The other imperialists

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.

Common law – common language?

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.

The invasion: colonial, neocolonial - or countercolonial?

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?