The Search for a “Global” Spanish
Francisco Moreno-Fernández (Instituto Cervantes at Harvard University — Universidad de Alcalá)
A tribute to Umberto Eco
In search of a universal language
In 1993, Umberto Eco published The Search for the Perfect Language, in which he traced the motives that had led Europeans to search for a unique and universal language that would fulfill the needs considered vital and pressing to each era. Accordingly, Ramon Llull searched for a philosophical language, which would be applicable for the three religions of the Book. During the Renaissance, following the Lutheran schism, Europe sough religious and political harmony. By the nineteenth century, Lucian Delormel had proposed a universal language to disseminate the achievements of the Century of Lights, within the same time period Joseph de Maimieux devised a “pasigraph” or “art of writing for all” that sought to facilitate communication between Europe and Africa, as much for evangelization, as to simplify diplomatic and military operations. In more modern times, a desire has even emerged to find a language that would permit intergalactic communication.
In the English-speaking worlds of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the desire for a unique, universal and perfect language stemmed from rather pragmatic reasons. The interest was based, on the one hand, on a desire to communicate the scientific discoveries of the time and, on the other, on the need to facilitate contact between sailors and merchants. It is not by chance then that during the same time period the superiority of the English language was being defended against German, for example, as the most perfect of all languages. The Welshman Rowland Jones stated in his book The Circles of Gomer (London, 1771), referring to English, that “no other language can be closer to the universal language or to a natural precision and correspondence with ideas and things.” Similarly, it is not a coincidence that on the cover of The Universal Character (1657), by Cave Beck, a British Puritan is depicted as delivering documents that detailed his proposal of a universal language to a Hindu, an American Indian, and an African, all around a western-style table. It was the era in which European imperialism was forged, in which education, conquest, and progress were considered “the White Man’s Burden,” the burden that the white man must bear with resignation, as described by the poem by Rudyard Kipling.
Interestingly, during the same centuries of eagerness to find a universal language, there were those who voiced their dissent. One of the most prominent voices of opposition came from Joseph Marie Degerando, author of Des Signes et de l ‘Art de penser considérés dans leurs rapports mutuels (1799–1800), in which he affirmed that travelers, scientists and merchants — those who would, in theory, have the greatest need for a universal language — were a minority, as most citizens lived perfectly content expressing themselves in their own language. Degerando argues that though the traveler is interested in understanding the locals of other regions, they do not need to understand the traveler, who may in fact benefit from the advantage of hiding his intentions in relation to the people he visits.
The global languages
The arguments made by these authors may seem outlandish, to say the least, but are in fact not so far removed from contemporary thinking. Suffice it to substitute “universal language” for “global language”, to observe the place occupied by the English language in international communications and to reflect on the type of commercial relationships that the more developed countries, in large part English-speaking, establish with the least developed territories of the world. Perhaps, for many, English is the “perfect language” that has been sought after for centuries, but the reality is undoubtedly more complex. In the same vein, arguments that oppose universal languages evoke some of the more habitual claims of the so-called antisystemic globaphobic groups.
Having established that an interest in international languages is not a matter of the last century, but rather a concept that dates back a long way yet shares characteristics with the present, my purpose is then to briefly reflect on the concept of “global language” in relation to the English and Spanish languages. The characterization of English as a “global language” has become universal in the last decades, to the point of being the main focus books as renowned as English as a global language (1997), by David Crystal, or How English Became the Global Language (2013), by David Northup. These books portray the universalization of English as a benign process, derived from the global framework of commercial relations and, in any event, the inevitable consequence of a moderate imperialism first by the United Kingdom and later by the United States.
On the other hand, the characterization of “global” for the Spanish language does not enjoy such wide acceptance, though there are some proposals in which it is alluded to in this sense: Mar-Molinero repeatedly uses the term “global Spanish” in his work (2007; 2010) and the newspaper El País, of Spain, is described in Spanish as “The global newspaper”, though it is published in both English and Portuguese editions. In addition, works dedicated specifically to a globalized Spanish have been published, as is evident from the title of the book Language ideologies and the Globalization of ‘Standard’ Spanish (2012), by Darren Paffey. This point of departure, raises certain fundamental questions which I will endeavor to address briefly and concisely: What is a global language? Is English really a global language? Can Spanish be considered a global language?
So as to not cause any further intrigue, I’ll hasten to explain my major premise, which is the following: in the history of humanity there has never existed a global language and it would be difficult for such an occurrence to come to pass. Consequently this means affirming that English is not a global language and that, of course, neither is Spanish. My line of thinking must then begin, logically, with a basic research question: what is a global language?
In numerous sources the following characteristics have been proposed and frequently discussed as perquisites in order to qualify a language as “global”: to have a large native community; to serve as a communication vehicle for different ethnocultural realities; to be used for international communication in the field of trade and finance; to serve for international relations; to be used in powerful media; and to be used for scientific and technological communication (Ianni 2000: 209–210). In addition to these characteristics, others have been debated such as: officiality in different countries, having standardization, or having a note-worthy literary production. All these characteristics, for the most part, can be found in English, when they are not in fact derived from the nature of English itself. The ease with which this language is acquired has also been noted by prominent writers such as Fernando Pessoa and George Steiner. But, setting aside the impropriety of distinguishing between easy languages and difficult languages - lest not forget that Pessoa, Portuguese, grew up in South Africa and that Steiner, French, lived in the United States since he was 10 years old; the characteristics which have been deemed emblematic of a global language can also be identified in many so-called international languages, such as French, Spanish or Russian.
However, an “international language” is not the same as a “global language”. Global languages should be characterized with reference to the factors that imply “globalization”. Though not the time to review the various definitions of «globalization» offered in current literature (Steger 2009), let us resort to a single definition which is reasonably comprehensive and applicable to both linguistic and cultural issues. This definition originates from Thomas Eriksen (2007), who outlines eight defining factors of globalization, which can be projected on to the concept of “global language”. These factors are:
1. Disembedding
2. Acceleration
3. Standardization
4. Interconnectedness
5. Movement
6. Mixing
7. Vulnerability
8. Reembedding
According to these criteria, a global language need not necessarily be tied to a territory; it would be subject to standardization derived from international agreements; it would facilitate the connection of multiple agents through different channels and means; it would be subject to human movement due to migration, pleasure or business; it would experience mixing in its form and its uses; it would be more vulnerable to processes of external change; and it would also acknowledge its function as a local or regional instrument of identity. At first glance, all these characteristics can be seen in the English language, just as the use of Spanish also reveals the occurrence of these factors, with differences in degree in one case and in another. The point, however, is that they can also be found in other languages.
The unsuccessful search for the global language
The conditions that maintain an absence of global languages derive from different fields of study: history, biology, sociology, psychology, and sociolinguistics. Some can be explained in a generic way; others are employed for the sole purpose of the English language in the contemporary era. The history of humanity tells us that there has never been a global language: it wasn’t Sumerian, or Aramaic, or Sanskrit, or Greek, or Latin (Ostler 2005). Of these, it could be that Greek and mainly Latin fulfilled the aforementioned qualities, but to propose them formally as global languages would be, at a minimum, to err of Eurocentrism. Undoubtedly, the material conditions of the ancient world made it impossible to shape an authentic global language. These conditions began to change drastically as of the sixteenth century; nonetheless, we continue the search for the perfect language, the global language.
The impact of history is compounded by another factor which, though seemingly unrelated, does not contradict it: the varied and variable essence of human nature. Sociobiology, proposed by Edward Wilson in the seventies, although contentious, would support the idea that diversity is in the very essence of human nature and behavior, and can be explained in genetic and Darwinian terms. Adaptation to specific environments, including to sociocultural elements, condition the evolution of humanity as a whole and its manifestations more specifically, among which are languages. It could be said that there is an innate tendency in humans to seek diversity which leads them to favor or prefer variety, to prefer alternative solutions to conventional ones, a preference which is conditioned by each specific environment and that relates directly with other fundamental concepts, such as «identity» and «idiosyncrasy».
As far as the contemporary world is concerned, the sociology of language, has established two facts that hinder the consolidation of a single global language. On the one hand, history shows that language impositions do not work in the long term, unless there are other non-imposing factors that facilitate the displacement of weak linguistic groups by stronger ones. The sociopolitical imposition of the Russian language on Eastern European countries functioned temporarily for transnational communication between the countries of the communist bloc, but, once the bloc was dissolved, a feeling of aversion towards Russian by the new nations, in conjunction with the identification of each territory with its historic language, led to the abandonment or displacement of Russian in many aspects of social life and to the emergence of political conflicts frequently reflected in languages (Busch 2010). This phenomenon can be observed in the Baltic republics, and could also be witnessed in the events that unfolded in the former Yugoslavia. Where the English language is concerned, the aversion towards learning it at any educational level is solidified by the simple fact that it is an imposition whose supposed benefits are perceived as distant from the point of view of students. Consequently, in pedagogical literature there are many titles related to motivation for English learning (Hussin 2001). Nevertheless, the universalization of information and communication technologies, as well as the progressive increase in travel between different regions of the world, is leaving many languages with a space that may have previously seemed reserved for English. Accordingly, Ulrich Ammon contends that it is reasonable for various languages to end up acquiring or maintaining global functions (2010: 120).
In regard to English, geographic concentration tells us that it covers a territory that hardly exceeds 30% of the Earth’s surface (Tamarón 1995), thus, even though it is the largest percentage, it cannot be said that its geographic domain is global. Neither can the native English-speaking population be described as global, since as of 2009 it falls below that of Chinese and Spanish. On the other hand, some authors have based their global characterization on other facts, such as the almost exclusive use of English in aeronautical and maritime navigation or English’s massive presence in social media and throughout the Internet. Indeed all these fields reveal a predominance of the English language, but they also demonstrate how its relative impact is reduced in favor of other languages of supposed lesser scope, such as Spanish, in the international arena, or Chinese, Japanese and Indonesian, in their respective areas of influence. The increasing online presence of different language agents comes at the expense of the relative impact of the English language and its supposed globality. As a counter-argument, it is important to note the high level of knowledge of English as a second and foreign language, with figures potentially reaching 1 billion users, and its predominance in the field of international publications, particularly those devoted to science and technology. It is based on these attribute that they base what they call “global language”.
In addition, the idiomatic reality of the English language is that it is not as influential or homogeneous as is often assumed. Regarding the large community of English speakers with limited proficiency -limited because it is a second or third language or was learned in contexts removed from native communities-the facts reveal that globality is not as such, given that it is a language that only economic, technological and scientific elites dominate sufficiently for communication. When referring of the use of English within the phenomenon known as a “global tourism” (Jaworsky and Thurlow 2010), the fact that most of this tourism also belongs to the aforementioned elites is not taken into account. The search for globality is not fulfilled within politics either, with the exception of certain processes with an international scope, since politics are usually practiced in a very contextualized manner, which implies the use of local languages, but not of a foreign language, regardless of how franca and global that language may be. Many politicians tend to emerge from local communities and as a result their command of English is, at best, irregular.
Similarly, the wide use of acquired English as a second or foreign language is giving rise to the formation of a new linguistic variety known as “World Standard Spoken English”; interestingly the responsibility for the development of this new English has fallen on non-native speakers, not native speakers. Salikoko Mufwene (2010: 46) reveals that native English-speakers maintain their version of English with a measure of arrogance and usually consider the “World Standard Spoken English” as a set of deviations. Those attitudes only shift when while living in other countries, native speakers discover that their children must accommodate themselves to the English of non-native speakers to be understood. English, due to the sociogeographical dynamics of the language, tends to “indigenize”, to hybridize or, as discussed earlier, to mix and relocate as per David Graddol prediction in 1997. It is a great simplifying process, dialect or antiglobal, if you will, whose results already present specific terms such as Chinglish, Japanglish, Konglish, Spanglish, or generic, such as Engrish or Globish (McCrumb 2010) at a time where it is already common to speak of “English languages” (Englishes) (Kachru 2001, Pennycook 2007, Kirkpatrick 2010). Under these conditions, it seems that the more that English expands, the less the results of its expansion resemble English. Many of these linguistic outcomes are unexpected, surprising mixtures that could be interpreted from a rhizomatic structure model or, as current sociolinguistics does, from a concept of “super-diversity” (Bloomaert 2010). Another alternative route would be the generalization of a “Basic English”, but it would hardly serve to satisfy basic communication needs. Mufwene’s conclusion on this is clear and concise: global English is a utopia.
Globalization and Spanish language
In May 2009, Juan Luis Cebrián affirmed at the headquarters of the Cervantes Institute that, “Spanish is a global language” (although not the language of globalization) and this very idea of the global nature of the language has been exposed in a myriad of statements and publications: in 2010, the Cervantes Institute itself published a volume entitled Spanish, global language. La Economia in 2016; the newspaper El País spoke of Spanish as a global language that adapts to networks (01/20/2016). In other cases, Spanish has been characterized as a “universal language” (Rodríguez-Ponga 1998) and on countless occasions as an “international language” (Moreno Fernández and Otero 2007; Bravo 2008). Beyond the definitions given for each of these labels, the truth is that the Spanish language, as far as its knowledge, use, study and prestige are concerned, offers solid arguments to accept those labels. Spanish has a level of standardization that is highly developed and well-established universally, benefiting from an academic linguistic policy that, without ignoring the pluricentrism of learned use, strengthens the coherence of normative criteria (Garrido 2010). In addition, it presents a broad and vital community of speakers, in dynamic growth and cohesion, great users of social networks and the Internet, and great consumers of social media in Spanish. Its role as a second language in the United States foreshadows its excellent prospects for international presence and recognition, in the short and medium term.
Spanish also offers a profile with features beneficial to its globalization. On the one hand, it is a language that operates from the bottom up in terms of its international dissemination in education, in the media, or in international organizations (Bravo 2008). Mar-Molinero, not always precise in her interpretations of the international reality of Spanish, has affirmed, this time accurately, that Spanish operates globally as an anonymous language, as an authentic and rooted language (2010: 172–173). Having Spanish offered in international schools is interpreted as an opportunity and an option, rather than as an imposition. In terms of dislocation and relocation, it is of interest to underscore Spanish’s significance as an alternative identity for minority groups in environments of linguistic conflict, such as Hispanics in the United States, Guineans in French-speaking Africa, Berbers in the Maghreb or Filipinos in a Southeast Asia dominated by Chinese, Japanese and English. On the other hand, Spanish-speaking countries, not just Spain, persist in the promotion of the language or the cultural package of “Latinity”, as a sign of identity and also as a means to offset the spread of English as a general language (Ammon 2010: 120).
However, it is no less true that the recognition of Spanish as a global language, even without the interdisciplinary opposing arguments previously discussed, would encounter obstacles that would be difficult to overcome. First off, it is a virtually absent language in an entire hemisphere, the Eastern one, though there are processes to expand the Spanish language. Secondly, it is a language associated more with culture than with business, which hinders its expansion as a lingua franca. This has to do more with the economic and commercial reality of the Spanish-speaking communities and not as much with the language itself, the impact is felt nonetheless. The decisive nature that Spanish has for commercial relations and investments in Ibero-America would not be as significant if the levels of economic, technological and institutional development of all the nations that comprise it were more advanced and continuous (Jiménez and Aránzazu 2010). In this sense, Spain has an excessive impact that should be counteracted, not by diminishing its individual impact, but rather with an increase in the proportional impact of the other Spanish-speaking nations.
Moreover, the Spanish-speaking realm also experiences the law of universal truth whereby globalizing tendencies are counteracted by localist proposals, including national, ethnic and regional centripetal forces, which seek to reinforce their own identity through the weakening of a shared identity. These forces include a process of “indigenization” of the varieties of Spanish, which prioritize local varieties over the more generalized or standardized ones: let us consider, for example, the attitudes of Latino groups in the United States that reinforce their self-esteem through the development of a relocated variation of Spanish that satisfies their needs of group identity, contextualized, at the risk of distancing themselves from language models of greater international engagement (Pennycook 2010). Ultimately, anti-globalization tendencies are universal and can be observed in all international languages, nonetheless they have not managed to deter the process of globalization ongoing since the end of the Middle Ages.
Alternative roads
Spanish cannot be labeled as “global”, nor does English strictly fall within this classification; though both languages benefit from globalization, they also simultaneously act as agents of this very phenomenon. Evidently, the dynamic growth of English and Spanish is closely linked to the globalization of the economy, technology, communication and trade, as well as to a discourse on globalization that gives it an ideological body (Fairclough 2006). As Bloomaert (2010) affirms, globalization has radically reconfigured time and space, and English and Spanish are becoming instruments and protagonists of such reconfiguration.
At this point, having dismissed the “global” label in the strict sense, what attention should be given to these two languages and how should they be characterized? Undoubtedly, we must conclude there isn’t now nor will there be a lone global language per se, but there will be international languages, in the same way that there are lingua francas in determined geographical, social, professional, economic or political spaces in each continent. The concept of “auxiliary language”, applied to artificial languages created for universal communication, such as Esperanto or Volapük, or for specific purposes (Hopkins 1903), such as taxonomies and scientific notations, could also serve to classify English and for Spanish, for which the label “international auxiliary languages” would be most fitting (Eco 1993: chapter 16). As an alternative to this label, “node languages” or “hub languages” could be also used, as Spanish and English are used as connectors in “nodes” or meeting and contact points for the fulfillment of certain tasks. The node languages, then, would be meeting points for the achievement of certain tasks, to which would speakers of very diverse languages would gravitate, arranging themselves in a scale-free network in which the concurrence towards one of the nodes would not prevent the concurrence towards others of lesser capacity of attraction with other ends.
Free-scale network. Node languages as nodes with greater concurrence
Analyzed from this lens, Spanish is already a node language and of the most important in the world due to its increase in potential usefulness for trade, tourism, culture, technology and international relations. In this case, English would demonstrate a more developed nodal nature than Spanish, although currently Spanish and English are at a cross-trend, with a growth of the relative values of the former and decrease of the relative values of the latter, but the result would not be, in any case, a global language.
Additionally the impossibility of global languages, due to the geographical, biological, and psychosocial reasons previously discussed is being reinforced by other factors. Inexistent only a few decades ago, these factors contribute to lessening the importance of such languages. On the one hand, the dissemination of an ideology of multilingualism favors the knowledge and use of several languages by citizens, rather than the franc employment of only one of them. This ideology is installed at the very heart of organisms of great global impact, such as the European Union or the United Nations. Mark Fettes (2015) states that, if linguistic policies are sought that help maintain and develop links between people and the places where they live, an effort is needed to invest in strong systems of diversity and not in linguistic monocultures, in order to achieve this, greater collaboration is required between linguistic planners and experts in other fields, such as multilingual knowledge and information systems, ecology or anthropology.
From the approach of multilingualism, the command of two or three languages seems to be a necessary goal for personal and social development, and the combined knowledge of English and Spanish, both node languages, the most promising path (López García 2010). Ulrich Ammon (2010: 120) has affirmed that the use of other languages favors the expression of identity, the balance in international relations, as well as favors the transactions between the countries that use them. Of course, the most pragmatic of skeptics and realists, don’t hesitate to caution that the laws that protect multilingualism almost always end in the same way: making exclusive use of English. Avram de Swaan (2002) has been arguing for years that the greater the number of official languages there are in Europe, the more English will be spoken, but we must keep in mind that international organizations are very specific microcosms. In addition, where the mastery of several languages does not occur, translation emerges, in which a significant portion of the budgets of international organizations is invested; in the case of the European Union, 1%. Let us recall that for Umberto Eco (2008) the true language of Europe is translation.
Lastly, there is a factor that has only been in play in recent years and that can be fundamental for international communication dynamics: technology. Jonathan Pool (2010) has spoken of a “panlingual globalization” to refer to the emergence of a new world of linguistic engineering that enables a reality that would have been unthinkable a few years ago: mutual understanding based on the use of different languages. This is not a utopia; is a reality already implemented through the translation system of «Skype», for example. Translation engineering, called “automatic translation” in the nineties, is now offering communication solutions that will make it less necessary to use an international auxiliary language. This is yet another reason why Spanish should be enabled for all technological innovations that are produced, making it possible, for example, for all the protocols, applications and technical resources deployed for automated communication, the transmission of information and social networks to accept the formal idiosyncrasies of Spanish. If Umberto Eco declared years ago that the language of Europe is translation, we could expand on his assertion and affirm that translation seems destined to be the true global language.
Conclusion
When the whole world is immersed in a globalization dynamics, it is difficult to resist the idea that it should not be accompanied by a global language, an idea that directly ties to the search for a universal, unique, and perfect language, which has preoccupied intellectuals of all eras. The resistance is lower still, when compounded with the facts and figures exhibited by the English language, as a lingua franca and international language, in the fields of economics and commerce, science, technology and the media. Journalist Ted English argued in an article for the Associated Press that the validity of this statement is evidenced in the fact that, when Pope John Paul II addressed Muslims, Jews, and Christians from Israel in 2000, he did so in English. However, such a statement is, to begin with, a formal fallacy, since the truth of the premises does not guarantee the truth of the conclusion, and the fact that a particular language is spoken before a heterogeneous audience does not mean that that audience precisely understands what they are told. Additionally, in Israel a public use of English would be expected, even if the official languages are Hebrew and Arabic. In any case, current events demonstrate growth in absolute and relative terms of other languages, which are holding back an absolute globalization of English. Among these languages is the Spanish language, although all are far from the bounds reached by English.
The underlying question, however, has little to do with the undeniable importance of English, but with its strict consideration as a “global language”. The reasons that prevent such a reality from existing in the literal sense have to do with the complex identities that make up the world and with human nature itself, which recognizes the usefulness of node or auxiliary languages, such as English or Spanish, but objects to the imposition and the exclusive use of only one of them. Human beings and the world they inhabit demand — not singular ways — but alternatives from which to choose and to which opposition and resistance of varying degrees and conditions can be applied. The reality is that the English language is functioning as the language of globalization — not as a global language — for a select class of citizens of the world with special training and professionalization. However, for most of humanity, the command of English is a desire, if not a chimera, it is enough to briefly coexist with the citizens of supposed global cities like Tokyo or Paris to prove it. In this same vein, the evident international growth of Spanish, in education, in commercial relations and in the cultural sphere, even in communication via the internet, is not sufficient, however, for it to be considered as a global language. This does not mean that Spanish, as an expression of a large community of speakers, native or not, must renounce its status as a node language in the areas in which it already exists. Scientific communication, for example, must be exercised in English by the international elite most involved in cutting-edge research, but their communication needs do not end there because there are other spaces, such as training, regional research or scientific dissemination that the Spanish language should not relinquish. This results in a necessary multilingualism, among whose possible combinations, English and Spanish appear to be the most advantageous.
The denial of a global character for languages could place us on the side of skeptics and localists, against those who see globalization as an unstoppable and inevitably alienating phenomenon (Coupland 2010: 2–3). That is why we believe it is necessary to clarify that our interest is not in the denial of globality in and of itself, but in the appropriate interchange between concepts and denominations. Inca Garcilaso, whose death was 400 years ago, declared that the world in the second half of the sixteenth century was already one. But he was also referring to the shouting match that constituted the clash between the Old and the New World [sic]. The Inca suggested that the violent confrontations between America and the Old World of a conquering Spain, in the sixteenth century, could have been avoided if the parties had counted on “a well-trained interpreter in both languages”, a translator or a “language” capable of translating the speeches of one and the other (General History of Peru, 1617, VII: XX). Four centuries later, even in the midst of a galloping globalization, the need for translation is still evident, as well as being valued, in the wait for technology to make significant and universal advances for the mutual understanding between communities and individuals.
Under these circumstances, the future of English and Spanish could be that they be maintained as international node or auxiliary languages in as many areas as required, but far from an exclusivist globality that veers on utopian. That maintenance, compounded with the discovery of instruments for mutual understanding, would invalidate the possibility of the development of a single language, which George Orwell envisioned as a node language: an extremely simplified version of English in its syntax and lexicon. In the same way, it would invalidate the possibility that the language of the future be a supposed linguistic hodgepodge, in which some envision English and Spanish as protagonists. This is how Herbert Wells, creator of The War of the Worlds, envision it when he devised the possibility of a new language, called Basic English, a mixture of English and Spanish, and the lingua franca of a benevolent dictatorship called the “dictatorship of the air.” Perhaps Ilan Stavans was inspired by this theory in the development of Spanglish (2004); but that’s another story.
Cambridge, MA. January 2018
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Translated by Yesenia Aguilar
Spanish Version:
Moreno-Fernandez, Francisco (2015): “La búsqueda de un español global”. VII Congreso Internacional de la Lengua Española. Instituto Cervantes — Real Academia Española — Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española. http://congresosdelalengua.es/puertorico/ponencias/seccion_5/ponencias_seccion5/moreno-francisco.htm
