The great language divide

Wed 20

When English is your first language you don’t think too much about it.  I often feel inadequate when I meet people with 2 or more languages.  Imagine how Optus employees would go if all of our Singaporean colleagues were not proficient in English?!  And I think about all of those international telecoms conferences, indeed, any international business, where English is the default language no matter your native tongue.  I am lucky to be a native English speaker because I doubt my capacity to master more than one language proficiently.

For non-English speakers language is a barrier.  Several episodes today got me thinking about language. 

Firstly  - jargon.  To compound the challenge for non English speakers, in the developed world our business jargon is a further obstacle.  It’s hard enough to master a language and its nuance, let alone a host of three letter acronyms and made up words. 

This afternoon I presented my draft Communications Strategy.  I am delighted that it was well received.  But of course my paper is full of jargon.  I have been teasing my colleagues here about the amount of jargon the development sector uses – and here I was finding myself baffling everyone.  A section in my plan is called “Collateral List”, which is just an audit of all CAREs current comms materials, was interpreted in the collateral damage sense!!  We had quite some debate!  Particularly sensitive given the term “collateral damage’ was first coined by the US miliary during the Vietnam War to refer to friendly fire.  Curious – I check “collateral” in the dictionary and nowhere is it defined as marketing materials – brochures, fliers etc.  Did we marketeers make it up to make ourselves sound more clever?  Lesson to self was to keep it simple and not let jargon further complicate language.   KISS (oops – another acronym!!) 

Next was the feeling about access to English being a great dividing factor.  This evening I attended a TEDx session at Meta House.  Now I am a great a fan of TED so was pleased to see the mini version TEDx active in Phnom Penh.  However, this was not quite the TED presentations quality I am used to – 2 were self indulgent expressions by 20 somethings  who had found the meaning of life.  (I know – I sound middle-aged!)   But the last speaker was a young Cambodian woman, a blogger Kounila Keo.  http://blueladyblog.com/  She talked about social media and its impact on Cambodian youth.   In the Kingdom of Cambodia freedom of expression is not outlawed, but culturally its not assumed as ones right either.  As well as past (and present) government oppression, there are also the issues of hierarchy and maintaining face.  It was encouraging to see how technology is liberating young Khmers. 

But the Q&A provided another insight.  Kounila blogs in English and she was asked why not in Khmer?  Does she not want to share her experiences with her fellow Cambodians?  She seemed to be a bit uncomfortable with the question, and responded that she wants to connect with the maximum number of people and Khmer is too limiting.  Her choice is consistent with that of most educated Khmers.  I can’t help feeling some anxiety however about emerging language elitism – the English language haves and have nots, and the loss of local language as English is a step up most people in the developing world covert.

But maybe, hopefully, it will all mean a richer world community with more multi-lingual people facilitating greater understanding and harmony

Body language was also on my mind.  Today I farewelled Frank who is on his way back to Australia.  My performance at the airport, tears & hugs, demonstrated love and sadness no matter your language.