English Is Like An Ocean Tide

A CENTURY AGO, writes Richard Cohen, his ancestors were squeezed into the Lower East Side. They “did Kosher” and spoke Yiddish. And historian Henry Adams, descendent of presidents, was sickened by all those Jews. But now, of course,

The grandchildren of those who did Kosher there have scattered throughout the country and the English their grandparents did not speak has been mastered and enriched by Bellow and Roth and Chabon and Ephron, not to mention Irving Berlin.

Now, as then, we worry about the immigrants learning English. We shouldn’t. The pull of the English-speaking culture is “like an ocean tide.”

In Los Angeles, for instance, radio station KDL shifted in 2003 from Spanish to English because the Latino audience it wanted -- the young -- was increasingly bilingual and what's called “English dominant.” English was cooler, hipper and younger, younger, younger. Spanish was the language of mom and dad, and nothing could be fustier -- or, in some cases, embarrassing.

That is just what Cohen thought when he refused to speak Yiddish to his grandmother. Sooner or later, everyone is sucked into English speaking.

The richness of Shakespeare's tongue, its universality in commerce and business and, above all, in entertainment, makes it unavoidable. Few things in life are certain, but death, taxes and English certainly are.

We should have faith in the power of our language and our culture.

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Christopher Chantrill blogs at www.roadtothemiddleclass.com. His Road to the Middle Class is forthcoming.