Bilingualism and You

-An essay on the impact of languages on culture

Posted on July 4th 2024, written by Omar Said

Here at EGS Tutoring, it is well known amongst our staff that we pride ourselves on our bilingualism and ability to work with Francophone as well as Anglophone students across the country. The reason for this is quite simple: being bilingual allows us as a company to work with more students and provide our services to a wider clientele. On the business side of things, that reason is the only one that matters. I don’t think such a reason is foreign to many of you either. Its quite likely many of your parents have enrolled you in French courses or schools exclusively to allow you to access a greater variety of opportunities once you begin your careers. In these circumstances, French seems more like a marketable skill than an actual character defining trait.

Now, you might be asking yourself why I find it necessary to share that little nugget of insight with you. Well, it's because, on a human level, there exist far more reasons beyond selling oneself that justify learning different languages, reasons that I believe are both important to us as an organization and to you as a student.

To begin, I'd like for you to understand a little concept called "lingua franca". I promise I will double back on this later and explain why it is relevant, but bear with me for now. A lingua franca can be defined as "a language that is adopted as a common language between speakers whose native languages are different"1. For example, if a man from Mexico and a man from Japan decided to meet and do business with each other, they wouldn't speak Spanish or Japanese and would instead end up speaking a language they both understand, a language that serves as a bridge to allow them to communicate; in the world of today, this is usually English. English is, for better or for worse, the lingua franca of the world. If one wants to be able to participate and engage in dialogue on an international level, being able to speak English is a must. On the world stage, being able to speak a tribal language or a specific and nuanced dialect of an unrecognized tongue means little if you don't have some foundation in English to back it up.

Now, why does this matter? Well, it's because viewing language through this reductive lens of business and diplomacy inherently stifles our cultural diversity as a people. I come from a mostly unrecognized country birthed through a violent civil war, the language I speak (while holding some value) is almost incomparable to English or even French for that matter when discussing economic value. Some would even say the fact I knew I needed to learn both of these other languages (English and French) before my own is proof enough that my mother tongue clearly isn't practical enough to have any real use. Yet, even with all of that said, language isn’t about value. Language is about, before anything else, relationships. We use languages to communicate, build bridges, connect. Through those connections, we build families, communities, and cultures. Within my native language lies a world of meaning and understanding that can't be directly translated to any one language, words and sayings whose images live on exclusively within me and those who understand my words. For example, did you know, that even considering how often we see localizations of Japanese to English, the Japanese language is still viewed as one of the hardest languages to translate in the world? Did you know that just a single word of Japanese can (depending on context) require multiple sentences of the English language to get even close to mimicking the word's deep and profound meaning? 

The cultures, ideals and images that live within the languages we speak are not only worthwhile but are an essential part of maintaining and passing on our way of life to the people of tomorrow. French is very much the same in that regard, the language holds expressions, images and stories within. It safeguards pieces of culture that, if not protected, may be lost to time forever. You might have learned French for the opportunities and the scholarships and the careers. But, through you, an entire culture and community of Francophones live on. As citizens of the world, that’s something worth thinking about.

Works Cited

1.     “Lingua Franca - Quick Search Results | Oxford English Dictionary.” Oed.com, 2023, www.oed.com/search/dictionary/?scope=Entries&q=lingua+franca.