A Common Language, So All Can Pursue Common Goals

My interest in language and its influence on thought and behavior stems from the 1930s, when I was engaged in trying to teach college freshmen in Wisconsin how to write well--which, of course, means thinking clearly.

It was in 1938 that I met Alfred Korzybski, who had founded the Institute of General Semantics in Chicago. His seminars, which I attended, opened up fascinating new areas of thought and speculation for me and many of his fundamental ideas have helped to shape my thinking.

Korzybski taught us that communication is the fundamental survival mechanism for all human life. It is second in importance only to eating and breathing. Using the symbols of language, we communicate across generations and create cultures and societies. When we fail to communicate, we exacerbate every kind of human conflict.

People ask me why I am devoting my retirement to the cause of safeguarding and protecting the English language in California by working in support of Proposition 63, the English-language amendment.

The answer lies in the fact that a common language between people is the critical element that enables us to resolve differences, cooperate with each other, understand and respect other points of view and work toward realizing our individual social, cultural and economic goals.

Failure to communicate--whether between individuals or nations--makes for distrust, discord, fistfights and even wars.

One of the primary sources of our strength as a nation has been our past willingness to recognize and accept the primacy of English and to make it our unofficial language. Generations of immigrants have applied themselves to the task of learning English in a worthy effort to “become Americans” and “get ahead.”

While the vast majority of immigrants still enter the American mainstream through the time-proven “melting pot” process, some special-interest groups are mounting a challenge to it in a misguided effort to promote cultural pluralism. They would raise other languages to equal status with English, and promote a bilingual and bicultural state and nation.

This is a recipe for disaster.

Bilingual and bicultural societies already exist in Canada, Belgium, South Africa, Sri Lanka and other areas of the world. The results have ranged from disharmony to bloody strife. Their sad experience should be object lessons to us, rather than models.

In Canada, for example, it costs that nation’s taxpayers 25 cents per word to translate government documents from English to French and vice versa. In Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon) the Tamils--who speak a language of immigrants from India--have more than once been in armed conflict with those who speak Sinhalese.

For months I have been traveling up and down this state, urging California’s voters to support Proposition 63. It would add an amendment to the state’s Constitution recognizing English as the official language of our state government.

It would not, as some opponents have shamelessly tried to assert, impose English in homes, private businesses, religious ceremonies or any other private context. The amendment pertains only to the language of state and local government.

And few, if any, areas of governmental activity are so sorely in need of linguistic direction as our public schools, where present “bilingual” programs are resulting in a drop-out rate approaching 50% among Latino students. This is inexcusable.

Do not misunderstand. I am a firm believer in effective bilingual education, and passage of Proposition 63 would not abolish it. Passage would, however, force a close examination of current practices in an effort to bring children with English-language deficiencies up to speed in English and then move them into English-taught classrooms at the earliest practicable time.

My goal as a linguist and former educator is to see the drop-out rate among Latino students reduced to the lowest point feasible. I want them to graduate and be able to apply for, and receive, college scholarships. In short I want them and all children who experience language problems to be helped in resolving those problems so they can communicate, assimilate and achieve.