Game theory joke: should English be the national language?

This is a sensitive topic, and I’m not entirely sure where I stand. But there are a lot of strategic issues to it that are fun to discuss.

For now, I’ll just open the topic up. Recently Mind Your Decisions reader Tim sent me a joke that shed a new light on the strategic nature of English as a national language. Let me know what you think, and enjoy!

The joke

A foreign diplomat, looking for directions, pulls up at a bus stop where two Americans are waiting.

“Entschuldigung, koennen Sie Deutsch sprechen?” he asks. The two Americans just stare at him.

“Excusez-moi, parlez vous Francais?” he tries. The two continue to stare.

“Parlare Italiano?” No response.

“Hablan ustedes Espanol?” Still nothing.

The diplomat drives off, extremely disgusted. The first American turns to the second and says, “You know, maybe we should learn a foreign language.”

“Why?” says the other. “That guy knew four languages, and it didn’t do him any good.”



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  • Cody

    This is a great joke. I myself speak two languages, English and Swedish… The interesting thing is that my decision to learn Swedish actually didn’t do me a bit of good, since probably 90-95% of Swedes speak English anyways (but it is fun sometimes). I understand both sides of the issue… To decide on one worldwide language would anger and alienate a lot of people, and yet, in a purely strategic line of reasoning, it would provide numerous advantages to everyone. The thing is–deciding on “which” language is the hard part.

  • http://abhisheksainani.blogspot.com Abhishek

    Awesome joke !!
    I agree with Cody, deciding on “which” language is the hard part!

  • G. Pearson

    It is a funny joke. I will send it to my Belgian friend who speaks six languages.

    He and I have discussed America’s language issues. I pointed out to him that most Americans do at some point study at least one foriegn language, usually French or Spanish.

    The problem is that language skills erode if not used. Unless they live near Mexico or the Francophone parts of Canada, most Americans just aren’t getting enough use out of what they studied to keep the skills and vocabulary up. I know that my German has become very rusty from lack of use.

    A European can often travel a mere 30 miles and be someplace that speaks a different languauge. Not so for most Americans.

    Which reminds me of another joke. What is the difference between America and Europe? In America, 100 years is considered a long time ago, and in Europe, 100 miles is considered a long distance to travel.

  • Hoopz

    G. Pearson: it’s true that language skills erode if not used, and America is a pretty bad environment for this, but you can avoid this mostly by immersion-style teaching.

    Fact is, most language /education/ in America sucks. It is taught by teachers who themselves barely speak the language—let alone pronounce it as a native speaker would—and just teach from a textbook.

    I’m one of those pesky polyglot Belgians, and here’s why my language skills are so good: my (public school) language teachers taught their entire class in the language being taught, and they all spoke without significant accents. This forced us to learn how to think in the language being taught, and means that even today, the language patterns are firmly stuck in my head. By the time I graduated from high school, I knew Dutch, English, French and a bit of German. Today I can only really speak two of those, but I could pick it all up again within a couple of days if I went to Paris, Montreal or Berlin.

    Of course, Belgium’s focus on language education also means that there is still a lot of Latin and (ancient) Greek being taught. Not only are they “gateway drugs” to a lot of European languages, but their antique grammar is so different from our modern usage, that you can’t help but pick up a huge amount of insight into how we form meaning in sentences (independent of the language you speak).

    While it is true that there will always be more languages you don’t know than languages you do know, this is a stupid excuse to be a monoglot. Learning another language enriches you, and opens the door to experiencing a different culture from their own perspective, rather than through tourist guides and phrase books.

  • Joon

    The existence of a foreign diplomat without knowledge of English is questionable, but I agree that it’s probably the most useful language to know. However, Americans might be shocked how useless English in most of the world.

    Europe is unique because of the level of international communication that exists there. Try an Asian country where English is part of the mandatory school curriculum, and you’ll still find yourself in trouble without knowing the native language.

    An interesting note: Subway systems in Seoul and Taipei have English under the Korean and Chinese; Paris only has French. The Louvre, zero english.

  • Nicolas Francone

    I have a couple of comments about the joke.

    I’m french but i’ve lived in Colombia for 14 years, and I speak french, spanish and english.

    I think that everyone should learn english, as everyone (in europ) spoke frech in the XII to XIV century, because it’s the most commonly used language in bussiness and politics around the wold, and those a topics that almost everyone has even a slight interest in.

    However, I don’t think that it’s acceptable that people from the USA (this is diferent from americans, as america is a continent, not a country) think that they shouldn’t or don’t need to know another language, as I think that this line of though is just plain stupid.

    What we all should do, just for the sake of it, is to learn Mandarin, as it’s the most used language in the world, shouldn’t we ?

  • http://www.mindyourdecisions.com/blog/ Presh Talwalkar

    Thanks all for the comments. I think that learning additional languages is usually beneficial individually. Especially since it is arrogant to think one’s own language might maintain dominance. Perhaps it is best to think ahead as countries rise and fall.

  • Brett Thackeray

    There is also the argument that multi-lingual individuals have increased intelligence. I don’t have the studies to site but I’m sure a google search would bring up compelling evidence that by learning a second language you increase your ability to reason and problem solve – not to mention what you learn by glimpsing another culture! And it is fun!

  • M S D’souza

    I am from India and i understand that most people individually speak only one language, Chinese or English or whatever, a learning a second language is considered a BIG thing.

    I can speak 4-5 languages fluently and understand 5-6 more languages spoken in India which includes the non-indigenous English.
    This situation I can relate with the EU, different states speak different languages which differ significantly.

    The only language I really sat down and learnt was French as I travel a lot and though it would be useful.
    Learning a new language, or at least this one was surprisingly not very difficult, if the objective is for day-to-day use. French is practically 60% English. The effort here was to pick up that typical accent.

    And would definitely agree that at least being able to read/understand a new language immediately opens up new cultures, literature, movies, music…

    However one thing for sure, the language which u learn at the home, the very first one, is the one with which u are most emotionally attached with.

  • Corey

    I would like to point out that knowledge of languages is not a precursor to intelligence. The issue with the learning of other languages in the USA is that it isn’t necessary at a young age. It is much easier to learn language during early stages of life.All of my friends that learned multiple languages learned at a young age.

    The USA is a strange place, I admit. Most people have a mixture of ancestral origins and all those origins had their own language which then was forgotten over generations. I am French, English, Iroquoi, German but I speak English and used to be well-versed in French while overseas. If I go back 3 generations all of the languages from the ancestral origins aforementioned were spoken.

    There is no necessity for the learning of other languages at a young age, and luckily, Americans have been fortunate that their language is fairly pervasive in the rest of the world.

  • edwardclayton

    the MASSIVE problem with american education system is not knowledge of foreign languages, which isn’t importnat, english is the global language, at one point it was latin, adn tehn french.

    we need to study Science, science and, oh, and science.

    but, anyway, a lot of british and americans think they are so clever and like it is some major skill being able to speak another language. it isn’t. in europe belgium and india and places everyone speaks several languages because they have access to them and malarky… they are like.. so who the fuck cares.

    science, science, science

  • Ugly American

    There’s only so many hours in a day. Most people would be better off studying probability instead of the subtle variations between Basque dialects. The same concept applies to every language by degrees.

    As for Mandarin, in spoken form it’s really 13 major sub-languages that are not mutually intelligible. As a tonal language with just 400 monosyllables, even the slightest change can yield an entirely different meaning. If you write it down then in theory, everyone uses the same 20,000 symbols and should understand each other. In practice, it’s often easier to use a completely different atonal & alphabetic language like English. This is overwhelmingly the case for technical work. In short, the entire world will not suddenly be using Mandarin in the foreseeable future.

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