For better or for worse, English has become “the” global language. This is very much evident in Southeast Asia where English proficiency is being promoted as key to the integration and success of the ASEAN community.
Many people relate the rise of English to the post-World War II emergence of the US as a superpower. However, that’s only part of the story.
English as a global language is also a product of the British empire, because although that empire started to fall apart after World War II, it left a linguistic foundation that helped enable English to become a global language.
Then today I came across something that made me think of another factor that might have enabled English to become dominant. I was looking at the “Instrument of Surrender” that was signed by Japanese military officials in Singapore on 12 September 1945.
This document contains the various stipulations that the Japanese had to agree to, and then there is a final point that states, “This Instrument is drawn up in the English language, which is the only authentic version.”
Now I’m probably exaggerating things here a bit, but I do find it interesting that the British, who had long trained their colonial employees in Malaya to learn Malay, would demand that a document only be in English.
Why did they do that? Well, probably because they were pretty damn angry at the Japanese. And while the British at that time might not have known that their empire was going to fall apart (some people must have known) and that the US was going to become a superpower, this statement nonetheless strikes me as very symbolic.
It’s as if the British were saying, “We’re finished with communicating in other languages.” And the Americans, of course, never seriously tried.
So on 12 September 1945, the British said to the Japanese in Singapore, “English!”
And in 2013, the governments of the ASEAN countries are all saying to their citizens and to each other, “English!”
And universities in Japan are today rushing to introduce English-medium programs, courses and degrees to catch up with the world and to attract more international students. They don’t have confidence in the power of the Japanese language any more.
Wow, the British could see so far ahead since those days 😉
English, victor and criminal!!
Yea, good point.
You know though, I was just remembering how in some ways, the knowledge that Japanese had of English led Americans to make a push in the 1980s to learn foreign languages, because when the Japanese economy really took off in the 1980s and Japanese businessmen were buying things like Rockefeller Center in NYC, there was this sense/fear that what made the Japanese so good at business was that they really “knew the enemy” and got from their competitors the information that they needed.
I remember one “Japanese business strategy” that was revealed at that time was that when Japanese businessmen met with their American competitors, they would just sit quietly and let the American talk, and in time the (simple-minded) American would tell them everything that they wanted to know. And of course this was only possible because the Japanese businessmen knew English.
So the study of Japanese really took off at that time.
With the “rise of China,” that didn’t happen. And I don’t hear people complaining that Americans don’t know foreign languages anymore.
Almost everyone knows English already, and for those who don’t, we’ve got Google Translate. 😉
Hahahaha, but just recently there was an article published in a Japanese newspaper about Japan’s economy benefiting from their businessmen’s lack of proficiency in English :). What does this mean? Because so many Japanese businessmen lack confidence in using English they did not understand many things going on in the global banking world that is operated in English, and as such they did not participate in certain banking deals. These deals did end up being a huge failure whereby other economies including that of the US lost so much, and Japan was only slightly affected.
Isn’t this great! Possessing poor English or little English can also be a great advantage, and no participation in global activities can also help avoid risks. We definitely should learn from Japan’s lesson ;).
I remember seeing a telegram sent to Indonesian nationlists by Ho Chi Minh in the late 1940s discussing potentially forming an anti-colonial coalition in Southeast Asia. Interestingly enough, it was written in English, a middle ground for communication between anti-colonial fighters in French and Dutch colonies. It continued to be a communication medium between north vietnam and indonesia into the 1950s and 60s, apparently.
Thanks for commenting!! Yea, I’ve heard about that letter/telegram. And yea, you can see on YouTube that Sukarno did know English. Sihanouk did too. I can’t remember if did Ngo Dinh Diem did (I think he knew some), but Madame Nhu of course did.
And that raises an interesting question – how/when/where/why did all of these people who were in non-English-speaking colonies learn English?
Ngo Dinh Diem did know English since I remember seeing a clip of him saying a few words when he arrived at the airport on his US visit in 1957. At the same time, he preferred to use interpreters to accurately bring his messages across.
Interesting question, indeed. I guess English had been part of the colonial curriculum for a while (not sure when), considering the might of the British Empire and the rising influence of the USA in late 19th century and into the 20th century. Colonial curriculum did seem to encourage the study of other major European languages alongside that of the coloniser and English was among them. Kind of explain why there were Vietnamese students in Nazi Germany.