Is Language Racist? Culture and Foreign Language Education
What’s up, everybody? Vs. Hello, everyone. Merci mingi vs. Merci beaucoup. Que guay vs. que padre! In all of these respective languages, the phrases mean to communicate the same message. But, it is just a different way of saying it. If the message is the same, should it matter how it was said or who said it? No, probably not. However, that is not how the world is today. We live in a world where language is a reflection of culture. More often than not, language is used as a tool to either oppress or uplift a community. Depending on a history, one might have been uplifted or oppressed. With that being said, how is a language used as a catalyst to create privilege for one group and cause detriment to another? Let’s dive into it.
One would think that a language is standard and that everyone speaks the same way. But that’s not true. In a lot of places, there are a lot of different dialects. Sometimes, some dialects are more preferred than others. But, the question is: how does all this lead to racism or potential cultural bias? Allow me to explain with a little story about myself.
When I was in university, I was working on my minor in French. I have been studying the French language since I was in the 2nd grade, so grammar-wise, none of the information was new to me. However, the microaggressions and bias were. I had a classmate, named *Lila,* who was from Benin. In a lot of countries in Africa, including Benin, French is the official language. With that being said, Lila was a native speaker of the language. Her French was excellent, of course. But according to our middle-aged white female professor, Lila did not speak French “articulately, was a horrible writer, and needed training from her to become better.” How is this possible? Lila was a native speaker. Quite frankly, Lila probably knew more French than our American professor. However, because they spoke a different dialect of French in Benin, Lila's French wasn’t “proper” or “respectable” enough. So, our professor, going into white savior mode, thought she was helping Lila by exposing her to France French. Because somehow that would make Lila more presentable and respected in the francophone community.
Another classmate of mine, her name was *Annie*, was from Belgium, another francophone country. She was a native speaker as well. From my observations in class, she did not receive the same vitriol and commentary from our professor that Lila received.
Growing up, as a young French student, I didn’t learn that they were non-European countries that spoke French until I was in high school which is very sad. There was an entire community of francophone cultures and dialects that was erased from my education because the school system seems to favor European culture over any other culture. In school, I learned about the history of the Eiffel Tower and l’Arc de Triomphe instead of the Carnival festival in Haiti. My teachers would go on about how amazing baguettes and croissants (which they are, don’t get me wrong). However, they mentioned nothing about Alloco from the Ivory Coast or Ravitoto from Madagascar. Lastly, my teachers always raved about how great it was that so many people around the world spoke French. But, they never mentioned why that is due to France's brutal history of colonization.
To take it a step further, think about the foreign languages that are available to study in our education system. Up until recently, students could take German, French, and Spanish. Now, German is beginning to be phased out in favor of Mandarin Chinese. Believe it or not, many schools still offer Latin as a foreign language even though it’s a dead language. Dead language meaning that it is no longer used in everyday communication. According to the Lingoda Online Language School, more people speak Hindi than French and Spanish. Furthermore, although more people speak French and Spanish, Arabic only slightly trails behind with over 274 million speakers while French has 280 million. Lastly, the Japanese have about 128 million speakers. With all that in mind, why does the American education system put such an emphasis on learning European languages when Asian, Latin American, and African languages have just as many if not more speakers than European languages? So much so that our education system would rather have American students learn a dead language rather than a language where millions of people speak it, read it, and write it every day. As a society, we’re putting more value on one language and culture over another.
Not only does this mentality prevail in the American education system and the Francophone community, but it happens in the American English-speaking community as well. If you identify as African-American, raise your hand if you’ve ever been told or it has been implied to you that because you do not speak like the rappers on television that you are “articulate.” In other words, because you do not utilize slang” or other variations of African American vernacular English (AAVE), that you are “articulate” and “not like the others?” I’m raising both hands and both legs. In that way, our education system and the people in our society consciously (or subconsciously) put more value and respectability on one dialect than the other. At face value, language is just language. Of course, it evolves. However, it becomes dangerous when people start to utilize it to create a system of oppression with it.
What do you all think? Does anybody have similar stories? Let me know what you think in the comments.