Official Report search · Parliament Workbench

Chamber

Plenary, 26 Sep 2001

26 Sep 2001 · S1 · Plenary

Item of business

European Day of Languages

Campbell, Colin SNP West of Scotland Watch on SPTV

Wie geht's? Ça va? ¡Hola! ¿Qué tal? Ciamar a tha thu? Hali sha ma shatori? How do you do? How's it gaun?

In those few words, members have experienced my full knowledge of Spanish and Farsi—or Iranian. Ich habe zwei Semester Deutsch am Goethe-Institut in Glasgow studiert, aber ich war kein guter Student. I think that all members understand that—I was rubbish at German.

J'ai aussi étudié le français au lycée pendant six ans, et pendant un an à l'université. Malheureusement, en temps anciens, on ne parlait français ni au lycée, ni à l'université—which must be patently obvious to everyone listening. We did not speak it; we just read it.

As Ian Jenkins said, language is developing all the time. Sometimes we regret intrusions from other languages. I can appreciate the Académie française's concerns of some years ago, when it felt that Americanisms were taking over. It was possible to speak almost no French in a sentence such as, "Je m'habille—I dress—avec mes jockeys, mon t-shirt, mon pullover, mon jean et mes sneakers." Academics fussed over that, but lost.

Why should they have bothered? The big plate with Scots roast beef on it is an ashet, from the French "assiette". Our little fingers are pinkies, which comes from the Dutch "pink" and the rain stotting on the roof is from the Dutch "stotten". The kirk assembly hall that we are in is from the Dutch or German for church. Some members will go home to bungalows, which is Hindustani, and have a cup of char, which is also Hindustani.

If we are happy to take elements of other languages on board, we should give equal respect to the languages and cultures from which they come. However, respect is not enough—some languages dominate the world and others are at risk, but we must not acquiesce to linguistic imperialism or let minority languages languish and die through neglect.

Respect must be reinforced with resources to enable a variety of languages and cultures to flourish in Scotland—that means Scots in varying forms, Gaelic, English and the languages that have become well established by immigration. If we respect our languages, we respect the diverse cultures that compose the citizenry of Scotland. We in these islands are massively guilty of linguistic isolationism, which is exacerbated by the fact that English is an international tongue. We owe it to ourselves to master foreign languages.

Learning a language is vital. Last week I spoke to Ernest Benach, who was part of a Catalan delegation to the Scottish Parliament. I do not speak Catalan or Spanish and he did not speak English. I spoke to him in Paisley French and he replied in Catalan French—we understood each other.

More than anything, the world needs to be able to communicate effectively to improve understanding. The European day of languages is a celebration of human diversity and points the way ahead to effective international communication. As Winnie Ewing said in Dutch, tot ziens.