires staff to be fluent in English. SAARC (the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) holds all its meetings in English.

As well as helping to construct Asian identity, English also plays an important role in conflict resolution between Asian countries. Israeli leaders usually speak to their Arab counterparts in English since fewer and fewer of them study Arabic and almost no Arabs speak Hebrew. Indian and Pakistani army generals hold their discussions in English, even though their respective national languages (Hindi and Urdu) are very similar.

ASEAN (the Association of South East Asian Nations) is one of Asia’s most active organisations. When it was formed in 1967, there was a proposal to make Malay its working language since it is spoken in four of its founder states (Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and Brunei). 30 years later there was an attempt to make Malay its second language. Neither succeeded. In practice the organisation has always conducted business in English.

ASEAN is starting to develop its own style of English, rich in bureaucratic acronyms such as HOGs (Heads of Government), HOSs (Heads of State) and IMT-TG (Indonesian Malaysian-Thai Growth Triangle). However, if we search through ASEAN speeches and literature we can find very few uniquely ‘Asian’ words or expressions.

Leaders of several Asian countries, including Malaysia, the Philippines and the Subcontinent, have traditionally known English as well as or even better than their own national language. Sri Lanka’s S.L. Bandaranaike, Pakistan’s General Zia and Malaysia’s Dr Mahathir, for example, became famous for promoting Sinhala, Urdu and Malay respectively, yet in private mostly used English. Singapore’s first leader, Lee Kuan Yew, was educated in English and didn’t learn Chinese until he was an adult. Many of Israel’s leaders, including the late Golda Meir and the current prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, were educated mostly in the USA. Thailand’s current leader, Abhisit Vejjajiva, went to Oxford University.

Other Asian leaders have tried to learn English later in life. Jiang Zemin
was too old to become fluent, but his efforts encouraged younger Chinese
leaders to study the language. Even Iran’s Mahmood Ahmedinejad, a fierce critic of American culture and politics, has an English blog www. Ahmadinejad.ir/) for people from all over the world to exchange messages about politics. Not surprisingly, most of these messages say what a wonderful leader Ahmedinejad is and what a terrible country the USA is.

But not every Asian leader makes effective use of English The poor English of Korea’s Kim Young Sam was the source of many jokes. And few of Japan’s leaders have been able to conduct conversations in English. When Japanese premier Yoshiro Mori met US President Bill Clinton, he managed to say "Who are you?" instead of "How are you?". Thinking this must be a joke, Clinton joked back "I'm Hillary's husband". Mori replied “Me too.”

Asian Englishes

2009-10-04T06:00:00.001-07:00

In the last topic we saw that there is evidence that Asians often understand each other's English better than that of Americans or Britons. I find this quite interesting, given that there are so many different kinds of English spoken in Asia.

Even as a non-Asian, I can easily tell whether someone is from the Philippines or Thailand or the Indian Subcontinent when they talk English. Locals can do much better than me, of course. Most Malaysians and Singaporeans can tell each other's English apart. Malaysians can tell whether someone is from the East or West of their country and whether they have a Malay, Chinese or Indian background.

Since 1998, the Tokyo-based journal Asian Englishes (http://www.alc.co.jp/asian-e/) has published many articles about the rich and well-established Englishes of Southeast and South Asia (but fewer about northeast Asia, where English tends to be used as a foreign rather than a first or second language). It is not surprising that Asia's great linguistic and cultural diversity is reflected in its English. But I wonder if there is anything distinctly 'Asian' that links Asian Englishes? Is it possible that Korean and Pakistani English have more in common with each other than with Russian English, for instance?

As far as pronunciation is concerned, many Asians avoid clusters of consonants since these are rare in Asian languages. So they add vowels (Sri Lankan children attend 'ischool') or drop consonants (when Cantonese say they feel 'so cold' the two words rhyme). However, similar features are also found in many non-Asian Englishes.

What about grammar? As mentioned before, Indians tend to favour the progressive aspect of verbs ('I am not understanding you') , and this tendency can also be found among some Malaysians and Filipinos. Tags like 'will you?' and 'didn't they?' are simplified all over Asia, with Singaporeans preferring 'isn't it?' or even 'ah?', and Sri Lankans using 'no?'. The verb 'to be' and many pronouns are often omitted ('He so lazy', 'Can afford?'). And the active voice is frequently used instead of the passive ('Vitamin A can find in carrots'). But again, similar practices can be found outside Asia.

As for vocabulary, it is more likely to divide than unite Asian English speakers. Words originating in Britain or America get new local meanings, so in Sri Lanka an abbot is a maid and a basketwoman is a talkative one. Some words are borrowed from local languages, especially for food (balut in the Philippines) and clothing (sari and dhoti in India). Others are taken from the languages of the various Europeans who once colonised Asia: thus Philippines English is littered with Spanish words like barrio (neighbourhood), merrienda (afternoon tea) and estafa (corruption).

Many Asian English words and expressions are entirely new. Hence Malaysians call their badminton players shuttlers. A project about to be implemented in India is said to be 'on the anvil' (in the UK it would be 'on the cards'). Sri Lankans describe the increasing participation of monks in politics as saffronisation (because of the colour of Buddhist robes).

In fact there are some words that appear in many Asian Englishes, such as Malay terms like amok and arrack that have travelled to India and beyond, and expressions used by British-trained administrators such as to gazette (to publish a new regulation) that are hardly used in Britain itself. Muslims across the continent include Arabic expressions such as syolat (prayer) in their English, much as Buddhists include Sanskrit words. But in general, the main thing Asian Englishes have in common is their sheer diversity.

International intelligibility

2009-09-27T07:37:00.000-07:00

What kind of English is most widely intelligible? Research by the University of Hawaii's Larry Smith suggests that Asians tend to understand each other's English pronunciation more easily than that of native speakers from America or Britain. Jean-Paul Nerriere found something similar when observing Koreans and Japanese during his time as vice-president of IBM. As well as pronunciation he thought the key to increasing intelligibility was to simplify grammar and vocabulary, and now recommends that people all over the world be taught a simplified English that he has labelled 'Globish'.

While students all over the world continue to aim at sounding like native speakers (especially Americans), British linguist Jenny Jenkins suggests they should simply concentrate on a common 'international' pronunciation of certain sounds that frequently lead to misunderstanding. British-Thai educator Christopher Wright believes his students should differentiate sounds such as 'l' and 'r', but other teachers advise learners to stop worrying too much about individual sounds and instead to concentrate on distinguishing whole words. Thus it should not matter how you say 'butter', 'batter' and 'better' as long as you say each of them differently.

Unfortunately, even native speakers disagree about which words should be distinguished. Most Scots pronounce 'cot' and 'caught' the same, whereas Australians distinguish them. Most English people pronounce 'caught' and 'court' the same while most Americans differentiate them.

Working with fellow American linguist Cecil Nelson, Smith identified three key elements in successful communication: intelligibility (recognising familiar words) ; comprehensibility (knowing their possible meanings); and interpretability (understanding what speakers mean). Thus we need knowledge of various pronunciations, the various meanings that words may have, and the way speakers from different cultures vary.

So are Indians wrong to describe their favourite film to Canadian friends as deadly? Should Filipinos take more care when warning Australians they are going to tell a green joke (which in Sydney would be called a blue one)? The problem is that native speakers also differ among themselves when it comes to vocabulary: an American man is likely to get an amused reaction if he goes into a shop in London asking for 'suspenders', for example.

And what about grammar? Many Asians understand each other perfectly well despite dropping the third-person 's' and sticking to the present tense. Indeed they might ask why it is considered wrong to say 'She write' but okay to say 'She can' or 'She may', and why we are not supposed to say 'I go to the bank yesterday' when 'I shut my account last week' is all right.

As has been argued in this blog before, there isn't really a standard form of English, just some forms that are better understood (or admired) by certain people. What is important is to increase our knowledge of linguistic and cultural differences and adjust accordingly. As Smith has argued, we do not need to make ourselves intelligible to everyone, just to those we want to communicate with.

Engrish

2009-06-25T04:15:00.000-07:00

On my very first visit to Japan I stayed at a small hotel in central Tokyo with a sign on the door warning: Swindlers dangling with our guests around our hotel at night have no relations with us. Beware and do not be cheated by their skillful enticement. This made me quite nervous when I ventured outside into the night. Especially when a group of noisy drunken men started shouting and waving.

I woke the next morning with a terrible hangover after spending half the night drinking with these guys. Perhaps Japan was not such a dangerous place after all. That warning sign now seemed funny rather frightening, giving advice about grime prevention rather than crime prevention. I wasn't worried in the least about the batter toast with harm that the breakfast menu offered me. I realised I had entered a world of Engrish – language that kind of looks like English but somehow is not.

Over the years I've often wondered if it is acceptable to make fun of the strange English I see all over Asia, from Burmese signs warning me against umbrellaring to Malaysian foodstalls selling bugger. After all, many English speakers don't even try to use another language. And should I tell my female student the meaning of the Boyaholic shirt that she wears? Before the Olympics, Beijing launched a campaign to correct mistakes on English signs. Several foreigners volunteered to help so that tourists wouldn't make fun of China's English. But some foreign residents of the city resented these attempts to spoil their amusement at advertisements for immorality pills or signs in restaurants warning of landslide areas.

Whether or not we think it is OK to laugh at Engrish, it can be instructive to work out how it occurs. Sometimes it is the result of a spelling error, such as fruits shoot ('fruit short cake', which is quite popular in Japan, though very different from what the Americans and British call 'shortcake').

Some Engrish needs a little more time to work out. The cream pain I see at my local bakery is not an instrument of torture but a kind of bread ('pain' in French, which sounds similar to the Japanese word pan).

One tyre-shop in Beijing invites customers to use a pick foetus machine. This seems completely bizarre until we realise that the Chinese character above "foetus" is 胎, which is used in combination with some characters to mean 'foetus' but with others to mean 'tyre'.

I was also puzzled by the sign on the side of a shuttle bus run by Ritsumeikan, a prestigious university in Kyoto, which said Univemeikan Ritsurisity. Until I realised that the sign-painter, who presumably did not speak any English, must have had four strips of print – Ritsu, meikan, Unive and rsity – and managed to paste them in the wrong order. Sometimes a simple error is all the more striking for being surrounded by overly formal or poetical language, such as a label on a box at Tabei Airport that says Unforceful discard box for dangerous items ('unforceful' usually means 'weak' or 'feeble', not 'voluntary') or a Tokyo boutique sign that raises our expectations about gifts that transcend man and woman only to let us down with basic grammatical errors.

Some people actually make money out of Engrish. The website www.engrish.com, for example, not only collects pictures of Engrish from around Asia, but sells T-shirts with it printed on them. But Asians may be starting to get their own back now that so many English-speakers get themselves tattooed with 'Chinese' or 'Japanese' words that turn out to mean things like Girl Vegetable. Meanwhyile the fashion company Ichikoo (www.ichikoo.com) has started selling shirts asking お電気ですか。 (Are you electricity?) and declaring自由の洗濯!　(Freedom of washing!).

The killer language

2009-06-20T04:38:00.000-07:00

Finnish linguist Tove Skutnabb-Kangas describes languages that spread at the expense of others as killer languages. She calls English "the biggest killer of them all". Languages by themselves cannot kill, but the people who learn and teach them can (usually unintentionally) kill off the culture and ideas of people who speak other languages.

According to UNESCO, one third of the world's 7000 languages are in danger. British linguist David Crystal estimates that one dies every two weeks. By the end of this century perhaps half of our current languages will have disappeared. While many languages are dying, English is growing. Another British linguist, David Graddol, claims that nearly a third of Asians already use it on a daily basis. But how strong is the link between the growth of English and the death of other languages?

On the one hand we have the example of the United States, where 53 local languages have disappeared since 1950. Another example is Australia, where hundreds of Aboriginal languages have been lost and many Aborigines speak only English. On the other hand, languages are disappearing in non-English-speaking countries too. Thousands of people are abandoning their traditional languages in Indonesia and India in favour of Indonesian and Hindi. In Japan, almost everyone speaks Japanese now and very few speak Ainu or Okinawan any longer. Nashi in southwest China, and Lisu in northern Thailand, are in danger from the spread of Chinese and Thai.

Another reason to question the idea of English as a killer language is the prevalence of bilingualism. If someone starts speaking English it does not mean they stop speaking other languages. However, while most of the world's people are indeed bilingual, in practice it is very difficult for small languages to compete with big ones.

Take Bidayuh. Spoken by 200,000 people in East Malaysia, where 140 primary schools have Bidayuh-speaking teachers, the language should not be in danger. But it is. It is neither a medium of instruction nor a school subject – partly because there are hardly any books in Bidayuh and there is no standard form that all its speakers understand. Children grow up studying in Malay and English. They may use Bidayuh in their village but have little need for it after moving to towns for work. When their grandparents die they often stop using it altogether.

For linguists, language death is tragic. Different languages give us different ways of describing the world. But most people are less interested in preserving their grandparents' language than in teaching their children languages that help them get jobs. History shows us that languages grow, change, recede and finally die. Few have lasted for more than a thousand years. Some dying languages undergo a process of revival, such as Israel's national language, Hebrew. But Bidayuh has no nation or religion behind it and is not used in newspapers or on television.

English may not be a cold-blooded killer, but it is not completely innocent. The main reason for the disappearance of so many languages nowadays is economic globalisation, and the main language of globalisation is English. Many English speakers themselves are monolingual and fail to understand the problems of people who speak small languages. Sri Lankans call English kadda (sword) because it is a useful and powerful weapon. But like many swords, it is double-edged.

Asian Languages in English

2009-06-10T03:10:00.000-07:00

The many Asian loanwords in English can tell us a lot about economic and cultural links between English speakers and Asians. Mathematicians at Oxford University were studying the algebra developed by the Arabs hundreds of years before British technology had any impact on Asia. Oranges and lemons were bought from Persian and Turkish traders long before the latter were interested in buying British manufactures. But the journey of such loanwords has often been indirect or unclear.

Coffee comes from an Arabic name for a place in Africa but entered English via Turkish.

Tea comes not from Mandarin (although its own term, cha, is also used by some English people) but from the Amoy dialect of southern China. Rice comes from a Tamil word but probably entered English via Arabic. Coolie might be from Chinese or Gujarati. Ketchup might be Chinese or Malay. Some words go back and forth, such as anime, which was borrowed and shortened by the Japanese and then returned to English to describe a particular genre of animation.

Most Asian loanwords, such as sari and sushi, are closely associated with Asian culture. However, the association can fade away. When Americans describe remote areas of their country as boondocks, they don't think of the Philippines. Australians describing people who have gone crazy as running amok are not referring to Malays. Britons live in bungalows, use shampoo and complain about thugs without knowing anything about India.

As well as lending words to the English language, Asians have also invented new 'English-like' words. Walkman and discman were coined by Sony. Karaoke combines Japanese 'empty' with the first part of English 'orchestra'.

English speakers everywhere use Asian words, often unknowingly. But it is English speakers within Asia who use them most. Macquarie University's corpus of Asian English (Asiacorp) contains over four million words. The International Corpus of English (ICE) includes several Asian varieties of English, including Indian, Malaysian, Philippine and Singaporean. Asian Englishes include many words adopted from local languages, such as appa (a type of pancake in Sri Lanka and an 'elder sister' in Pakistan). They also use translations of local concepts, such as wet kitchen – an area for preparing raw food in Malaysian homes. Often, existing English words get new meanings: Singaporeans eat steamboat (a kind of stew) with their powerful (cool) friends before sending (driving) them home.

Asians born in America and Britain are yet another important influence on English. Kiss my chuddies! (kiss my underpants) became a popular (and mostly friendly) insult in the UK when Britons of Indian origin started saying it. And people all over Britain enjoy balti – a kind of cooking named after a Panjabi word for 'pot', but invented quite recently in the city of Birmingham.

English in Asian languages

2009-05-25T08:44:00.000-07:00

Many Asian languages contain a lot of words that originated in English. We can learn something about social and technological trends from the kinds of words that are most commonly borrowed. We can also learn something about Asian languages by looking at how the pronunciation, form and meaning of the words change.

Borrowing words often happens when a new technology or practice is introduced from overseas. For example, many Asian languages have a word similar to 'taxi', such as taiksi in Urdu, teksi in Malay and diksi in Cantonese. Despite pronunciation changes, such words are obvious to English speakers. Others can be more puzzling. Sri Lankans gamble at 'bucket shops' rather than betting shops. In Korea, your sekeund is your 'second wife' or lover. In Japan a koin randorii is not a place to wash your coins but a launderette or laundromat. And the manshon so many Japanese live in nowadays are, sadly, just simple apartments.

Two thirds of new words published in Japanese dictionaries each year come from other languages, 90% of these from English. According to a newspaper survey, over 80% of Japanese are confused by these loanwords (gairaigo in Japanese). Even English-speakers get confused because meaning and pronunciation may depart widely from the original. I used to think a pusshuhon must be some kind of phone that you can push around (it means a push-button telephone) and that sumaato was smart (it means 'slim'). And it took me a long time to work out that a korukushikuru is something you open bottles of wine with.

There is now help for Japanese people who are confused about loanwords. The National Institute for the Japanese Language has a website

http://www.kokken.go.jp/public/gairaigo/index.html

and a telephone hotline (03 3900 3111) that explain the meaning of words like baachuaru (virtual) and bariyaa furii (barrier-free). It also suggests alternatives made up of Japanese words (most of them written in characters borrowed from Chinese). For 'safety net', for example, they suggest anzenmou (安全網).

Korean is also full of loanwords. Interestingly, many of these resemble Japanese ones in the way that their form and meaning vary from the original English. Both languages turn 'ballpoint pen' into ball pen, for example, use talent to mean a media personality, and call a steering wheel a handle. One reason may be that a lot of English vocabulary entered Korea while it was under Japanese occupation.

Indonesian has borrowed a lot of words because it is a relatively young language, based on an older variety of Malay. When English nouns are borrowed, they more or less retain the sound and meaning of the original. But when verbs and adjectives are borrowed, they are often changed to fit Indonesian grammar and morphology. Thus 'to control' is mengkontrol or mengontrol. You might be able to work out that melobi comes from 'to lobby' (although Indonesians use it more to mean 'discuss'). And recently on Indonesian radio, someone was heard complaining about politicians who just menothingkan (do nothing).

ESL, EFL and EIL

2009-05-19T03:30:00.000-07:00

Educators sometimes classify countries on the basis of language use. Thus Singapore is said to be an English-as-a-first-language society. Not only is English the language of education and government there, but many parents talk to their children only in English.

Pakistan is usually called an ESL (English as-a-

second-language) country because an influential minority speak the language fluently and frequently with each other and a great deal of business, politics and education is conducted in that language.

In contrast, countries such as Syria are usually labelled

EFL (English-as-a-foreign-language) societies because the language is used primarily for communicating with

foreigners, such as tourists visiting Syrian historical sites and overseas business contacts.

Whether a country thinks of itself as ESL or EFL is often reflected in its educational system. In ESL countries such as Malaysia, English classes themselves are supposed to be taught by the direct method without using any other language but English. English is also used to teach some other subjects including maths and science. But in EFL countries such as Thailand, nearly all subjects are taught in the national language and it is also used quite a lot during English classes.

Where English is spoken as a first or second language, there is wide acceptance of local usage, such as Singaporeans' use of ‘lah’ at the end of statements, Filipinos' addition of words from Tagalog and Spanish, and Indians' preference for continuous tenses (e.g. ‘I am going to school every day’). On the other hand, local patterns used by Thais, Japanese and other EFL users are often thought of as errors, even if they are produced regularly and understood by foreigners.

Categorising whole societies as ESL or EFL is an oversimplification of Asia's complex reality. Singaporean children who use English at home generally speak it much better than those who do not, and they frequently do better in other school subjects too since these are taught in English. On the other hand, Vijaya Sankar of Taylors College in Malaysia found that some students whose first language is English do worse than others in English classes designed for ESL learners. For many educated Pakistanis, English is the first language – indeed the country's first prime minister, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, could hardly speak the national language, Urdu. But in rural areas of the same country, English is a foreign language which few people ever use.

Whether they themselves use it as a first, second or foreign language, people tend to adjust their English when talking to someone for whom English is not the first language. Moreover, the majority of communication in English around the world nowadays takes place among nonnative speakers. This kind of intermediary language has been labeled EIL (English as an International Language). Many linguists are studying EIL conversations to understand what kind of adjustments speakers make. Do they restrict the vocabulary (e.g. ‘Let's go to Osaka by plane’ instead of ‘Let's fly to Osaka’)? Do they simplify tenses? Or do they just listen more carefully and express themselves more imaginatively than native speakers usually do?

Standard English and English Standards

2009-05-08T19:43:00.000-07:00

Proficient speakers of English are often quite interested in variation and take pride in their ability to switch between local and international Englishes. But learners – and their teachers – tend to be more interested in standards. The question then arises: which standard is best?

For many Asian learners, the main choice is between some kind of British English (still popular in Malaysia and Sri Lanka) and something more American (the usual preference of Filipinos, Japanese and South – but not North – Koreans). But reducing the choice to a simple UK-US division exaggerates the divide: many beginners cannot even hear differences between spoken British and American English, let alone see them in writing. And it overlooks the great diversity of speech within the UK and the USA.

This UK-US focus also overlooks the millions of Asians who speak fluent English with local characteristics. Even today, many Asians think of native speakers as North American, Britons and Australasians, rather than Singaporeans or Indians. The concept of native speaker is a complex and controversial one. Acquiring a language when very young may indeed bring a mastery that is almost impossible to replicate when learning another language later, but we cannot assume that everyone's strongest language is the first one they learned. To want to speak as well as a native speaker seems an admirable goal, but it can be quite a vague one. The ideal standard of English varies from person to person, depending on what they want to do with the language. And a standard suggests something that is fixed, whereas language is always changing.

In recent years I've noticed greater acceptance of different varieties of English around Asia. Schools in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward routinely invite foreign students to give conversation classes and don't mind where they come from as long as their English is reasonably fluent. Thai television's MCOT News uses newsreaders and reporters with American, British, New Zealand and also distinctly Thai and other Asian accents. Indeed, Leeds University's Anthea Gupta argues that there are so many varieties of spoken English that it is almost impossible to choose one standard form. On the other hand, Gupta believes that written English is remarkably standard throughout the world. Written language changes much more slowly than speech, and TOEFL tests, spelling checks on computers and the narrow range of writing styles preferred by international academic journals all operate to contain variation. Nevertheless, local vocabulary and grammar are increasingly evident on the internet. Many blogs written in standard Pakistani or Filipino English are easy enough for people from other Asian countries to read, but some are quite difficult because of the use of Urdish or Taglish – English mixed with Urdu or Tagalog.

A common theme in Asia's English-language press is the apparent slide in English standards. Readers of Malaysiakini, an online newspaper, regularly post examples of ‘bad English’ (such as a law professor asking his students “Are you understand?”). Hong Kong's South China Morning Post debated why 11-year-olds could not pass exams designed for 9-year-olds. The people who complain are often from a generation that studied entirely in English, and they typically blame postcolonial educational policies that emphasise local languages – as well as the‘broken English’of text messages and blogs. But they should remember that far more Asians use the language now than in the days when it was restricted to the middle and upper classes. Inevitably, many of this new generation use it badly. But many others simply use it differently.

The invasion: colonial, neocolonial - or countercolonial?

2009-04-21T05:38:00.000-07:00

While it was still cold and snowy in Japan I visited British Hills, a replica of a British village where people can study the English language and British culture. Its castle-like structures reminded me of the common idea that English is a kind of colonial invader.

The Far Eastern Economic Review has called English “Asia's premier language.” This may seem odd considering that in no Asian country except for Singapore could it be called the first language. Yet it is the main language in which Asians from different countries communicate with each other. There are important regional languages, such as Chinese and Arabic. But when Israelis talk to Turks, Cambodians to Thais or Japanese to Koreans, they probably use English. Moreover, the political and business elite in many Asian countries use English at home too. This is the case in India and the Philippines and very often in Malaysia and Pakistan too.

The spread of English is often traced back to political and military colonialism by Britain and later the USA. But promoting English was rarely part of British policy. Many colonial officers had an interest in Asian languages. Williams Jones, the first person to see a link between European and Indian languages, felt British officers needed to master local languages in order to maintain effective control. R.O Winstedt, Director of Education in Malaya, advised against teaching English to Malay children in case they deserted their villages for the towns: knowing English could mean knowing how to compete economically and politically with the British.

The Americans were later and more reluctant colonisers in Asia. But in contrast to the British, they promoted mass education – in English. By 1918, just 20 years after taking the Philippines from Spain, they had taught English to 7% of the population. By 1939, over a quarter of Filipinos knew the language.

Nevertheless, the biggest expansion of English in Asia took place after the end of formal colonialism, covering areas that were never occupied by Britain or America. Colonialism undoubtedly created conditions facilitating this expansion – e.g. by provoking Japanese nationalism, the Pacific War and the rise of American military power. But more important was the fact that English happened to be the language of the world’s most powerful country at a time when the need for a global lingua franca was becoming strongly felt. After the Pacific War, scientific, technological, economic and military information was being shared or traded as never before.

For some Asian linguists, such as University of Malaya's Asmah Haji Omar, English is not an invader but an invitee. She argues that Asians buy educational materials and cultural products freely and fairly from English-speaking countries when they need them. But others argue that linguistic imperialism has followed on from political imperialism: the spread of English is neither free nor fair but manipulated by English-speaking business and military groups. For Indian-born Vaidehi Ramanathan of the University of California, many of these elite groups are within Asia itself. Some researchers have suggested that English has sometimes played a countercolonial role: after all, Gandhi used the language brilliantly in his campaign to achieve independence for India.

Discussion about the spread of English in many ways parallels debates about economic globalisation:

Is it spontaneous or directed?

Do people have a choice?

And does it benefit those at the periphery as much as those at the centres of power?

Tokyo, Terengganu & Thimphu: 3 Asias, 3 Englishes

2009-04-19T03:52:00.000-07:00

A Malaysian friend visited me in Tokyo recently. Walking to my local station we passed vending machines selling Boss Coffee and Royal Milk Tea. Next door, a dry cleaner's offered Service for Clean Life. A kindergarten called Children's Garden stood near the Watanabe Medical Clinic and shops with names like Cotswolds, Original Roast Beans and Babys Design. A convenience store told us that it was a Convenience Store, a post office announced it was a Post Office, and a large hoarding over the street informed us we were in a Shopping Street. “Well at least I should be able to get around using English,” my friend told me as he left to board his train and go sightseeing.

A famous artist from Terengganu, my friend was educated in Mandarin but regularly speaks Hakka, Cantonese and Hokkien as well as Malay - the majority language in his hometown. He gets embarrassed about his English, which he often makes up as he goes along by translating directly from Chinese. Yet he has little trouble conversing in it about art, politics or whatever else those around him are discussing. And like many Malaysians, he switches effortlessly among different languages, often mixing several within the same sentence.

A few years ago he and I travelled to Thimphu, the tiny capital of Bhutan, one of the world's most isolated and least developed nations. Buddhist monasteries dot the hills under the towering Himalayas, aged monks walk through the streets carrying prayer wheels, and nearly everyone wears traditional local clothing. But approach someone with a question and you invariably get a reply in flawless English. 40 years ago Bhutan decided the best tool for economic modernisation was an English-based education system. Now more than 80% of the children receive free education. At home they might speak Dzongkha, the national language, but at school they use English.

When I met my friend again in the evening I asked how he had got on. “OK lah. But so shock not many people speak English! Japan is the richest country in Asia, but much easier to find English in Bhutan. Or Terengganu. I can find some English words but what meaning?” He then showed me advertisements people had handed him throughout the day with phrases like Book off and Hair and make all over them. “Maybe it's a kind of...art?” In Asia, English can appear in the most unexpected places at the most unexpected times. But sometimes what appears to be English may not be English at all.