Minae Mizumura - The Fall of Language in the Age of English

Naturally the rise of English was not unaccompanied by pain for most Europeans, those whose mother tongue was different. The fate that befell the Polish economist Michal Kalecki (1899–1970) offers a poignant example. The field of economics once flourished in various European regions, but the publication of Adam Smith’s seminal work The Wealth of Nations (1776), written in English, combined with the economic power of England and later the United States, changed everything; by the early twentieth century, economics had become a field of social science predominantly conducted in English. Knowing exactly what sort of age one lives in, however, is not always easy. In 1933, already one-third of the way into the twentieth century, Kalecki published an article, and not just any article: this historic treatise first put forth the principle of effective demand later expounded in The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money by British economist John Maynard Keynes. Yet sadly, but predictably, because Kalecki wrote in Polish, his discovery went unnoticed. Two years later, he translated the article himself, but sadly again, the language he chose was not English but French. A year later, in 1936, General Theory was published, dramatically altering the course of economics. Seeing this, Kalecki claimed his intellectual property in another article. Unbelievably, he wrote that article in Polish, too. Poor Kalecki became known as a scholar who did not write in English.

Why didn’t a brilliant scholar like Kalecki know enough to write in English? His homeland of Poland formed the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the sixteenth century and was once one of the world’s great powers. Yet it began to disintegrate in the seventeenth century and finally disappeared from the map in 1795. For over a hundred years thereafter, the country had a tragic history of being divided by Russia, Austria, and Prussia, until it was able to reunite as a nation after World War I in 1918. In 1933, when Kalecki wrote his original article, nationalist fervor must have made the Polish people feel compelled to write in their own language . Kalecki must have espoused that fervor — to his own detriment.

Even if the “world” as the West saw it had been limited to the West, the prowess of England and subsequently of the United States would have ultimately toppled the tripolar system of the principal national languages. Yet another factor was at work to reinforce this development at the start of the twentieth century: the era when the “world” was limited to the West came to an end. Through colonization and improved means of communication, people from the regions of non-Western languages began to enter that world. This marked the end of an era when “a Christian” meant “a person”; the pursuit of knowledge could no longer comfortably remain Eurocentric. Though most of what is taught in universities all over the world is today based on Western disciplines, the universal applicability of these disciplines is under closer scrutiny from the non-West. Entering this new historical phase was bound to throw a light on the inevitable inefficiency of pursuing knowledge in one’s own language. If non-Western intellectuals wanted their writing to enter the larger chain of “texts to read,” the rational choice would be to write in English, the language that circulates most widely, however difficult that might be. The more non-Western intellectuals wrote in English, the more texts would circulate in English, thereby inducing more Western intellectuals to write in English as well. The entry of non-Western intellectuals into the “world” has had the effect of revealing with blinding clarity the essential nature of universal language: it is in the single universal language — the “ external language ”— that knowledge is best pursued .

THE NOVEL: A CELEBRATION OF NATIONAL LANGUAGE

The days are now long gone when Europeans unwittingly enjoyed the privilege of pursuing knowledge in their own language — the golden age of national language . That golden age coincided historically (and quite logically) with another: the golden age of the novel as a literary genre . At the basis of the latter was a new status bestowed on literature as something distinct from and even transcending the usual pursuit of knowledge.

Prior to the late eighteenth century in Europe, no distinction existed between literature and the pursuit of knowledge — or between literature and scholarship, or literature and science (the term “science” is here used in its archaic meaning of “knowledge in general.”) The word “literature” then referred, as is well known, to any kind of writing. When learned priests wrote Latin treatises on theology, what they wrote was “literature” on theology, which was also the only “science” of the time. Divinity schools were the only places of learning. But as Europe gradually secularized, those divinity schools were transformed into today’s universities. The pursuit of knowledge, now conducted in one’s own language, increasingly became segmented into different academic disciplines, and the language in which to do so also became increasingly specialized. It was around this time that literature and the pursuit of knowledge — academia — became manifestly distinct from each other. The word “literature” was by this time used almost exclusively to refer to poems, plays, and novels, as it is today.

Something wonderful then happened to literature. Now that the language used in academic disciplines was far removed from the language of everyday life, people no longer turned to academic writings for words of wisdom — the sort that could address perennial human questions such as “What does it mean to be a human being?” and “How should one live?” Where previously they had sought these answers in religious texts, now they were turning to literature for enlightenment — particularly the modern novel, written in prose. Literature became something that transcended science.

Moreover, a national language was precisely the right medium for the novel as the new literary genre befitting a new age. For while a national language could function in the same way as a universal language, bearing intellectual and ethical responsibility, it could also, unlike a universal language, thoroughly exploit every merit of the local language, the mother tongue. Metaphorically, it had not only a father but also a mother. The novel developed while taking full advantage of both parents. On the one hand, as a genre with strong ties to universal language, it could discuss grand and high-flown ideas such as the existence of God, war and peace, the fate of humanity. Yet at the same time, as a genre with equally strong ties to the mother tongue, it could also depict in exquisite detail the life of a common individual — the new center of attention in the new era. It could depict the chain of the most mundane events that constitute everyday human life. It could tap deep into everyone’s most vivid childhood memories — or even earlier, to moments when “memories” would be too concrete a word for fragmentary recollections of touch, smell, and soft murmurs. The novel could take us deep into the human psyche, capturing, examining, and lending dignity to our every fleeting thought or dream. It was inevitable that the national language should come to be thought of as a language that expressed one’s innermost soul, a language of self-expression. The novel developed as a genre that celebrates the superiority of individual interiority over society; and the superiority of individual interiority was in fact the product of writing in the national language.

Indeed, the mother tongue is uniquely privileged. All languages are essentially external to us. As we begin acquiring our mother tongue while we are still inside the womb, we are unaware of the process and the arbitrariness of the connection between sign and meaning, unaware that the word “mother” has no inherent link to the woman who gave us birth. Benedict Anderson said of Latin that “few were born to speak it and even fewer… dreamed in it.” But actually, nobody is born to speak (or dream in) any language.