‘Je suis excité’ ... Non!

A visiting Pole was unusual in one way.  The same way that a visiting Czech was a while ago.  And a visiting Ukrainian too.

What was unusual about them?

They were quite extroverted.  And did not hide their excitement.  They even laughed loudly.

A contrast to the melancholic poker-face that I have come to expect from the population there.

I know, I know.  I am a guy whose smile does not get across to people.  But, this post is not about me, dammit! ;)

The Pole talked about his friend who immigrated to Australia, became a citizen there, and decided to return to Poland.  Why?  Because Australians were always too happy for him!

Americans are also way too upbeat all the time, he said.

I agreed with him.  But, chose to keep my critiques within.

And then later shared my dissenting views with M. "I would think that only white Americans will come across as upbeat all the time.  Similarly in Australia.  You think the indigenous people in Australia or Native Americans here will be that way?"

Once you take away from the discussion the white American and Australian population, I would think that the Americanisms of "Awesome!" and "I am so excited" rarely show up in other cultures, including the one in which I was raised.  Heck, even in France and in the French language.

“I think it's safe to say I express excitement often and outwardly,” said bilingual Australian Dr Gemma King, who teaches French language and cinema at the Australian National University in Canberra, noting that when she speaks French, it is another story entirely. “My students and I often joke that our cooler, calmer, more reticent sides come out when we're speaking French,” she said.

When speaking and thinking in French, even the Aussie excitement dies down ;)

“[The French] don't appreciate in conversation a kind of positive, sunny exuberance that's really typical of Americans and that we really value,” Barlow explained. “Verbally, ‘I'm so excited’ is sort of a smile in words. French people prefer to come across as kind of negative, by reflex.
My French husband agrees.
“If you’re too happy in French, we’re kind of wondering what’s wrong with you,” he said. “But in English, that’s not true.”

You see, I am the normal one when I come across as an unsmiling person!

So, is there a philosophy of life that all these distill to?

“You Americans,” he said, “live in the faire [to do]. The avoir [to have]. In France, we live in the être [to be].”

Oui!

Are you worried about Englishnisation?

I did not invent the word Englishnisation:

There are some obvious reasons why multinational companies want a lingua franca. Adopting English makes it easier to recruit global stars (including board members), reach global markets, assemble global production teams and integrate foreign acquisitions. Such steps are especially important to companies in Japan, where the population is shrinking.
There are less obvious reasons too. Rakuten’s boss, Hiroshi Mikitani, argues that English promotes free thinking because it is free from the status distinctions which characterise Japanese and other Asian languages. Antonella Mei-Pochtler of the Boston Consulting Group notes that German firms get through their business much faster in English than in laborious German. English can provide a neutral language in a merger: when Germany’s Hoechst and France’s Rhône-Poulenc combined in 1999 to create Aventis, they decided it would be run in English, in part to avoid choosing between their respective languages.
Tsedal Neeley of Harvard Business School says that “Englishnisation”, a word she borrows from Mr Mikitani, can stir up a hornet’s nest of emotions.

I told you that it was not me!

businesses worldwide are facing up to the reality that English is the language on which the sun never sets. Still, Englishnisation is not easy, even if handled well: the most proficient speakers can still struggle to express nuance and emotion in a foreign tongue. For this reason, native English speakers often assume that the spread of their language in global corporate life confers an automatic advantage on them. In fact it can easily encourage them to rest on their laurels. Too many of them (especially Englishmen, your columnist keeps being told) risk mistaking their fluency in meetings for actual accomplishments.

We are really off to an empire where the sun never sets. All from a tiny island that is barely the size of Madagascar!  As I noted in this post, the British Empire disrupted and severed history and traditions, and it continues on with the increasing adoption of English as the language of commerce.

Slowly, this Englishnisation will trigger a greater awareness of the local languages. A couple of years ago, during the extended sabbatical stay in India, I bought at the Chennai Book Fair tshirts that had Tamil lettering.  When I wore them, boy did it attract attention from the autorickshaw driver to waiters at the restaurant!

Sadly, the business model of those tshirt makers didn't survive the brutal dynamics of the marketplace. But, they were on to something, as evidenced by this report in The Hindu:

There are so many reasons why quirky Tamil T-shirts are doing well these days, whether it is the increasing love for the language or adding a local flavour to one’s wardrobe. With more number of youngsters getting into this business, it is evolving from being just a fashion statement into a movement with everything from movie dialogues to Subramania Bharati’s poetry being flaunted on colourful, contemporary tees.

They sell because:

These tees, say the entrepreneurs, help people connect to the language and instil a sense of pride.

Exactly!

As long as it is not French that is imposed on us! ;)

American English kicks French butts. Kicks British butts too. Amurica rulz!

I have to remember to keep the grammar Nazi inside me well under control as I begin to grade the final papers.  After all, rmmbr, we r in txtn wrld. prblms w grmmr n sntnces n englsh can luk like polish! lynne truss goin crzy.

At least, we don't do this at our university at graduation; wait, do we?

I don't understand it either!

English rules now, and one awesome aspect of the language is that if enough people mess up the grammar then the mess becomes the norm.  I love it and hate it at the same time ;)

The phenomenal adaptability the language, in addition to this reason (!), means that it now reigns supreme as the language of commerce and science.  Even the French have no option but to use it.  Ha!  And that too American English (ht), not the stiffer British one.  Ha, ha!

Everyone in the world - except Dutch and Scandinavian footballers - learns American English because it is today’s lingua franca. It’s the principal means for disseminating ideas and getting work, as Latin used to be. As Luc Ferry of Le Figaro, writing approvingly of the new French legislation, noted last week: ‘Si Descartes n’avait pas écrit en latin, come le feront encore après lui Leibniz ou Spinoza, il n’aurait jamais été lu dans le monde entier.’ People stopped using French when that country went into decline and lost influence in the nineteenth century, and it was the same story for British English in the twentieth. But neither language has disappeared, and neither is ‘threatened’ by American English. It’s also worth remembering that as America declines, so will its influence and the importance of its language. No empire lasts for ever.

The American empire ain't declining no time soon, buddy! Yo, Amurica rulz! ;)