Cross-Culture

Linguistic characteristics affecting people management

Among the tasks of a manager are the necessities of instructing, motivating and leading his subordinates.  He may often lead by example, but as far as motivation and the issuing of directives are concerned, he will be heavily dependent on language.

Different languages are used in different ways and with a variety of effects.  Hyperbolic American and understated British English clearly inform and inspire listening staff with separate allure and driving force.  Managers of all nationalities know how to speak to best effect to their compatriots, for there are built-in characteristics in their language which facilitate the conveyance of ideas to their own kind.  They are, in fact, only vaguely aware of their dependence on these linguistic traits which make their job easier.  

With increasing globalisation, problems will arise in the following instances:

a) when a manager is involved in international team building
b) when he himself has to use a language other than his own

An example of situation (a) is when a Briton or American addresses a team containing, among others, Germans.  The occasional quipping or half-serious remarks typical of Anglo-American managers will only too often be taken literally by Germans, who may carry out “orders” which were only being casually considered.  

An example of  (b) is when a Japanese managing Anglo-Saxons hints at directives in such a courteous and half-suggestive manner that all is lost in a fog of impeccable courtesy.  

How does the particular genius of a certain language, manifested by its structure, vocabulary and tones, play its part in conveying instructions and inspiration to its listeners?  Let us examine some of the characteristics of languages which are tools of management in the industrialized world.

German

It is fitting to begin with German, for the tightly disciplined, regular native of the language heralds a facility to convey unambiguous, closely-directed instructions, which, one can suppose, would constitute good management.  Germans belong to a data-oriented, low-context culture and like receiving detailed information and instruction to guide them in the performance of tasks in which they wish to excel.  In business situations, German is not used in a humorous way, neither do its rigid case-endings and strict word order allow the speaker to think aloud very easily.  The German subordinate has not wish to hear his manager think aloud – what he wants are clear directives!

Highly-structured German, with few homonyms (in contrast to, for example, Chinese) is conducive to the issuing of clear orders.  The almost invariable use of the sie (formal) form in business fits in well with the expectancy of obedience and reinforces the hierarchical nature of the communication.  

As far as motivating subordinates is concerned, German would seem to be less flexible than, for instance, bubbly American English.  The constrictive effect of case-endings make it difficult for the German speaker to chop and change in the middle of a sentence.  He embarks on a course plotted partly by gender, partly by morphology in a strait-jacket of Teutonic word order.  He does not have the flexibility of a thinking-aloud Anglo-American brainstormer.  The verb coming at the end obliges the hearer to listen carefully to extract the full meaning.  The length and complexity of German sentences reflects the German tendency to distrust simple utterances.  Information-hungry Germans are among the best listeners in the world; their language fits the bill.

American English

An American manager need not be cautious.  In the United States, there is no phobia about the exercise of management or the drive of senior executives.  Public opinion, in general, does not exhibit and anti-business streak observable in several European societies.  In the USA, the manager, if not always a hero, is viewed in a positive and sympathetic light, as one of the figures responsible for the speedy development and commercial success of the nation.  

The language reflects this spirit – American English is quick and direct.  The frequent tendency to hyperbolize, exaggerating chances of success, overstating aims or targets, allows the American manager to ‘pump up’ his subordinate – to drive him on to longer hours and speedier results.  American salesmen do not resent this approach for they are used to the ‘hard sell’ themselves.  Tough talk, quips, wisecracks, barbed repartee – all available in good supply in American English, help them on their way.

The ubiquitous use of ‘get’ in US English facilitates clear, direct orders.  You get up early, you get going, you get there first, you get the client and you get the order, got it?  The many neologisms in American English, used liberally by the manager, permit him to appear up-to-date, with it, aphoristic, humorous and democratic.  It is oh, so state-of-the-art.

British English

In England, the language has quite different qualities and, as a management tool, is much more subtle.  The English staff member who would be put off, disturbed, by American exaggeration and tough talk, falls for a more understated, laid-back version of English which reflects (and toys with) his own characteristics.  Managers manipulate subordinates with friendly small talk, humour, reserved statement of objectives and an oh-so-casual approach to getting down to work.  You don’t arrive on the dot and work round the clock, instead you show that things flow for you.  Staff are gently massaged by off-hand references to goals, witticisms, anecdotes and even parables.  English has been practising these tricks since the days of Chaucer and Shakespeare.  An English manager may use a fable to show his wisdom.  His liberal use of sporting terms – “sticky wicket”, “even bet”, “offside” – shows his sporting nature and his solidarity with leisure-minded staff.  

The variety of types of humour available in the British Isles enables the manager to be humorous, to praise, change direction, chide, insinuate and criticize at will.  He may even level criticism at himself in this way.  Irony is a powerful weapon either way.  

Both British and American English are excellent media for brainstorming, due to the richness of vocabulary, double meanings, nuances, word-coining facilities and abundance of neologisms.  American managers and staff often use coined-yesterday business terminologies which neither fully understands, but which unite them in wonder at the spanking newness of the expression.  Brits, in contrast, shy away from neologisms, often preferring woolly, old-fashioned phrases which frequently lead to sluggish thinking.  “Muddling through” is the result – the British are famous for it (in war and business!).

A foreign executive is often at a loss in trying to follow the train of thought or interest of an English manager for many of the signals are coded.  Where a German would criticize directly, a Briton attacks in an oblique manner.  Understatement and faint irony often lead to the opposite being said of what is actually meant.  It is difficult for a foreign national to decode British ways of criticizing, praising, suggesting, condemning and abandoning.  Also, different types of humour and critique are used according to status and social class.  English managers can appear astonishingly patronising to secretaries, often taking to them like they were servants.  But no offence is intended or taken. It is a kind of theatre where everyone knows his or her part (and says the right lines).

Japanese

There is a certain similarity in the language of management in Britain and Japan, though the basic, ever-present indirectness of the Japanese style makes the British, by comparison, seem clinical thinkers!

Nevertheless, they have something in common – an aversion to “rocking the boat.”  The British manager’s understated criticisms, his humorous shafts in attack, his apparent reasonableness of expression at all times, are gambits to preserve harmony in his team.  In Japan, the drive towards harmony is so strong that it takes priority over clarity, even truth itself.

The Japanese manager does not issue orders; he only hints at what has to be done.  The language is custom-designed for this.  The structure, which normally stacks up a line of subordinate clauses before the main one, invariably lists the justifications for the directive before it reaches its listeners.  

“Quick, tidy up the office, the President is coming!” in American English would be expressed in Japanese as, “As we shall be honoured shortly by a visit of our President, and since we would wish to show him how tidy our office is…”
The actual order is never given – there is no need.  The staff are already tidying up.  

Japanese has its built-in mechanisms creating a strong impact on the listener.  The general mandatory politeness creates a climate where staff appear to be quietly consulted in the most courteous manner.  This very courtesy encourages their support and compliance.   In fact, they have no choice, as the hierarchy of communication is already settled by the status of the manager, based on the quality of his university degree.  In-built mechanisms of honorifics reinforce, however, the hierarchical situation.  The different set of expressions (again, mandatory) used in formulating the subordinate’s response to the manager’s remarks, close the circle of suggestion, absorption, compliance.  A German friend of mine – a scientist – was disturbed when, on suggesting various hypothetical experiments to a Japanese co-worker, the Japanese brought him the results every Friday!  I had to point out to my German friend that if one begins a sentence with, “If only we tried this…,” it corresponds to an order in Japan!

Other characteristics of the Japanese language, which serve managers in instructing and motivating staff are the Passive Voice, used for extra politeness, the impersonal verb, which avoids casting direct blame, the use of silence or a special intake of breath on certain issues which indicate clearly to the subordinates what the manager’s opinion is.  Reported speech is not popular in Japan, for one subscribes to the myth that all one-to-one conversations are delivered in confidence.  It is interesting to note, however, that the language does not possess a reported-speech mechanism (this may be one of the rare examples where linguistic structure reflects social preference).

French

French managers inhabit quite a different world, are clinically direct in their approach and see no advantage in ambiguity or ambivalence.  A British manager, perhaps uncertain or uncommitted on some aspect of policy himself, may take the easy way out and “waffle” at the critical moment.  His staff may, in fact, like this, since they do not feel too regimented and relish the options open to them (they might be able to show their originality).  The French manager, though roundabout and wordy in is exposé, steers his staff along his selected avenue in the end.  

The French language, like many daughters of Latin, is clinical, clear, unambiguous.  It is a crisp, incisive tongue, a kind of verbal dance or gymnastics of the mouth which presses home its points in an undisguised logical urgency.  

The French education system, from childhood, places a premium on articulateness and eloquence of expression.  Unlike Japanese, Finnish and sometimes British children, the French child is rarely discouraged from being talkative.  In the French culture, loquacity is equated with intelligence.  Silence does not have a particularly golden sheen.  Lycée, university and École Normale Supérieure education reinforce the emphasis on good speaking, purity of grammar and mastery of the French idiom.  The French language, unquestionably, is the chief weapon wielded by the manager in directing, motivating and dominating staff members.  Less articulate Frenchmen will show no resentment.  Masterful use of language and logic implies, in their understanding, masterful management.

Other languages

Other languages such as Russian, Spanish, Arabic and Swedish, to take a few, are management tools in their respective areas and each one possesses linguistic characteristics which intertwine with management goals.  In the Gulf States, for example, a good manager is a good Muslim.  The language used will make frequent references to Allah and align itself with the precepts and style of the Koran.  A didactic management style is the result.  The inherent rhetorical qualities of the Arabic language lend themselves to the reinforcement of the sincerity of the speaker.  A raised voice is a sign not of anger, but of genuine feeling and exhortation.  

Swedish, as a language of management, leans heavily on the “Du” (informal) form and dry, courteous expressions which clearly stratify the manager at the same level as his colleagues or, at the very worst, as a primus inter pares.  I recently heard a television journalist in his mid-twenties address the Prime Minister as “Du” on TV.  I thought it rather presumptuous, but it made a point about interpersonal communication in modern Sweden.  

To take a rather different example, Spanish, used as a language of management, comes from a much more vertical angle.  The Spanish manager is usually happy to use the “tu” form to subordinates, but the declaimed nature of his delivery, with typical Spanish fire and emphasis, make his pronouncement and opinions virtually irreversible.  Spanish, with its wealth of diminutive endings, its rich vocabulary and multiple choice options on most nouns, is extremely suitable for expressing emotion, endearments, nuances and intimacies.  The Spanish manager’s discourse leans on emotive content.  He cajoles, he persuades, he woos.  He wants you to know how he feels.  The language exudes sensuousness, ecstasy, excitement, warmth, ardour and sympathy.  The senior executive has a wonderful tool for demonstrating his own human force.

Correlation of linguistic structure and cultural type

The assertion that linguistic categories are directly expressive of overt cultural outlines, supported by Whorf but resisted by his contemporary, Edward Sapir, is by no means proven at the present time.  Holden points out that linguistics and management hardly intersect as intellectual disciplines.  Yet we can see that cultural traits, such as American directness or Japanese avoidance of confrontation, have had some influence on the fundamental structure of language (or was it the other way round?).  A Spanish manager would find Swedish, even if he spoke it well, a difficult medium in which to motivate his colleagues.  The Swede, “managing” in Spanish, would find many features of the language superfluous to his purposes.  

We have seen how the French manager dominates by language, the Japanese by status, the Spaniard by human force, the Swede by self-effacement, the German by imposing procedures and regulations, the Briton by careful control of self and expression, often flavoured by humour or subtlety.  In each case, the managers know the linguistic ropes, as they deal with their own nationalities.  When it comes to leading and inspiring international teams, modification is obviously required, for the different “receiving apparatus” of others.  Yet most communicators lack the insight to construct a message that neutralizes the influence of the language being used.  

Team builders, when addressing partners, must be aware that language, besides being an excellent symbolic system of reference (Germans use this strength), also possesses submerged, quasi-mathematical patterns which have a tremendous intuitive vitality.  This vibrates on a different wavelength from language to language.  It is beyond the abilities of international managers to capitalize on the variety of effects described, even in this short paper.  Not only would a great talent for languages be required, but an intimate knowledge of the cultural make-up of team members would be essential.

The best we can hope for is that builders of international teams will develop a general orientation regarding the relation of the management concept in a particular culture to the way it is expressed in the language.  Outpouring of clinical, logical French will rivet the attention of staff members on their charismatic leader.  Japanese listeners, suspicious of verbal skills, prefer a loose structure of argument to pure reason; the Japanese manager, suggesting and illustrating rather than ordering, exploits the clever impersonality and detachment of the Japanese language to satisfy this preference.  He, among all managers, appears to have the lightest touch; in reality, the hierarchical structure of Japanese companies and the lifetime employment pattern leave staff with little alternative to ready compliance and obedience. 

The Quiet Colossus

The first decade of the 21st century heralded an era of challenge among the actual and wannabe superpowers girdling the globe – a contest of increasing intensity as the second decade gets under way.

The United States, China, the Russian Federation and the European Union vie for influence in their respective hemispheres.  What is generally referred to as the West hung on to more than 50 per cent of world production (GDP) until 2013, when a tipping point was reached and the newly-formed BRICS union claimed that the four major members – Brazil, Russia, India and China (with South Africa tagging along) – accounted for 51-52 per cent.

Apart from the resolute pursuit of more control of the world’s financial institutions (IMF, World Bank etc.) by the ‘emerging superpowers,’ a regrettable aspect of the Zeitgeist has been the persistent friction between them and the West (and also between each other) due to a variety of causes since the collapse of the Soviet Union.  In Asia, China, Russia and India have traditionally been uneasy bedfellows – the great length of joint frontiers and competing cultural and philosophical persuasions engendering periodic disputes – but the dominant feature of conflict since 2000 has been the sharpening rivalry between Russia and the United States.

One might ask oneself why this antagonism should be so renewable, for it is easy to see how cooperation between these two nations would lead to mutual benefit.  Their peoples are not so unalike as they first may seem.  Both are mainly of European ancestry, frontier pioneers, mission-imbued, pragmatic, technically skilled, future-oriented and post-monarchical.  When they meet as persons, as colleagues, as fellow-scientists, as astronauts, they find each other blunt, friendly, congenial, even jolly.

Unfortunately, a Cold War mentality has lingered both in Moscow and Washington.  It is first one thing and then another:  NATO expansion; the war in Iraq; ‘colour’ revolutions in Georgia and Kyrgyzstan; differing views about Iran, Libya and Syria; the Edward Snowden affair; now Ukraine and Crimea.  Angela Stent, in her recent book, “The Limits of Partnership: US-Russian relations in the 21st century,” points out that what Russians crave most is not complete agreement on important issues, but respect from representatives of other nations in conformity with Russia’s land area, economic assets and, above all, her rich and resplendent historical record.  While ancient European nations such as France, Spain and Sweden (formerly superpowers in their own right) recognize such sensitivity, the young, pragmatic American republic is less delicate in her foreign relations, especially with authoritarian regimes.

The future alignment of powers is by no means certain or settled for the coming decades.  The somewhat astonishing growth of the BRICS countries in the 1990s has fostered no little self-confidence and something approaching unity in their stance vis-à-vis the West, but China has never promoted an enduring alliance with any other country during her long history.  Eventual Russo-Chinese rivalry along the Sino-Siberian border is highly probable; Russian economic clout is precariously perched on a wobbly platform of oil-and-gas supply.  India, with her Western connections, is hardly the most reliable partner in growth as she grapples with near-insoluble problems of societal and physical infrastructure while Brazil, already struggling, seems out on a limb geographically and a somewhat incongruous partner for her Eastern hemisphere associates.

Shifts in alliances or economic unions could be multiple, even kaleidoscopic, in the long run.  Humans have a poor record in forecasting even cataclysmic political, military and economic swings and developments.  The Russian Revolution, the First World War and the Depression played havoc with the map of Europe.  The attack on Pearl Harbour, the economic ‘miracles’ of defeated Germany and Japan and the collapse of the Soviet Union were unforeseen, as were the 9/11 shock, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Arab Spring and the massive ubiquitous investment of Chinese capital in the United States, Africa and elsewhere.

A world population of 7 billion people unleashes unimaginably powerful currents of growth, development, alliances and face-offs.  Globalists speculate on the growing influence of emerging mini-giants such as Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nigeria and Mexico, all with burgeoning 100 million-plus populations.  Also discussed has been a ‘second division’ of promising ‘emergers’ such as South Korea, Vietnam, Philippines, Turkey and post-mullah Iran.

With so many contenders for pre-eminence, substantial power and influence can only be guaranteed if groupings are sufficiently large to resist domination by a true superpower such as China or the US.  Assuming the BRICS will eventually disband, which are the likely ‘super-blocs’?  Four seem inevitable:

    •    China (1.3 billion inhabitants)
    •    India (1.3 billion inhabitants)
    •    EU (500 million inhabitants)
    •    NAFTA (400 million inhabitants)

Who else is there? Japan and Australia would remain close to the US.  The Transatlantic Trade and Development Partnership is likely to be cloned by a Transpacific one which would attract Japan, Australia, S. Korea, the Philippines and possibly other states in S.E. Asia.

Russia will need to join somebody, building on her own Eurasian Customs Union.  For Russia, the EU is a more likely partner than China, India and the US.  Proximity favours Africa leaning towards some attachment with the EU, though China and India put out feelers there where they can.  With all these considerations in mind, what kind of balance emerges between East and West?  Have we forgotten anybody?  Japan, for instance, would add substantial weight to East or West, depending on her affinity with Asia or the US.  Japan’s economy, albeit stagnating around $6,000 billion, is greater than the whole of Latin America’s though her population is 20% and land area 5%.  Japan’s current relations with China suggest that she would favour a Transpacific trading pact before an Asian one.

Canada

Maps of the world are usually printed on a flat surface using various kinds of projections based on land surveys, aerial photographs and other sources.  If we open up such a map where Russia and Canada were coloured in a similar manner, we should see that, together with Greenland, they occupy 20% of the earth’s land surface.  Russia’s land area (17 million sq km) appears to dwarf that of her arch-rival the United States (9.373 million sq km) but if we join the US to Canada, the North American territory grows to 19,344,000 sq km and, with Greenland, to 22 million sq km.

On the surface at least, we see an approximate parity of land area between East and West – Russian and American spheres of interest.  Taking Canada into account, how significant is this?  Much of Canada’s northern territory and certainly Greenland have temperatures below freezing point for large parts of the year but have summer – April to September – relatively free from ice and snow.  The same applies to Russian Siberia.  Many people live in Arctic lands and have long exploited the minerals abundant in the area.  Russia’s economy has benefited hugely from oil deposits, gas and a variety of minerals in Siberia.  Canada, with a lower profile, is the world’s leading producer of uranium, potash and zinc ore.  She is 3rd in aluminium, 5th in nickel and in the top ten producers of lead, tin, copper and cobalt ore.  Other resources include gold, silver and precious stones.  Of great significance to Canada’s future include her developing into a major producer of oil, natural gas and shale gas, as well as having 7% of the world’s fresh water.  Her sources of hydro-electricity are limitless.  Canada is the 6th largest producer of world energy.  She ranks 7th in wheat harvests.

Abundance of commodities and vast natural resources are not the only considerations that qualify Canada for quasi-superpower status.  She has a multi-faceted robustness ingeniously disguised by the unpretentious, almost homely role she plays in world affairs.  She is not big just in area: her GDP is bigger than that of the whole of South and Central America (excluding Brazil) and equals that of mighty Russia!  Her GDP per capita stands at over $50,000, exceeding that of the United States and any other major power! (USA $48,312, Japan $45,903, Germany $44,021, France $42,319, UK $39,974, Italy $36,130)

When it comes down to business, her all-round ratings are formidable.  Third in the world in listed domestic companies, she has the 5th largest stockmarket capitalisation, ranks 9th in industrial output (actually 15th in car production!), is the world’s 10th biggest exporter and trader of goods, has the world’s 5th longest road and rail networks (passenger and freight) and is 5th in global competitiveness.

While Canada has the 5th best business environment on the planet, her standards of quality of modern life are equally impressive.  Canadians have more computers per capita than any other nationality (130 per 100 people), are 13th in patent registrations, 7th in world peace, 8th lowest in corruption, 3rd in gender equality and 3rd in giving to others!

Canada, multilingual and multicultural, with favourable demographics and substantial economic freedom, is destined to exercise far greater influence amid the great powers than she hitherto has chosen to do: laid back and universally popular (who hates Canadians?), protected on either side by two great oceans and with access to a slowly-warming third, and with a friendly neighbour to the south, Canada can choose her friends and partners with little fear of being rebuffed.

No two countries in the Arctic region share so much in common as Canada and Russia.  A map of the Arctic Ocean with the North Pole at its centre shows that the ocean is virtually closed by the coastal areas of Russia, Canada and Greenland.  By far the largest Arctic nations, Canada and Russia – neighbours across the North Pole – bear a shared responsibility for the state of affairs in the region and must see each other as strategic partners.  Dr. Natalia Loukacheva, Fellow of the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute, points out that both countries share a common legal framework for the management of the Arctic waterways and sees transportation, both maritime and aeronautic, as being an obvious area of bilateral cooperation.  For instance, Canada could join Russia’s effort to modernise the Northern Sea Route by offering aid and working to develop the Northwest Passage.

Russia has exploited the Arctic for centuries.  About one-fifth of the Russian landmass lies above the Arctic Circle.  Two million of her people live there.  Cooperation with Western nations, though rare, is not new.  Russians and Norwegians share Spitsbergen and the two nations have managed fisheries in the Barents Sea.  In 1997, Russia ratified the United Nations Law of the Sea.  She also planted a Russian flag on the sea-bed under the North Pole in 2007.  When the US and Canada complained, Russian minister Sergei Lavrov dismissed the event as only symbolic and confirmed that Arctic issues should be tackled solely on the basis of International Law.  In 2008, Canada, Russia, Denmark, Norway and the United States met in Ilulissat, Greenland to hold the Arctic Ocean Conference which stated in the Ilulissat Declaration that any demarcation issues in the Arctic should be resolved on a bilateral basis between contesting parties.  An example of such bilateral agreement was reached between Russia and Norway in 2010.

The warming of the Arctic Ocean and the subsequent opening up of a myriad of opportunities for oil and gas exploration and exploitation has transformed the Arctic area from being a remote, largely inaccessible, frozen wilderness into a likely rapidly-developing resource bonanza for Canada, Russia, Greenland and the United States.  The rapidly-receding ice in the Arctic Ocean exposes the prospect of early negotiations between Russia and Canada, the major stakeholders, with regard to agreeing the bilateral delineation of the continental shelf.  If the question of overlapping entitlements on the shelf can be resolved amicably, though it may take several months or even years, then many other possible disputes may well disappear.  One of the keys to reaching a successful resolution is the well-known Canadian skill-set in reasoned negotiating.  This has long been observable in international business teams as well as in the realms of politics and diplomacy.  There are not the same bones of contention between Canada and Russia as there are between Russia and the United States.  Canada and Russia have many commonalities that are reflected in their Arctic identity, Arctic expertise in technologies and challenges in survival in the hostile north.

While Russia has clearly manifested her intense interest in her two main aims in Arctic development – oil and gas exploration and northern transportation routes – Canada’s stake is also huge.  Her experience in different parts of the country (Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Labrador, Mackenzie Delta and the Far North) has given her unrivalled expertise in petroleum and gas exploration.  Canadians have drilled some of the world’s deepest offshore wells (Annapolis G24 gas well (20,000 ft); they also built the world’s largest oil platform (Hibernia GBS) and have developed extremely specialized drilling systems in the Beaufort Sea.  For millions of years, sediments have been pouring out of the mouth of the Mackenzie River, creating tremendous banks of sand and shale – laminates of sedimentary rock warped into promising geological structures.  As early as 1977, its established gas reserves were 200 billion cubic metres.  According to a US Geological Survey, there are 1,670 trillion cubic feet of natural gas north of the Arctic Circle, as well as over 90 billion barrels of oil.  Estimates of oil and gas reserves continue to increase as more exploration is initiated.

Extraction of Arctic oil and gas, in improving, though still hostile, environmental conditions, will only be maximised if wide-ranging cooperation takes place between Russia and Canada in assuring the navigation, communication and safety of the Arctic transportation system.  This includes both maritime and aeronautic collaboration.  Some initial steps taken in this area are the Churchill-Murmansk Northern Sea bridge and discussions between Winnipeg and Krasnoyarsk on the Northern Air-bridge.  One can envisage the Arctic as being a forum for international cooperation rather than conflict.

Against this background, tractable, deferential yet stoic Canada will have the opportunity not only to substantially enrich her economy, but also her destiny as an Arctic power, using her non-belligerent equable nature to placate her Arctic neighbours.  If hurdles that might impede Canadian-Russian rapprochement can be removed in the near future, there is a good chance that the joint Russo-Canadian collaboration in the Arctic Ocean might usher in an era of sensible amity and concurrence that other oceans and other powers have failed to achieve.

[Statistics from Economist Pocket World 2014]

Civil War in Spain? Catalunya pulls back from the brink

On 11 September 2012 over a million people took to the streets of Barcelona in a huge demonstration in favour of independence from Spain.

Just two weeks later, building on the impetus for self-government, the Catalan President Artur Mas brought forward regional elections by two years, pledging to hold an early referendum on Catalunya's political status and possible independence.

Shortly after in October, in the Basque Country, two separatist parties dominated the elections to the Basque Parliament by winning two thirds of the seats.

Facing the constitutional crisis of a possible breakaway of two of its Regional Autonomies, Spain waited with apprehension. The sabre-rattling ripostes and political condemnation were not long in coming:

• Ex-Army officer, Colonel Alaman publicly calls for military intervention in Catalunya;
• In a counter demonstration against independence for Barcelona, right arms are seen raised in the classic Fascist salute;
• In late November in the editorial of the official Army Magazine 'Ejercito', General Pontifas Deus denounces President Mas for his 'more than outrageous plans for self-government';
• In Brussels, Spain's Partido Popular Minister of Defence denies any knowledge of any 'Movement' in the Military, or any use of the Military as a mouthpiece for others;
• There are calls for the arrest of President Mas, possibly for treason.

With hindsight perhaps there was an over-reaction to the crisis. But for the Right and many traditionalists in the country, the unity of Spain is sacrosanct. Even today.

This concept of a united Spain has long been a challenge for Catalans, especially those whose language and family roots are Catalan. They have an intense sense of pride in their Catalanism, which combines within it an almost spiritual love of their language and culture and historical identity, within Spain but not necessarily of it. Catalans feel different, and in their history there is much to confirm this.

Having been settled firstly by the Greeks, Catalunya became the most completely romanized region of Iberia and had the least contact - at most 80 years - with the Moors during the seven centuries of Moorish occupation of the majority of the peninsula. From the 12th to the 14th centuries, Catalans, in a sophisticated confederacy with the Aragonese, dominated large parts of the Mediterranean, ruling Sardinia, Corsica and most of present-day Greece, and controlling the gold trade with Sudan.

But one of the most surprising aspects of this empire was the political and administrative structure that supported it. From the early 13th century Catalunya had a three-chamber form of parliament, the Corts, which passed all legislation and the Generalitat, which organised tax raising and expenditure. It was a very good time to be Catalan. When Queen Isabella in the beginning of the 16th century banned the Catalans from trading with the New World of the Americas, domination by Spain or the Central Government was to become their destiny for the next five centuries.

Every country has an event or events in its past which by repetition over the years form an emotive part of their historical identity and the date is familiar to all. For the English, 1066, the Battle of Hastings and the start of the Norman Conquest is the one we remember. For the Catalans it is 11 September 1741, during the War of Spanish Succession. After a year's siege Barcelona was finally captured by the French and Spanish armies who raised a third of the city to the ground. The 11 September is now the National Day of Catalunya and was also the date of Barcelona's latest demonstration for Independence from Spain.

But is it possible that what might most colour Catalunya's view of their relationship with Madrid are events in the 20th century, still within living memory of older citizens? In 1939, the final defeat of the Republican Government by Franco's Nationalist troops took place in Barcelona. It was effectively the end of the Civil War. The campaign against the Catalan language culture and people unleashed on Franco's victory was devastating. Any public use of the language was banned and any books in Catalan including priceless and irreplaceable private collections were destroyed. Street and town names were given Spanish names. Catalan went underground.

This discrimination damaged the language but what caused far more linguistic damage longterm were the 'tidal waves' of Spanish-speaking immigrants, mainly from Andalucia and mostly semi-literate: a quarter of a million in the forties, half a million in the fifties, and almost a million in the sixties. Absorption into the local population as had happened with previous immigrants was almost impossible as the new immigrants often lived in their own 'barrios' speaking Spanish which was also the language used in education. Spanish increasingly became the language of preference for domestic use, even in Catalan homes. Figures for 1975 show that Catalan was spoken in only 39% of homes in Barcelona.

So do these figures have any relevance in 2012? To some extent certainly. Girona's mayor, Carles Puigdemont identifies the original source of the desire for separatism: "We have our own language, our own culture, it's in our DNA." he might have been heartened to see flags of Andalucia among the Catalan pro-separatist flags fluttering from the balconies. Other pro-separatist politicians, seeing the huge increase in the movement of workers following the EU open border policy, must be asking themselves how this is affecting voting patterns. Without the DNA will those recent citizens be ready to take the risk of supporting Independence?

Carme Chacon, a Catalan, a dynamic politician and former Defence Minister in Zapatero's Socialist Government, sees it from a broader perspective. She favours the concept of smaller states within a Federal Europe, "different but united."  She sees herself as one of the many Catalans who have roots in other regions of Spain. Her father came to the north from Andalucia and her grandfather was an anarchist from Aragon. She declares "I am a Catalan, a Spaniard and a European. And I do not want anyone to oblige me to choose."

If her views are shared by many in Catalunya, could it be that Catalanism or cultural identity is not what has provoked this present independista crisis?  It is certainly underpinning it, but as Bill Clinton said, in another place and at another time, "It's the Economy, stupid."

It is difficult to believe, on the face of it, that this could be the case with Catalunya. Its reputation as the powerhouse of Spain for its industrial and commercial success, are supported by the statistics. It provides 20% of Spain's GDP, 25% of Spain's tax revenue, 35% of Spain's exports including 45% of high-tech exports, and 25% of Spain's tax revenue (2009 figures). In spite of this, Catalunya is €42 billion in debt. And the root cause of this situation lies in Catalunya's political State of Autonomy and its fiscal relationship with Madrid.

For Spain, though composed politically of regions with autonomy, has a centralised tax collection system. It was formulated in 1978 in the difficult days of Spain's fledgling democracy which followed 40 years of repressive dictatorship under General Franco, after the Civil War in the late 1930s.  Only the Basque Country and Navarre were allowed to raise their own taxes, a traditional right with its roots in the fueros of medieval times.

Put rather simplistically, Madrid levies the taxes and returns to each autonomy a percentage in services and investment. The difference between these two sums is the fiscal deficit. In the case of Catalunya, Madrid raises 95% of the taxes, and Catalunya raises 5% to cover its Social Services, including Healthcare and Education.  Figures from the Generalitat show that between 1986 and 2009 the fiscal deficit ran on average at 8% of GDP per annum and in that last year Catalunya contributed €16.4 billion (8.4% of GDP) more in taxes than it received from Madrid in state services and investment. Alternatively one could say that amongst the autonomies, Catalunya was the third highest contributor of taxes to central government, but was eleventh highest in what it received back from Madrid.

To put into perspective the damage this causes to the Catalan economy, the Cercle Catala de Negocis has cited a telling analogy: Japan's Tsunami Disaster caused an estimated loss of 3.6% - 5.7% of its GDP.

The strain that the increase in the fiscal deficit has placed on relations between Madrid and Catalunya was exacerbated by the sense of anger and betrayal felt by the Catalans over the fate of their new Statute of Autonomy of 2006. After four years of negotiations, this had been approved by the Catalan Parliament in September 2005, by the Spanish Congress in March 2006 and ratified in Catalunya by a majority vote in a referendum. It gave Catalunya extensions of rights in the Judicial system, Catalan language status, immigration controls, taxes and access to loans, and the right for Catalunya to be referred to as a nation.

The frustration felt then when an appeal to the Spanish Constitutional Court was filed by the conservative Partido Popular party was as nothing compared to the severe shock delivered by the Court's ruling in 2010 when the appeal was upheld. Fourteen articles of the Statute had been abolished and twenty-six were to be seriously amended: these changes struck at the very structure of civil, political and judicial administration in Catalunya. And as for the Autonomy's right to Nation status? It was deemed unconstitutional.  For Catalans, this was insult added to injury.

Of course many in Central Government and in the rest of Spain have a different perspective on the Catalan position. Barcelona is seen as an avant-garde, vibrant city rich in Art and Culture with a thriving port. As an autonomy, it is able to take advantage, as a gateway to Europe, of its geographical location on Spain's north-east Mediterranean coast, sharing a border with France. It is famous for its tourism, but respected and somewhat envied for its highly successful commercial and industrial sectors especially textiles, biotechnology - and wine production.  Whereas other Spanish autonomies with much lower GDPs, perhaps traditionally more rural and sometimes disastrously less well developed, have not only seen their budgets shredded, social programmes slashed, mounting redundancies in local government and private sectors, and rocketing unemployment especially among the young, all causing real poverty. Many therefore are tempted to see Catalans as 'spoilt children' trying to hold onto their 'goodies', exploiting their role as perennial victims of the wicked Central Government. Madrid seems to see its present fiscal policy towards Catalunya, however contentious, as trying to maintain the 1978 concept of regional autonomies, offering them 'cafe para todos'. This tends to be seen then (amongst other less altruistic motives) as an opportunity for radical wealth redistribution in favour of poorer regions of Spain, especially in the light of the euro crisis and diminishing EU funding.

But the Catalans are also suffering.  With their lack of fiscal control, faltering GDP and high tax rates, including the highest income tax rate of 56%, they share increasingly with other autonomies and European countries many of the problems referred to above.

So was the constitutional crisis all media hype?

The regional elections on 25 November took place with no military coup, but also without the President Artur Mas winning the outright majority he needed for his party, the CiU, to call for a referendum. Even worse, voters' support for the CiU dropped 8%, and their representation in the 135-seat parliament dropped from 62 seats to 50. They are still the largest party, but only in coalition can they function.

An anti-climax perhaps? Not necessarily if one examines the voting pattern. Naturally enough the Partido Popular leader Mariano Rajoy with schadenfreude was predictably scathing in his judgement of the Catalan President - perhaps he wished to divert attention from two very unpalatable facts.  Firstly that just under two thirds (87) of parliamentary seats are now held between four parties who either support at least a referendum on independence or those who openly campaigned on a more radical independista policy, such as Oriol Junqueras. He is leader of the party Esquerra Republicana Catalunya (ERC) which doubled their seats at the elections to become the second largest party. The high turnout of voters, 68%, more than two thirds of eligible voters, confirms the strength of the wish for constitutional change, which many political commentators feel Madrid should not ignore.

However, instead of compromise, Madrid appears to favour the policy of attack being the best form of defence.  The Minister for Education, José Ignacio Wert, is advocating much of Michael Gove's proposals for English education: league tables, privatisation, etc. But what has caused enormous offence to Catalunya is his attack on bilingual education policy, downgrading the status and use of Catalan to a specialist subject, and conversely defining Spanish as the main language of education.

Opposition is widespread and strong: 71% against in a December poll, but the most scathing appraisal is the article by internationally renowned Fernando Vallespin (Professor of Political Science and Administration and Director of Political Theory at Madrid's Universidad Autonoma) in El Pais on 7 December 2012. He says:

"Faced with the state of the current situation in Catalunya, what could be more rash than to aggravate them on the question they are most sensitive about, the defence of their language...What it shows is that (Madrid) has not bothered to find out absolutely anything about what is happening there, nor has it understood the basic message coming from the ballot box."

[Spanish original: "Ante la situación que estamos viviendo en Cataluña, ¿cabe algo más imprudente que tocarles en el punto más sensible, la defensa de su lengua?...Significa no haberse enterado de nada de cuanto está ocurriendo allí, ni haber entendido el mensaje fundamental emanado de las urnas."]

He also urges that party politics should be put aside…this circumstance demands a renewal of the constitutional agreement, seeking those outside politics who are capable of generating the maximum possible consensus. He concludes with these words:

"The Government is far too arrogant and doctrinaire and it lacks the will and ability to encourage efforts to be made towards a grand State plan. It has chosen the opposite option and we shall all pay the price."

[Spanish original: "Al Gobierno le sobra soberbia y doctrinarismo y le faltan la voluntad y la capacidad para adicionar fuerzas en torno a un gran proyecto de Estado. Ha elegido la opción contraria y lo pagaremos todos."]

He is the expert, but will they listen to him.

So will Catalunya pull back from the brink? Perhaps if Malta and Estonia can pull off being small independent countries in the EU, this ancient Catalan region will be encouraged to take that leap to escape their present near-impossible relationship with Madrid and Spain.

But Brussels has just confirmed that Scotland's exit from the United Kingdom would mean also giving up its EU membership. To renegotiate entry could be long and costly. Catalans have a reputation for being financially canny and having great common sense - an honourable compromise may yet be reached. For the whole is often worth more than the sum of its parts. Good Luck, Spain.

by Sheila Profit

The English – in a class of their own

Cecily:  When I see a spade, I call it a spade.

Gwendolen:  I am glad to say I have never seen a spade. It is obvious that our social spheres have been widely different.

Oscar Wilde – The Importance of Being Earnest

It is fitting that one of the best-known examples of the English class system in action in literature should have been written by an Irishman.

For the English, ‘class’ is what Richard D. Lewis describes as a ‘cultural black hole’: an aspect of a culture so powerful that it sucks everything else in. The problem is that when you are in a black hole, it is hard to see clearly what is going on around you. An outsider may have a clearer perspective.

The current argument about social mobility that recently dominated the headlines in the UK goes to the heart of an inescapable part of understanding the English that is complex, and one of the biggest sources of both our angst and our humour.

When Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, declared that access to the most selective universities is too restricted to those from the most privileged backgrounds, and that internships at companies would in future have to be based on ‘what you know rather than who you know’, the reaction was fast and furious. One of the most cutting comments was from Charles Moore, former editor of The Daily Telegraph. He remarked that Clegg ought to have known that the phrase should have been ‘whom you know.’ Clegg’s Dutch mother may have given him a certain scepticism about class segregation, but woe betide anyone who tries to do something logical about it. It is beyond logic.

One fatal error is to assume that class is based on wealth. That may be the case in the USA, but in England the self-made man or woman can never really escape his or her roots. And in many cases may not want to. Though class may still be an irritant. The richest person I know – a multi-, multi-millionaire by his mid-thirties – told me that his working-class background means that there are still people who ‘cut him dead’ socially. And I will never forget my first seminar at Oxford University, when a class-mate (in more ways than one) from Lancashire was asked to read out his brilliant essay on the Victorian poets Tennyson and Browning. One of the girls suddenly walked out and never came back. Afterwards she told us she ‘had to go and vomit, as she couldn’t stand listening to that Northern, working-class accent.’

Accents, and the words you use, are the first indicator of class. Even the way the word ‘class’ is pronounced is an immediate give-away. A short ‘a’ rather than a long one, and you are immediately relegated to the lower rankings.  Use the word ‘toilet’ rather than ‘lavatory’ or ‘loo’, as Kate Middleton’s mother apparently did, and you could nearly cost your daughter the throne.

This language question is a source of great anxiety to politicians. Harold Wilson, former Labour Prime Minister, was famous for his strong Yorkshire accent and his cunning. However, as a student and later teacher of politics at Oxford, he assumed a clipped upper middle-class pronunciation. You can’t blame him. At that time, he would have had difficulty getting his students to trust his intellect otherwise. But on moving into politics, he reverted to his Yorkshire vowels. There is no way Labour’s traditional voters would have trusted his beliefs if he hadn’t. I am sure that David Cameron’s ‘posh’ voice, and appearance (a small chin is considered a sign of the upper classes in England) are at least partly to blame for the Conservative Party’s poor showing in the North of England, resulting in a Coalition Government.

A sort of reverse snobbery has emerged in the past 20 years or so, with some politicians – no names mentioned – deliberately making their naturally polished tones sound more like the man on the street, especially the streets of Essex: a county whose accent has become synonymous with the median voter.

Tony Blair also got into hot water for trying to play to all classes in other ways. He was ridiculed for two consecutive interviews where he was asked what his favourite food was.  In his Sedgefield constituency (a traditional mining community in the North East of England), he answered ‘fish and chips’ and in a trendy area of London ‘pasta and sun-dried tomatoes’.

Observing which foods people eat is a sure-fire indicator of class. Fish and chips, sausages (bangers) and mashed potatoes, frozen food, etc. for the working-class; foreign food – especially Italian – for the middle-class, and bangers and mash and English ‘nursery food’ for the upper-class.

Which brings me to my final point that the working-class and upper-class tend to have far more in common with each other, as D.H. Lawrence frequently observed, than either of them does with the middle class.

As well as a preference for plain, English food, the working-class and upper-class tend to have similar interests in sports (rugby, horse-racing, sports involving dogs); cars (tend to be older, and they are not so fussy about keeping them clean) and in many other areas beyond the scope of this blog, but described well in social anthropologist Kate Fox’s book ‘Watching the English’.

Above all, both working and upper-classes seem to be easier in their own skins than the middle-classes, who tend to be pre-occupied with what others think about them. Though the middle-class is essential to progress and, as Aristotle recognised, the basis of a successful society:

‘The most perfect political community must be amongst those who are in the middle rank, and those states are best instituted wherein these are a larger and more respectable part, if possible, than both the other; or, if that cannot be, at least than either of them separate.’

If you are not English, you have the luxury of by-passing the class issue in your dealings with us. You are not part of a game which is even more complicated than cricket. Yet to understand us, it is still relevant and important to get beneath the surface of this English obsession with where people are from and whom they know, not just what they know. But please do it in secret, and never ever mention it!

I am his Highness’ dog at Kew; pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?

Alexander Pope (1688-1744) English poet and satirist

by Michael Gates

Malaysia: An 'open house' tradition

Those who have visited this Southeast Asian destination in the past few weeks have been treated to the spectacle of the nationwide celebrations of the Eid al Fitr holiday. Although the religious significance of Eid, its rituals and its message of spiritual and moral renewal upon the conclusion of the fasting month are universal to all Muslims, the way it is observed in this part of the world takes on additional meanings. Some are related to traditional Malay culture and customs as well as local family structure; others stem from the contemporary realities and dynamics of Malaysia as a pluralistic, multiracial society. 

In the Malay language, the holiday is commonly named Hari Raya Aidilfitri (‘hari’ means ‘day’; ‘raya’ is ‘festive’; ‘festival’; ‘celebration’). Sometimes it is also referred to as Hari Raya Puasa (‘puasa’ meaning ‘fasting’). In the old days, Hari Raya was a festive but simple affair, marked by prayer, visits to the mosque, and small family gatherings. Thanks to the staggering growth in Malaysia’s prosperity over the past thirty years, however, the core festival alone has evolved into a lavish, week-long celebration. The follow-up social activities fill up everyone’s calendar for several weeks, throughout the Islamic month of Syawal.  

One of the main reasons behind this trend is the famed cohesiveness of the Malay-Muslim family. Even rapid urbanization and suburban sprawl haven’t stopped Malay people from driving en masse, practically every weekend, to the kampong (‘rural areas’; ‘hometown’) to visit their relatives. The Hari Raya festivities serve to punctuate further this long-established rhythm of things. Granted, the average family size may have shrunk over the years, as today’s married couples have two or three children rather than the previous generation’s five to ten. But that still leaves most people with dozens of relatives to catch up with. 

On the first day of the holidays, people dress up in traditional bright-coloured (purple, pink, yellow) Malay attire. Men put on baju Melayu (‘Malay clothes’) – an ensemble of loose silk pants and a matching, long-sleeve, V-neck top, with a golden, hand-embroidered (and sometimes very costly) songket sash tied around the waist. A black-velvet, fez-like songkok or, for the more adventurous type, a Malay warrior-style, somewhat complicated triangular headpiece completes the look. Women don an equally colourful baju kurung, a knee-length blouse worn over a long skirt.  

In the morning of the first day of Hari Raya, people ask forgiveness of their parents and siblings for any slights they may have committed or harsh words uttered in the past year. The Malay psyche is marked by humility and being closely in touch with one’s emotions: the sight of adults kneeling on the floor in front of a parent and weeping openly is not uncommon even among Westernized, UK- and Australia-educated professionals. 

Once the family bonds have been acknowledged, the majority of reunions shift their focus to “food, glorious food!” Fittingly, the Malay word for a party is ‘pesta’, similar to the Spanish ‘fiesta’, or feast. Many ladies of the house and their Indonesian maids will literally slave away overnight to prepare for their guests a smorgasbord that looks like a visual encyclopaedia of Malay cooking: the highlights include beef rendang, satay sticks served with peanut sauce, and a plethora of seasonal rice delicacies such as ketupat dumplings lovingly hand-wrapped in palm-leaf pouches, or lemang – glutinous rice cooked in a hollowed bamboo stick lined with banana leaf. Recently, some of these dishes have been listed among Malaysia’s national heritage. For example, rendang is mentioned in a Malay literature classic Hikayat Amir Hamzah (Amir Hamzah’s Chronicles), proving its existence as early as the 1550s, shortly after the demise, at the hands of Portuguese colonisers, of the Malacca sultanate. The origins of lemang date even further back, to the heyday of Malaysia’s aboriginal (orang asli) cultures. 

Just as the Malay language is a borrowing language, the Malay culture has always been open to external influences – from Arabic tradition and attire through ‘jolly’ English-style fun and games to the visual splendour of Bollywood. For its part, the Raya custom of giving children (or elderly parents; after all, any custom can be reinterpreted to suit the modern context) pocket money in small, red and green-coloured envelopes, has been adopted from Chinese New Year celebrations, along with the term ‘angpaw’ (a Hokkien-dialect equivalent of Mandarin hong bao / Cantonese lai see, meaning ‘red envelope’). 

The yearly indulgence is not without its critics: they point out that the higher material standard of living that is reflected in the holiday excess may have taken away from the original spirit of giving. Whereas Islam encourages its followers to reach out consistently to other people, the modern-day “open house” gatherings are held exclusively during the Eid season. Instead of giving food to the poor, the communal meal is often used as an occasion to network with business associates, important clients, government officers and other “special people”. Much too often, it is hard to resist the temptation to show off one’s status symbols such as the latest expansion to the family bungalow, a newly-renovated interior and, implicitly, one’s wherewithal to feed and entertain hundreds of friends and relatives for days on end. 

What is encouraging in the Malaysian context is the holiday’s openness and inclusiveness towards the country’s sizable and predominantly non-Muslim minorities – Chinese, Indian, Siamese, Eurasian, aboriginal and others. It is not an exaggeration to say this openness towards diversity has to be seen to be believed. This year, during my annual visit to a Malay friend’s house, I ran into a smartly-dressed Malaysian-Chinese family bearing a gift hamper. Are they neighbours, or perhaps a part of the family, I enquired of my friend. Oh no, not at all, he answered. Then the families must have known each other for a long time? Wrong again. In the end, I learned that the forty-something Chinese lady’s name was Karen, and she was Christian. A few years ago she shared a hospital room with my friend’s seventy-plus-year-old mother. Karen, a mother of one, communicates mostly in Cantonese and English; my friend's mother, who raised eight children, understands only Malay. Yet somehow they managed to come to know each other. Since then, not one big festival has gone by without the two families getting together.  

Similarly, the Malaysian Prime Minister’s open-house celebration, held in the futuristic new capital city of Putrajaya, drew a crowd of 50,000, coming from all racial, ethnic and social segments of the society. The newspapers, local and foreign, often lament what they describe as Malaysia’s racial polarisation – and as in every multiracial society, tensions and hidden resentment are inevitable. But if this is the situation ‘on the ground’, then surely the Malaysian spirit of muhibbah – respect and tolerance for other communities’ way of life – is alive and well. 

by Martin Králik

One Million – and still counting…

I think that the world’s one and a half billion speakers of English have been aware for some time that the language is not only unprecedentedly widespread, but easily outstrips other tongues in terms of vocabulary. Not satisfied with its twin sources of Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman French, English has, over the centuries, ruthlessly mugged languages ranging from Sanskrit, Latin and ancient Greek to Hindi, Malay, modern French, Italian and Navajo.

One would have thought that the number of words in Global English was countless. Now, however, they have been counted. A Texan organisation going by the name of the Global Language Monitor has announced that English will acquire (invent, mug, discover?) its one-millionth word on 10 June 2009. Wow! (Is ‘wow’ a word?).

One million used to be an impressive tally in the mid-20th century, whether we were referring to dollars, galaxies or rabbits in Australia, but, used as we are to fiscal deficits of tens of billions or bail-outs of trillions, the announcement of a million-size vocabulary might now be less than a sensation. That apart, however, who is the authority here? Unlike the French, Britain and the USA have no austere academies to define linguistic or cultural norms and limits. How should we feel about this outfit in Austin, Texas? George Bush territory? Resisting the temptation to be facetious, might we yet ask, who did the counting and what criteria were used? If people disagree about the total, can we have a re-count?

Critics fall into three camps. The first says that the number is too high. Most college dictionaries list 200,000 to 300,000 words. Even the indomitable Oxford English Dictionary can only scrape together 600,000. Literary pundits in times past have counted 20,000 to 30,000 words in Shakespeare’s works and between 50,000 and 60,000 in Churchill’s tomes. Apparently no other author comes close. Most 20th century estimates of the entire language’s vocabulary clung to a figure around the 500,000 mark.

Be that as it may, the second camp of critics – the ones who say one million is too low – seems to come in with more compelling arguments. If we look at verbs and agree that ‘am’, ‘is’ and ‘are’ are different words, then so are ‘give’, ‘gives’, ‘gave’, ‘given’ and ‘giving’. This would bump up an estimated number of 50,000 verbs to 250,000, which makes quite a difference to our ultimate total. We seem to have no problems with adjectives (white, black, good, bad) and nouns sheep and deer are OK, but if we insist that cat/cats are two, that would give us another 50,000 nouns to chalk up. This problem is a minor one in English, for if we try to count the number of words in a (rich) language like Finnish, we find that nouns decline 15 ways, all with separate meanings, so that talo (house) appears as talo, talon, taloa, talolla, talolle, talolta, talossa, taloon, talosta, talotta, taloksi, taloin, taloineen and talona. This is bad enough, but these words have plural forms (talot, taloissa, etc.) which means that each noun has 28 distinct forms.

In Finnish, therefore, nouns could not be tallied at 50,000 words, but at 50,000 x 28 = 1,400,000, which would make it (when you add in a complex verb conjugation system) arguably the world’s most prolific tongue!

But let’s get back to English, for the ‘too few’ camp has more powerful arguments which might encourage them to challenge Finnish. The Oxford Dictionary lists 47,000 words which it describes as ‘obsolete’ but which nevertheless belong to English linguistic history (who decides when a word becomes obsolete?). English, as the major language of science, abounds in hundreds of thousands (at least) of scientific words.  There are apparently one million named insect species! Then, there is the hyphen dilemma. If thirty-one, thirty-two and thirty-three are separate words, then so are two-hundred-and-fifty-three, etc. So by counting in this manner one can add in another million.

We are clearly coming up against the question: what is a word? (third camp of critics). Robert Beard (PhD Linguistics) tells us for a start that there is no such thing as a word. They may appear as such written down, but when spoken they do not have separate existences (with beginnings and endings) but simply stream out as lexemes and morphemes. Lexemes are noun, verb, adjective and adverb stems (box, speak, friend) while morphemes are everything else including suffixes, prefixes, etc. In this combination, ‘run’ can become ‘runner’. Few among us would define ‘-er’ as a word, but there is nevertheless an added meaning. I often wonder, when someone says “Whaddyaknow?!” if this is a question, an interpolation or interjection or simply an utterance of surprise, but in any case, how many words is it? The third camp also debate whether we should count words like ‘welkin’ (fairly familiar as Shakespearean for ‘sky’), Lancashire dialect words such as ‘chowf’, ‘powfagged’ and ‘baggin’ (pulling a face, exhausted, and food to take down the mine) and domesticated foreign imports such as ‘spaghetti’ and ‘hors d’oeuvre’. 

Finally, do we actually need a million words? A University of Chicago professor said recently that the average American uses about 7,500 words a day. I would dispute this. Studies of British workers’ speech suggest this figure should be closer to 750. Ogden’s “Basic English” asserted that anything could be said using his list of 850 words and this seems fairly feasible if we count ‘turn’ as one word but exploit its phrasal verb facilities (turn up, turn down, turn on, turn off, turn in, etc.).

Yorkshire’s Bob Appleyard, popping in to see what his butcher has today, needs no verbs at all!

“Owt?”  

“Nowt.” 

“Reet.”

I asked a Finnish friend of mine if he could summon up 10,000 words, as an Italian businessman does in a 20-minute presentation. “Yes,” he replied, “in a lifetime.” He told me confidentially that he only needs two phrases to travel round the world, though he has learnt them in English, French, German, Spanish and Chinese. “What are they?” I asked. “I love you” and “my friend will pay.”

by Richard D. Lewis

The Possessive Apostrophe

Currently there is a raging furore among academics and local politicians over the decision of Birmingham City Council to remove the possessive apostrophe from street signs. While this action raises rather serious issues concerning the preservation of unique features of the English language, I cannot help seeing the funny side of this dispute.

The fact that this initiative emanates from Birmingham (“Good old Brum”) rather than from established literary centres such as Oxford or Cambridge, may at first strike one as strange. Is it on the cards that such dignified and august bodies as The Apostrophe Protection Society, The Plain English Society and the Plain Language Commission (all of whom have leapt to defend the apostrophe) can actually be defeated by a certain Martin Mulaney, whose title is Chairman of Birmingham City Council’s Transportation Scrutiny Committee?

While the apostrophe is frequently misused, also omitted by a substantial proportion of the British public, is it not true that, to some extent, we are fond of it? For one thing, other major languages hardly have one. It might have been introduced into English from French in the 16th century (according to Crystal) but in later ceturies we have enjoyed almost exclusive use of this charming squiggle.

The phrase: “The teacher’s son’s classroom” may lack elegance, but is surely better than the roundabout “La salle de classe du fils du professeur.” Similarly “John’s sister’s programme” is more succinct than “El programa de la hermana de Juan”. Pragmatic German and Nordic languages simply add ‘s’ to denote the genitive: Deutschlands Wetter; Danmarks kong; Sveriges huvudstad; while Romance languages have to resort to a variety of forms:

French: de, de la, du, des

Spanish: de, de la, del, de las, de los

Italian: di, della, del, dello, delle, dei, degli

Portuguese: de, da, do, das, dos

The apostrophe originated from a confused past and that confusion has yet to subside. For many English people punctuation as a whole is a minefield of error and inconsistency. The “dog’s tail” seems OK, but “the table’s edge” and “the room’s corner” are forbidden. Even commas cause trouble, as we know from Lynn Truss’ lovely book “Eats, Shoots & Leaves” where inside we find that a panda eats shoots and leaves.

As a linguist, I have to take sides. Instinctively I must defend the apostrophe and avoid what John Richards describes as the “dumbing down” of our reading public. However, the characteristics of modern journalism (using writing as a medium for fleeting speech) and the pervasive influence of texting would suggest that our little squiggle has a bleak future in the 21st century and may not survive it.

by Richard D. Lewis

Georgian on their mind

US, French and other western political leaders who have expressed sympathy or support for Georgia in its recent conflict with Russia may not be aware of certain linguistic factors which complicate the dispute. Language is often a root of strife in the Caucasus – an area home to 40-50 indigenous tongues.

No other region of comparable size has such a dense collection of ethnic groups, apart from Papua New Guinea and certain parts of the Amazon where jungles are so thick that small but nearby tribes rarely encounter one another. In the Caucasus, big mountains serve the same purpose, offering small ethnicities a natural refuge against more powerful or aggressive ones.

Painstaking research has enabled scholars to divide the Caucasian languages into three broad categories, though hardly any of them are mutually intelligible. Moreover, they seem to be unrelated to any other languages on earth, though a few linguists, in some desperation, have suggested that Georgian has some links with Basque. While the Basque intelligentsia have shown little enthusiasm to embrace this hypothesis, there is even less liking for the Georgian tongue among the immediate neighbours, particularly South Ossetia. Although Georgians and South Ossetians have co-existed in the valley around Tskhinvali for many centuries, the language divide between the two groups is a source of perpetual friction. Both sides claim to have arrived there first. South Ossetians regard it as their country and the home of the Ossetian language, which is related to Farsi (Iranian). The Georgians who live in South Ossetia speak of course Georgian, but until the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1990 both sides had a common lingua franca in Russian.

After 1990 Georgians stopped using Russian and expected the South Ossetians to learn Georgian for the purpose of communication. Here comes the rub: Georgian is one of the most difficult tongues to learn in the world, with a fearsome array of diabolically irregular verbs, ridiculous consonant clusters such as “gvprtskvni,” an archaic base-20 counting system and an alphabet differing from any other on earth. South Ossetians hate learning Georgian just as English schoolchildren would revolt against Chinese. How they envied North Ossetians, who could go on being comfortable in Russian with the Russians who live among them!

Political commentators may not realise to what extent the visceral tug of one’s mother tongue will affect the choice of regional political allegiance. While many ex-Soviet satellite states are relieved to be free of the Russian Bear, South Ossetians, on the other hand, may instinctively wish to assert their national identity and culture through their Indo-European language rather than mingle with surrounding tongues such as Svan, Ubykh, Udi, Tsova-Tush, Bzyb and, yes, Georgian.

by Richard D. Lewis