Promoting a language monoculture

The article Are translation apps making the learning of foreign languages obsolete? by John McWhorter (NY Times) discusses the idea of a language monoculture, playing with the idea that, if a language can be translated to any other language, what is the need for learning the target language?

“In Europe, nine out of 10 students study a foreign language. In the United States, only one in five do. Between 1997 and 2008, the number of American middle schools offering foreign languages dropped from 75 percent to 58 percent. Between 2009 and 2013, one American college closed its foreign language program; between 2013 and 2017, 651 others did the same.

“At first glance, these statistics look like a tragedy. But I am starting to harbor the odd opinion that maybe they are not. What is changing my mind is technology.

“Before last Christmas, for example, I was introduced to ChatGPT by someone who had it write an editorial on a certain topic in my “style.” Intriguing enough. But then it was told to translate the editorial into Russian. It did so, instantly — and I have it on good authority that, while hardly artful, the Russian was quite serviceable.”

That’s exactly the arrogance I expect from someone who has no respect for communicating with others, someone who doesn’t consider at all the burden imposed on others by their own need to communicate in only a single language.

Americans can often be kind of bad at this. They have no respect for their own language, so they have no trouble at all considering a “serviceable” translation adequate for the vassals of their empire. I just cannot conceive of what life will be like for the poor empirical subjects who get to mediate their communications through shitty, inadequate apps—and they will be shitty and inadequate, but most people won’t notice—even though they can speak English.

I’m not sure what the play here is, though. Most people are barely capable of learning their native language—and most fail miserably at that. What’s the point of learning a second language even less well?

Maybe knowing multiple languages is a form of snobbery. I would, of course, concur, but snobs never think that they’re snobs.

Instead, I think that learning languages teaches you how to learn other things better, it reveals connections between cultures, it allows you to empathize better. I’m not at all surprised to hear that Americans are trying to automate it because the members of this culture—even the best exemplars of it—seems to be congenitally incapable of thinking of anyone but themselves.

They buy the myth that they can all have as much of what they happen to like—and there is no need to consider any repercussions or consequences. If you can afford it, you can have it. I just had a conversation with very nice people who could only conceive of the concept of not using too much water in the shower if you, as in a camp shower, actually had to physically pay directly for it. Otherwise, if the boiler can pump it, it’s yours. It appears magically.

But I digress. Maybe with languages, it will be sufficient to have a machine write your intent and hope for the best. These people have long since given up on the notion of connecting with strangers, or even considering members of other countries to be human, so they’re not giving up much.

Right now, the machines mangle everything and will lead to more miscommunication, but when I see how Americans deal with their own culture in English, they’re just exporting what they do to each other to the rest of the world. Perhaps it’s up to the rest of the world to resist it better.