LANGUAGE AND TRANSCULTURE - THE AMERICAN SETTING

Here's a story I got from a popular blogger: In an elevator of a building somewhere in the United States, a lone Filipina and a few Americans stood in wait as the elevator brought them down. In one of the middle floors, the elevator stopped and when the door opened, a Filipino was standing by the doorstep. He saw the Filipina and asked, Bababa ba? The Filipina answered, Bababa. A few more floors down and the door opened again, and another Filipina was by the doorstep. He saw the Filipinos and asked, Bababa ba?, to which they answered in chorus, Bababa. One American passenger could not keep his curiosity to himself and asked the others aloud, What the hell kind of a language is that?

The story is funny to me in two ways: first, it shows how quickly one could be publicly dumbstruck by ignorance of a fact; and second, it reveals how the Filipino language could sometimes sound remarkably strange while being at the same time logical and grammatical. Indeed there was something to understand in the amazement of the American, reeling as to how three people could quickly converse perfectly while seemingly borrowing the language of the sheep.
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At a Publix Supermarket's Deli Section one time, I saw a man scream in fury at a hapless saleslady (she looked Cuban to me) because she cannot fully talk to him in English about his order. "This is America!", he said, "Speak English!"

That guy must not only be new in Miami, he must also be new in the world - for America has started to grow tolerant in accepting other languages, and the concept of English-only (as in one high school in, I believe, Texas) will fall in a deep Hispanic ravine.

In Miami-Dade county alone, there are certain cities and areas (Calle Ocho, Hialeah, and certain parts of Homestead) where major stores do businesses only in Spanish. When I came here years ago and I looked at the classified ads, I was surprised by the number of openings that require fluency in Spanish - with a few that says "proficiency in Spanish considered but not required" although, duh, you know it meant the same thing. (Spanish has now grown so big that Miami Herald has its onw Spanish edition - the El Nuevo Herald).

In major airports I had been to, most (if not all) announcements carry a Spanish translation - even if I was surprised one time in Phoenix when I heard an announcement in Tagalog. Again, in South Florida, most (if not all) major businesses have at least one person manning the front desk and/or operator who is fully conversant in Spanish, or there will certainly be no chance at survival.

America is a capitalist country and the only color that runs it is green. In a place where a booming Hispanic market is in the loom, it makes sense for the language to follow where the money leads. There is a vision that by Year 2050, the majority of America's population will be Hispanic. In that case, by that year (if not before), America's official language could very well be Spanish.

Salud!