The importance of learning Spanish has long been apparent to most U.S. policy-makers. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of Spanish speakers within our borders has skyrocketed to 37 million, about double that of 1990. Our public education system has responded in kind; more and more public schools are offering AP Spanish courses, and 122,925 high school students took the AP Spanish Language exam in 2011, almost 20 percent more than four years ago. Sadly, in this furor — caused in large part by our extroverted neighbor to the south — many other tongues have taken a back seat. French is among those languages-in-crisis.
In contrast to Spanish, the number of students taking the AP French language exam has flat-lined: 20,637 students took the exam last year, compared to 21,029 students in 2009.
Whereas Spanish education in elementary schools jumped from 68 percent to 79 percent in the decade from 1987-1997, French instruction dropped from 41 percent to 27 percent. Educators across the country have begun limiting options in French, with many schools declining to offer the language altogether. They use utilitarian argumentation to justify their decision: there are more Spanish speakers than French speakers in the U.S., and thus our students are more likely to need Spanish than French in their daily lives.
Why learn French, then? Despite the claims of naysayers, French is, in fact, a highly useful language to learn. A wide range of countries list French as an official language, from the highly developed (France, Switzerland) to the developing (Haiti). Although French has fewer speakers than Spanish, it is more widely spoken: the Francophone world counts 29 countries and 12 dependent entities among its members, as well as seven nations with French as a de facto language — not officially recognized, but widely spoken in the country. Compare this with 20 Spanish-speaking countries, one dependent entity, and six with de facto Spanish speaking populations. Those who speak French will be equally competent strolling through the streets of Geneva and navigating the markets of Morocco. France’s colonial past has widely spread the language, and those who know the tongue will be able to communicate across the spectrum of world geography.
But I want to offer a new way to look at language. Instead of relentlessly focusing on the immediately apparent usefulness of a language to daily life, we should recognize the ways in which the language exposes our mind to new ways of thinking. Some of the most seminal literature in Western thought was written in French. Few Americans haven’t heard of Victor Hugo’s “Les Misérables.” Great thinkers like Sartre and Camus were Frenchmen; Baudelaire’s poems were similarly composed in the language of love. Even one of the most important works to U.S. political theory, “Democracy in America,” was written by Alexis de Tocqueville, a Frenchman. French thinking and achievement in the arts, and especially in literature, have been foundational to various movements, from the Renaissance (a French term) to Impressionism.
The rebuttal to this argument is quick and relatively simple: translation. Why can’t we just read about all these ideas in English and save ourselves the trouble? The most powerful refutation of this simplistic view is the perpetual issue of accurate translation. Even the best translations change the work in subtle ways that the original author never intended, simply because of the variant natures of different languages. To understand the author, you need to hear his voice. You need to witness how he shapes his phrases, what words he chooses to include in his syntax. A translation is simply what comes out the other end when a work has been jammed through the English language machine; it can be, in its own right, a beautiful work, but it is always different. Only by reading works in their original language can students truly conduct scholarly analysis.
The intrinsic value of French isn’t just in the way it provides access to some of the world’s greatest thinkers. The language itself is also beautiful to study. Unlike English, which, being compiled somewhat haphazardly from multiple different tongues, has comparatively flexible rules of grammar, French is built on a solid foundation of rules and relationships that must be strictly observed. Navigating this minefield of agreements, conjugations and tenses is a worthwhile mental challenge. Writing and speaking in French requires a new way of thinking. Moreover, French vocabulary has pervaded the English vernacular more than most people realize. Words such as tinsel, appropriate and attack all have French roots; learning French thus means learning about the roots of the English language.
We see, then, that French has much to offer. Although the U.S. itself has few French neighbors (exception: Québec), the world at large is scattered with regions that speak the language. Moreover, French allows us to study the insights and artistry of some incredible thinkers, exposing us to new viewpoints and challenging our assumptions. And finally, the language itself expands our mental capacity by requiring our minds to operate in a different way. Board of Education members across the country should consider all these points before so quickly writing off la belle langue.
Russell Bogue is a Viewpoint writer.
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