Here is the UK Prime Minister speaking fluent French back when he was Mayor of London:
Johnson : "Winston Churchill est un modèle pour tout le monde" - YouTube
In fact, he speaks very good French, having been brought up in Brussels:
The Empty Promise of Boris Johnson | The New Yorker
“Meanwhile, Boris spent two years in Brussels, learning to be a ‘good European’ and rapidly becoming fluent in accent-less French. Although as an adult he has frequently played down his gift for foreign languages – adopting when it suits the classic ‘Brit abroad’ assault on French vowels and syntax – he is virtually bi-lingual and proficient in three more languages.”
Plus, his grandmother was French and his great grandfather was Turkish:
[And, by the way, his father is applying for French citizenship:
Boris Johnson's father to apply for French citizenship | Euronews
Boris Johnson's father Stanley applying for FRENCH citizenship after Brexit | Daily Mail Online]
The problem is that the UK government has never been keen on foreign languages in British classrooms:
Global Britain's language barrier
The scandal of modern language education in the UK is going to cost the country dear
Languages skills are an economic necessity. The project of Global Britain will be dead in the water before it has even started unless the county’s linguistic capacity is addressed as a matter of urgency.
As Adam Marshall, executive director of policy at the British Chambers of Commerce, put it: “For too long the UK has had a poor reputation for linguistic ability. To nurture the next generation of exporters, more young people need to learn a broader range of languages and start learning languages from an earlier age. Action… would help equip businesses with the skills to reach new markets around the world.”
A third of state schools in England allow pupils to opt-out of languages by the age of 14, according to a 2018 British Council survey. But the rot set in between 2003 and 2010 when numbers taking GCSE halved after the Labour government removed the requirement for 16-years-olds to take an exam in a modern foreign language. According to a European Commission survey, the UK trailed a dismal last in a ranking of EU member states for the ability of 15- to 30-year-olds to speak and write in two or more languages. Denmark came top with 99%, the UK could only manage 32%. Second last was Hungary with 71%.
Last July, the British Academy, British Council, Universities UK and the Association of School and College Leaders published the report, Towards a National Languages Strategy: Education and Skills, arguing that language acquisition was vital to economic recovery after the pandemic. Vivienne Sterne, director of UUK International, said at the time: “If the UK government is serious about their ambitions for a Global Britain, we must upskill our graduates with the linguistic and cultural understanding to shape an outward-looking post-Covid and post-Brexit UK”...
If you have healthy numbers of school children learning French, German, Spanish and Italian – and visiting these countries – you will have healthy numbers of university students learning Cantonese, Arabic, Urdu, Portuguese and Russian. Without that flow-through of linguistic capacity, Global Britain’s ambitions for an export economy will fade and die at the Kent border.
An inability to speak the same language as your trade partner is just as much a non-tariff barrier to commerce as the red-tape strangling businesses after Brexit. Shouting slowly in English at nonplussed foreigners or fumbling for Google Translate is not an economic strategy.
Rather than being front and centre of plans for the economy – not to mention national security – attitudes to language learning in the UK are seemingly in reverse. Whether in government or in schools, learning another language is often treated as something to be embarrassed about.
Global Britain's language barrier | The New European
Dominance of English language a blessing and a curse | The New European
In other words, bilingualism is a good money-earner:
Why speaking more than one language can boost economic growth | World Economic Forum
But as the article suggests, we need to get real:
Lack of Language and Cultural Skills Risks 'Global Britain' After Brexit
The cost of Britain's language problem
Of course, for the UK to be truly 'global', it needs to be learning more than just French, German or Spanish.
What about learning Polish?
In England and Wales, the most widely spoken language after English is Polish. Of the over 56.1 million residents of England and Wales, approximately 546,000 speak Polish, about the same number of people who speak Welsh.
After English, Welsh, and Polish, the next most widely spoken languages are of Indian and Pakistani origin, like Urdu, Bengali, Gujarati, and Punjabi, which taken together account for about a million people. There are also about 141,000 Chinese speakers and other pockets of smaller languages. Who knew!
What your business needs to know about language in the UK
Polish becomes England's second language | Census | The Guardian
So, with 'Global Britain', why are we not taking advantage of all these people who speak another language and who actually live and work and go to school in the UK?
A problem is that immigrants want to 'integrate' and will not teach their children their own languages:
Immigrants should teach their children their native language – The Guardsman
Language-use-and-attitudes-of-the-British-born-Pakistani-community-in-Manchester.pdf
And the education authorities do not consider it a priority to develop the languages of bilingual school children:
Focus On: Should immigrants be taught in their mother tongue at schools? | Eurydice
Refugee and immigrant students encouraged to maintain native languages | WBFO
Preserving mother tongues: Why children of immigrants are losing their languages | Calgary Journal
So the only way to educate your children in your own language is privately:
Paying to learn your own language | Fourth Estate
But this is surely a real asset which should be nurtured:
Over half of children of immigrants are bilingual | Urban Institute
Immigrants, Their Languages, and Their Children - Language Magazine
In other words, a Global Britain is a multilingual Britain:
Globalization and Multilingualism: the Case of the UK | Viv Edwards
Although in his speech on 'Global Britain' as Foreign Secretary, the current UK Prime Minister did not mention 'languages' even once:
But, then, apart from the current UK PM, the ability of UK politicians to speak anything other than English is very limited:
Lost in translation: leaders speaking other languages - YouTube
Unless, of course, 'Global Britain' is just Empire 2:0:
Brexit and Empire: ‘Global Britain’ and the Myth of Imperial Nostalgia
The Delusions of Global Britain | Foreign Affairs
See also:
Jay Doubleyou: rule britannia?
Jay Doubleyou: exceptionalism today
Jay Doubleyou: what we think about the british empire - 70 years after the partition of india
Jay Doubleyou: theresa may's empire of the mind
Jay Doubleyou: british commonwealth ... british empire
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