![](\"http:\/\/cyber.law.harvard.edu\/blogs\/static\/dowbrigade\/mbtabus.jpg\")
<\/p>\nThe
\n 108 bus – Malden Station, Lebanon St. – was a cacophony of idioms this
\n afternoon, carrying the Dowbrigade and a cohort of working-class
\n heroes home from the labor wars. I
\n boarded the bus at the Malden Center stop – Orange Line – and noticed
\n Don Julio already aboard.<\/p>\n
Don Julio is the uncle of a friend of my wife, a 65 year old Peruvian
\n baker who, faced with an untenable retirement in an unstable economy
\n teetering on the edge of political chaos, decided to pay an extended
\n visit to his niece, a pharmacist working as a cook at a Peruvian restaurant
\n in East Boston.<\/p>\n
Don Julio is a thin, quiet man with a shy smile and eyes which speak
\n more eloquently than his words. He is currently working three jobs: as
\n a cook in a neighborhood grill, at the carwash over on Rte. 60, when
\n the weather is good, and helping his niece in cleaning houses, which
\n is HER second job. She has already bought a nice apartment in Trujillo,
\n Peru, a charming mid-sized city on the Pacific coast of South America,
\n known for its pre-Colombian ruins, Colonial architecture and eternal
\n spring-like climate, and where, coincidentally, the Dowbrigade spent
\n many years toiling at the National University, teaching Languages and
\n Linguistics.<\/p>\n
These are the people Rush Limbaugh and Jay Severin want to throw out
\n of the country, at the very least. Both of them are, technically,
\n here illegally; although they entered the country on legal visas, they
\n have overstayed them. They pay taxes, do not use social services, and
\n work harder as a group than anyone else I know. They know, perhaps
\n more palpably than the native born, the true value of the incredible
\n land of opportunity Americans have created.<\/p>\n
Back where they come from, the people who have the most, work the least. Conversely,
\n those who are dirt poor have to work from dawn to dusk just to stay alive. Imagine
\n how mind-blowing and liberating it must be to finally find yourself in
\n a place where the more you work, the more you earn. Where you can
\n actually get ahead of the game, pull yourself up by the bootstraps, and
\n save enough money to finally stop working for a few years before you
\n ring it up.<\/p>\n
Anyway, I sat there chatting up Don Julio in Spanish as the 108 pulled
\n into the plexiglas bus shelter in front of the Super Stop and Shop,
\n where all the ancient retirees who live
\n at the
\n octagonal Salem Towers get aboard with their pathetically meager shopping
\n bags of pasta, oatmeal and formula. <\/p>\n
Seeing as conversation with Don Julio is
\n punctuated with long contemplative pauses, I had the opportunity to
\n eavesdrop on
\n some of the other conversations going on around me.<\/p>\n
The human ear is a marvelous instrument. At a cocktail party,
\n with 50 conversations going on simultaneously all around, a person can
\n isolate a single pair of voices and filter out all the rest. Not
\n even the most sophisticated electronic eavesdropping system can do that
\n as well as the human ear and brain.<\/p>\n
In front of us and across the isle, a pair of burly guys in dirty work
\n clothes, boots, hooded sweatshirts and ruddy, outdoorsy complexions
\n were talking
\n loudly in Italian, discussing the various merits and demerits of their
\n respective unions. One was in the ironworkers union, the other in some
\n contractors union. I could tell what they were talking about because
\n every once in a while they would, almost unconsciously, switch
\n over to English for a sentence or two.<\/p>\n
Behind us, 3 or 4 rows back, were two beautiful young Afro-Carribean
\n women, dressed all in flowery fabrics and bright, flowing colors, conversing
\n in animated French, of which I understood not a word, despite 4 years
\n of high-school French, including tutoring, which were needed just to
\n pass the two years required by any decent college.<\/p>\n
The one sitting on the aisle was, at the risk of sounding sexist, stacked. I mean, she had a rack-and-a-half. I tried not to stare. Let me hasten to add that as a happily married middle-aged man, my interest was purely aesthetic.<\/p>\n
Across from them were two old Asian ladies, huddled heads together like
\n they were plotting to overthrow the MBTA and take over the bus system.
\n They were far enough away and talking quietly enough that I couldn’t
\n make out what flavor of Asian they were speaking.<\/p>\n
For someone who works all day with speakers of English as a second language,
\n and who believes in the value-added theory of multi-lingual abilities,
\n it was a refreshing linguistic concerto. It reminded me of
\n something I had just read about the Tower of Babel.<\/p>\n
That particular story has always bothered me more than just about any
\n of the other Biblical standards. It tells about how God grew jealous
\n and felt threatened by the towers of Babel fearing
\n that
\n the
\n people
\n of Babel
\n (Babylonia)
\n would
\n grow so wise, speaking as they did a single language,that they would
\n someday usurp his power. In an extremely pro-active response, he took
\n it upon Himself to bust up the party, sow linguistic dissension in the
\n human
\n race, and spawn the process which has resulted in over 450 distinct identified
\n languages today (over half of which are in danger of disappearing in our
\n lifetimes).<\/p>\n
Besides the fact that it presents a vain and insecure God sowing confusion
\n to preserve his primacy (sorta like the President), the whole concept
\n that one language is an advantage or solution is, to me, way out of line.
\n A language encapsulates and mandates a world-view, and I’ve learned anything
\n over the years its that the world is wide enough for MANY world-views,
\n which complement rather than contradict each other.<\/p>\n
Would the world be better off with a single language? Only if it included
\n all of the words, sounds, concepts and structures of the 450 existing
\n languages. Knowing multiple languages allows a person to approach
\n and solve problems in a variety of ways, to communicate with a wider
\n variety of people, and to develop alternate personalities and behavior
\n patterns for different linguistic environments.<\/p>\n
So engrossing were these thoughts I almost missed my stop! Still and
\n all, American mono-lingualism is and will continue to be a problem in
\n the globalization process.
\n <\/p>\n<\/td>\n
The 108 bus – Malden Station, Lebanon St. – was a cacophony of idioms this afternoon, carrying the Dowbrigade and a cohort of working-class heroes home from the labor wars. I boarded the bus at the Malden Center stop – … Continue reading