Author: rgjones

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Reconciliation

barbaraStory today on NPR about the song “Gottingen” from French singer Barbara.  A beautiful song, beautifully sung, on an unlikely subject for a popular French song – French-German friendship.  This was even the more the case at the time when the song was written, in 1964, when the memories of WW II were fresh.  More surprising is the fact that the woman who wrote and performed the song, whose real name was Monique Andrée Serf, was a French Jew, who had a traumatic childhood, hiding from the Nazis in occupied France. She had been invited to come to Göttingen, a small university town in central Germany. She categorically declined the offer, but eventually was persuaded to come for just one concert, but then ended up staying for a week, having been overwhelmed by the positive reception and the friendliness of the people.

At the end of the week, she wrote the moving tribute to the city, in which she dares to compare the sleepy German town to Paris.  She celebrates “les enfants blonds de Göttingen” (the blond children), the Grimm fairy tales (Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm were professors there), and the dark soul of the Germans (“Eux, c’est la mélancolie même” – with them it’s melancholy itself).  The images strike us today as stereotypes, but they are positive – not like the negative images prevalent at the time in France. The song had an impact on the relations between the two countries and has been referenced by politicians from both Germany (Gerhard Schröder) and France (François Mitterand).

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Coffee not soda

gulpArticle in today’s Wall Street Journal on the decline in consumption in the US of carbonated soda drinks, worrying companies like Coca Cola and Pepsi. Young Americans are increasingly drinking water, energy drinks and coffee. It’s of course not just a question of taste, but increasingly of health. Americans are becoming more conscious of the importance of a healthy diet and increasingly aware of how much the consumption of soft drinks is a factor in the obesity epidemic in the US.  High profile actions like the recent initiative from New York mayor Bloomberg’s to ban the sale of large sodas at restaurants and movie theaters help to spread the message.  The soda companies have been fighting back; Coke has a recent ad encouraging Americans to fight obesity, which has been received with considerable sardonic criticism.  Drinking soft drinks – and lots of them – has been culturally entrenched in the US for decades.  Tourists from abroad are often amazed by the size of American soft drinks (like 7-11’s Big Gulp) – the small size here is often equivalent to the largest size available in many other countries.  When I was hiking with my son in the Black Forest, he complained about the fact that my (standard size) beer was half a liter but his (standard size) soda was .3 or even .2 liter.  And no free refills! It must be that the move away from soft drinks is part of a communist conspiracy (probably from our Socialist president!) to undermine American culture, just like the sneaky move years ago to fluoridate our water (see Dr, Strangelove for the truth!).

Of course, it’s not necessarily the case that Americans are turning away from soda to something healthier.  Young Americans in particular are getting ever larger doses of caffeine.  A story recently on NPR discusses the trend on American campuses for students to drink more and more coffee, as well as caffeinated energy drinks. Besides the high cost on the wallet of this trend, the cost in terms of health is high as well.  High caffeine consumption interferes with getting a good night’s sleep.  This can have negative consequences in terms of academics.  A researcher cited in the study comments that high caffeine has been linked to decresed REM sleep, which is important for memory consolidation and learning.  Of course, that’s part of the conspiracy as well – trying to get us to dump our soft drinks and switch to drinks that make us dumber!

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Rise of the Nones

empty-church-with-wooden-benchesInteresting series this week on NPR about religion in the United States.  Today’s broadcast was about the increased number of Americans who don’t identify with any religion.  The data is based on a Pew Research Center study released in October, 2012.  The study indicates that about 20% of Americans have no religious affiliation, a percentage that has been on the rise in recent years.  The percentage of those under the age of 30 is higher, about 1/3.  Harvard Professor Robert Putnam was interviewed for the report.  His explanation of the drop among young people:  rebellion – based on disillusionment of a generation coming of age during the “culture wars” in the U.S., which created a toxic mix of religion and politics.  He associates the lack of interest in organized religion with the lack of participation by young Americans in civic organizations.  I would offer a different perspective – I assume that under 30’s have simply re-directed from conventional social institutions to online social media.  Maybe the Church of the Internet has replaced the brick and mortar versions.

Putnam points out that even with the drop indicated by the survey, the U.S. stats in terms of religion are high: “Even with these recent changes the American religious commitments are incredibly stronger than in most other advanced countries in the world…The average American is slightly more religious than the average Iranian, so we are a very religious country even today.”  What has been very striking to me is the radical drop in religious affiliation in Germany.  The wonderful medieval cathedrals throughout Germany are virtually empty on Sundays.  More and more Germans are leaving the Catholic and protestant churches.  Part of the reason may be financial:  if you are a (Christian) church member, you have to pay a church tax.

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Oma Export

Germany pensioners elderlyOne of the interesting issues in modern societies is how certain segments of the population are viewed and treated.   Recently in the news have been reports about retirees in Germany and orphans in Russia.  A recent article in the Guardian discusses the issue of Oma (Grandmother) export, namely pensioners leaving Germany to live in other countries due to the high cost of living in Germany and their modest pensions.  Examples are given of German senior citizens moving to Hungary, the Czech Republic, Greece, and Thailand.   In some cases, the facilities to which the older Germans emigrate have German-speaking staff and offer activities familiar from German culture (singing folk songs), but this is an exception. This is a quite different phenomenon from the long-time practice of well-to-do German retirees moving to Mediterranean beach locations.  The current “Oma export” of  German citizens living off their pensions has raised concerns in Germany, especially when the people involved have limited faculties and few options. Such a situation would be hard to imagine in countries where it’s understood that families, no matter what, care for their own, such as in many Asian, African or Latin American cultures. Americans tend to have fewer scruples about sending family members off to homes.

Russian society, on the other hand, is trying to keep some of their most vulnerable members of society – orphans – from leaving the country, namely to be adopted by Americans.  The recent law passed by the Duma and signed by President Putin is meant as retaliation against the Sergei Magnitsky Act passed by Congress, which imposed sanctions on Russian officials involved in the death of an imprisoned lawyer in 2009 who had been a whistle blower on a tax-fraud scheme.  But it’s not just politics.  Russians have been less than enthusiastic over the idea of foreigners adopting Russian children, despite the low adoption rate in Russia, seeing it as a slap in the face, implying their society can’t take care of their own.  Russia is not alone in this, many other countries have expressed concerns or passed restrictive laws on foreign adoptions.  It would be interesting to see a study comparing attitudes toward adoption around the world.

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Exercise & Politics

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Student during a yoga class at elementary school in Encinitas, Calif (NY Times)

A recent article in the NY Times discusses the protests by some parents in a California school district where first graders are having 30-minute yoga classes.  This would seem to be a beneficial program for small children, doing something positive in the area of physical education, just as art and music classes do, as well as foreign language classes. In the age of strictly controlled and standardized curricula, it’s refreshing to see something creative happening, even if on a small scale. According to the article, the yoga sessions have a noticeably calming effect on the 6- and 7-year olds.  So what’s the reason for the protests?  Religious indoctrination, specifically the protesters “were concerned that the exercises might nudge their children closer to ancient Hindu beliefs”.  This need to protect children from knowledge has had the unfortunate result in American schools of discouraging teaching about world religions, with a by-product being a wide-spread lack of knowledge about Islam (as well as of other non-Christian religions). In the absence of knowledge, stereotypes replace reality.

The intersection of religion, physical exercise, and politics has had some interesting case histories.  Recently, the Falun Gong spiritual movement in China, combining slow-moving exercises with meditation and a basic moral philosophy, after gaining widespread popularity in the 1990’s, was suppressed by the Chinese government, fearful that such a large movement could threaten state control.  In 19th-century Germany, Friedrich “Turnvater” Jahn (Father of Gymnastics Jahn), who had studied theology, wanted to encourage greater physical fitness among the Prussian youth, after seeing the humiliation of Germany’s defeat by Napoleon.  What started out as gymnastics (he invented the parallel bars, the balance beam, horizontal bar, and the vaulting horse) turned nationalistic and was seen as a threat by the authorities, leading to his arrest.

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Secession fever

Demonstrating for Catalan independenceThe current difficulties in the EU to pass a new budget highlight the very different perspectives of the givers and takers among EU members in the flow of EU funds.  There’s a sense of injustice on the part of the countries who are net contributors:  why is our hard-earned money going to folks who aren’t as responsible or hard-working?  In northern countries such as Germany one can easily hear this point of view in reference to Greece.  In southern countries there is resentment over criticism of their way of life and cultural practices; they are proud of the more balanced approach to work and life they have achieved. The 27 countries that make up the EU do not only speak different languages, they have in many cases dramatically different cultures.

It doesn’t seem likely that the EU will be splitting anytime in the near future or that some Euro countries will leave the currency – there is too much at stake for all the countries in the EU for them to allow that to happen. However, within several EU members there is an internal struggle going on that is some ways parallels what’s happening in the EU, culturally distinct and prosperous regions who are dissatisfied with their relationship with the rest of the country.  Today elections in Spain appear to be heading for victory by pro-independence parties for Catalonia, the area in northern Spain with Barcelona as its capital.  Catalonia is overall better-off than the rest of Spain and has a distinctive language (Catalan) and culture.  In fact, the Catalan culture overflows into parts of southern France and Catalan is the official language of the small independent country of Andorra, between Spain and France.  In addition to the Catalans, the Basques, also a group represented on both sides of the Pyrenees, have been agitating for independence, sometimes violently.

Spain is not alone.  There is also an active movement for independence in Scotland, with a referendum vote scheduled for 2014.  Welsh nationalists have not been as active lately; Wales also lacks the economic strength that North Sea oil brings to Scotland.  Separatist sentiments are strong among many in Belgian Flanders as well as in South Tyrol in Italy.  With the economic problems today across Europe, it will be interesting to see how the separatist movements progress.

It’s not just a north-south divide – sometimes its culture, language, and politics that can lead to separatist sentiments. Quebec’s French-speaking population continues to agitate for more ability to guide their own affairs.  With the re-election of Obama several U.S. states such as Texas are making noises about secession. Those efforts are not likely to succeed and they are mostly not all that serious, more of a way to let off steam.

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A Scots Loss

Bobby Hogg, last speaker of Cromarty Scots

What’s lost when languages and dialects die out? It’s of course a sad loss for the local community – part of the cultural identity of the place is gone.  In the news recently (also: NPR) was the death of the last speaker of a Scottish dialect, spoken in a fishing village.  Bobby Hogg lived in Cromarty and spoke all his life the Scots dialect spoken there.  Scotland has a complicated linguistic heritage, with the many Scots dialects, Scottish English variants, and Scottish Gaelic  (a Celtic language).  Scots Gaelic has seen a revival of interest in recent years, witness the popularity of Julie Fowlis, who sings almost exclusively in her native Gaelic.  Her Gaelic version of the Beatles Blackbird was a surprise hit in England and she was chosen to contribute songs to the recent Disney/Pixar’s Brave.  Many English speakers find Scottish accents to be very pleasant, even though sometimes difficult for non-Scots to understand.  In an interview with Glaswegian singer Amy MacDonald, NPR’s Scott Simon told her that he found her English “utterly charming” but was “only understanding every third or fourth word”.  Scots dealing with non-Scots listeners, like Craig Ferguson or Sean Connery, have learned to “tone it down”.

How much would the typical English speaker understand of the Cromarty dialect?  Some would be understandable but sound archaic, such as the use of thou and thee.  One might figure out as well that beginning consonants were sometimes dropped, what becoming ‘at and where ‘ere.  But one might still have trouble understanding “At wid be scekan tiln ken?” (“What do you want to know?”).

What’s lost when language dies is more than just local color. Language is culture, and the Scottish culture, like that of Ireland, is so strong in its linguistic and literary creativity that we all lose something with the disappearance of Cromarty Scots, whether we’d understand Bobby Hogg or not.

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Translator? No

This past week, a number of world leaders spoke at the United Nations, including the President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.  In reporting his speech, NPR cited parts of his speech, indicating that he was “speaking though a translator”.  Actually, NPR was the one using and needing a translator.  Ahmadinejad was perfectly okay with speaking Persian.  Yet the reporting (not only at NPR) implied through the frequently used wording that his speech could only be understood as rendered “through a translator”.  Is this a picky point that doesn’t actually matter?  I don’t think so – it reinforces the unfortunate American sense that to be understood and taken seriously people need to be using English.  Couldn’t we report Ahmadinejad’s hateful speech as “translated here from the original Persian” or something else along those lines.  It would be great to show that it’s possible to use other languages to communicate.

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Obama at 86%?

A recent survey yielded the following results in terms of voter preference in the upcoming US presidential election:

Barack Obama: 86%
Mitt Romney: 7%

What?  How does this poll have such a lopsided result when all others show the race to be neck and neck?  The answer is that this was a poll in Germany.  It indicates how vastly different the views of our president are in other countries.  His popularity in Germany is common to many European countries.  There are likely a number of reasons for this phenomenon.  Policies viewed as “liberal” or even “socialist” in the US are mainstream in many other cultures.  Universal health care, for example, is something that in many other countries is a given – a fundamental right the government should guarantee.  It’s also the sense of dramatic change that the election of Obama represented, with a transition from the “don’t mess with Texas” perspective to a more internationally cooperative viewpoint.  In fact, what’s important to Europeans and others outside the US is the American president’s foreign policy, usually a matter of little concern to American voters.  For Europeans in that respect there was with Obama a welcome change form a president starting two wars to a Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

Of course, Obama’s popularity in Europe is unlikely to bring him any votes in the United States.  On the contrary it is likely to be seen as an indication of Obama’s left-leaning politics and kowtowing to foreigners.  The French daily Le Monde’s endorsement of John Kerry in 2004 was seen by many Americans as one more reason not to vote for him.  Even worse was the fact that Kerry was reported to speak French!  Mitt Romney is reported to speak French as well – but you won’t hear him trumpeting that fact on the campaign trail.

It’s a big plus for American politicians to be able to speak some Spanish – but other languages are suspect.  Instead of celebrating the fact that knowledge of another language expands one’s horizons and provides unique insights into one’s own culture, Americans suspect second language speakers of mixed loyalty.  In fact, many Americans would assert that they don’t want their leaders to have wider perspectives or open minds – if you have all the answers you don’t need alternative views.  This is the same kind of mentality that sees the USA as the greatest country on earth without ever having seen any other country.

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Words and Genes

A Turkish origin for Indo-European languages

A possible solution to one of the thorny questions in historical linguistics – where was the ancestor of many European and Indian languages of the Indo-European language family spoken – has been proposed using techniques normally enlisted in battling disesases.  According to findings recently published, the parent “Proto Indo-European” originated in the Anatolia region of present-day Turkey.

The techniques used actually go back to work in 2003 by Russell Gray and Quentin Atkinson at the University of Auckland in New Zealand:  ” Genes and words have several similarities, and language evolution has conventionally been mapped using a “family tree” format. Gray and Atkinson theorized that the evolution of words was similar to the evolution of species, and that the ‘cognate’ of words — how closely their sounds and meanings are related to one another — could be modelled like DNA sequences and used to measure how languages evolved.

By extension, the rate at which words changed — or mutated — could be used to determine the age at which Indo-European languages diverged from one another.” (Nature)  The new study adds to the information about when the ancestor language was spoken with the new geographical information, by using ” the type of geography-based computer modelling normally used by epidemiologists to track the spread of disease” (Nature).  Not all linguistis are convinced but as Aktinson comments in the article, it does point to a shift in acceptance of new methodologies in languistic research, indicating a “shift in attitudes towards computational-modelling approaches in historical linguistics, from being just an odd sideshow to a clear focus of attention”

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Just disappear

In a recent interview on Fresh Air, Caitlin Moran talked about what it means to have and raise a child, that “you just disappear into another person”.  I think that’s a great way to describe the experience.  Having a child means of course changing your way of life, but it’s much more – it’s giving up a part of yourself to someone else. You’re a different person as a result.

What struck me on hearing that was that something analogous happens when you become proficient in a second language.  You willingly give up part of yourself – your cultural assumptions, your linguistic certainty, your way of seeing the world – which disappear and are transformed into a new you.  The second language brings with it not just a different set of cultural values but a new perspective on everything you experience.  Of course, just learning a language in the classroom is not likely to provide this kind of experience – you need to live the language by becoming immersed in the target culture.  Having taken students for many years on study abroad programs, I have often seen this kind of transformation take place.

Having a child and learning/living a new language are life-changing. Both offer the chance to gain by losing, giving something up in order to grow and learn.  This isn’t universal in either case unfortunately, but the opportunity is there and waiting.

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Culture & success

Mitt Romney’s comments in Israel during his recent trip abroad raise interesting questions about the relationship between cultural values and economic success.  He compared the much higher per capita income in Israel compared to Palestine:  “Culture makes all the difference…and as I come here and I look out over this city and consider the accomplishments of the people of this nation, I recognize the power of at least culture and a few other things.”  He didn’t enter into any specifics on what cultural differences he had in mind, presumably aspects of the culture that favor industry, frugality, and an entrepreneurial spirit?  Or was it individualism (Israel) versus collectivism (Palestine)?

This echoes the discussion that has arisen from President Obama’s comments that successful businesses in the United States were not built exclusively by the business owners, but owed part of their success to the infrastructure created by American tax payers.  Objections were quickly raised that business owners created success exclusively through their own initiative and hard work – the triumphant result of unbridled individualism.  Reminds me of the hefty debates over Hilary Clinton’s “It takes a village” and the criticism of this advocacy of “collectivism”.  A particular virulent attack on collectivism comes from the “one government” critics.

Romney’s remarks were criticized in that he didn’t talk about the very unequal opportunities in Israel and Palestine.  He was also way off in stating that personal income in Israel is twice that in Palestine:  it’s more like 20 to 1. Of course what Romney meant by “success” was exclusively economic prosperity – as a businessman that is understandably his focus.  Is the point of his comparison that Palestinians would be well advised to change their cultural values?  It would be interesting to see where the Israel and Palestine rank in happiness indices.

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“Public viewing”?

German or English?

Watching the German television news yesterday (Tagesthemen), it struck me that the use of English words stuck into the middle of German sentences is getting worse and worse.  The first was a reference in the broadcast to “der zweitgrößte airport” in Bulgaria  (second-largest), the second to a “Stasi connection“.  It’s not that there aren’t perfectly good and normal German words for airport (Flughafen) and connection (Verbindung) – it’s just that the English equivalents are used instead.  For me, the most perplexing aspect of this is that you will hear broadcasts in which an Angliscism such as “airport” will be used, then a few minutes later, the same presenter will use “Flughafen” instead – where is the vaunted German consistency?  If German TV execs like English so much, how about using subtitles rather than dubbing for the many instances in which interviewees speak English?  Or how about going further and, as is done in other European countries, subtitling all English language movies and TV programs?

It isn’t only on TV that this kind of strange and jarring code-switching goes on in Germany.  It’s particularly prevalent in advertising, where it’s maybe more understandable – use of (mostly American) English phrases gives the impression that the company or product is up-to-date.  It’s not surprising either that many Anglicisms show up in German hip-hop music.  I suppose it’s done on the news for the same reason, but I find it very annoying.  I imagine many native English speakers feel the same.

Particularly distressing are the English terms that either don’t exist in English or have a different meaning.  The German for cell phone – Handy – comes to mind as an example of the first and a term heard frequently during the recent European soccer championship – public viewing – for the second.  The phrase when used in Germany refers to an outdoor big screen set up to watch live TV (usually sports).  It’s not just nouns.  Here are some “German” verbs:  downloaden, leaken, trampen (hitchhike).  Of course, other languages import English expressions as well, especially technology terms, but I can’t imagine any others do it to the extent it’s done in German. It’s so common that there is a widely accepted word for the practice:  Denglish (Deutsch + English).  Are there reasons Germans do this more than any other culture?  Is it a sense of linguistic inferiority?

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Non-freedom fries

Chip Butty – not at the Olympics!

Big bucks win over cultural preferences. There’s a ruckus in England over food at the 2012 Olympics, specifically the well-beloved Chips (French Fries). Seems that McDonald’s as an official sponsor has exclusive rights to sell fries at the Olympics. Only approved exception is fish and chips, no luck if you feel like sausage and chips, egg and chips, lasagna and chips, steak and chips or even the famous chip sandwich (Chip Butty, popular in York). Part of the problem is that the skinny McD’s fries are not the style the Brits like – they prefer fat and greasy.

Reminds me of the uproar in Germany at the 2006 World Cup when originally only Budweiser (an official sponsor) was allowed to be served at the games being played in Germany, quite a slap in the face to German beer drinkers. There is actually an excellent Budweiser beer, however it’s not the Anheuser-Busch brew but rather the original Budweiser from Budvar, in the Czech Republic. Unfortunately for beer drinkers, the relationship between the FIFA, which puts on the World Cup, and Anheuser-Busch InBev recently was extended to 2022. It remains to be seen, however, if beer will even be served at the 2014 championship in Brazil, since beer at soccer stadiums there has been banned since 2003 (too much alcohol-fueled violence). Same ban applies in Russia, the sponsor for 2018.

Side note:  There will be a new world’s largest McDonald’s for the London Olympics, taking over from the McDonald’s in Pushkin Square,  Moscow.  I visited that McD’s a couple of years ago – quite an operation there.  I went to have an American breakfast – which I have to say I enjoyed immensely, as a break from Russian food.  I have to admit as well that I have also visited the second busiest McD’s world-wide – at the Karlstor in Munich.  I enjoyed the chance to have a beer with my “Royale with Cheese”.

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Stereotype threat

Interesting story today on NPR about research done at the University of Arizona that used an audio recorder carried by volunteers programmed to record for 30 seconds every 12 minutes.  One of the things they investigated with the data collected was the volume of speech of men versus women.  Turns out it’s not the case that women speak dramatically more than men (as the urban myth has it):  “Both men and women speak around 17,000 words a day, give or take a few hundred.”  This is something that Deborah Cameron pointed out in her book, The Myth of Mars and Venus (2008).

Another finding (the main one reported on in the story) is that female scientists talk differently to male and female colleagues: they had “male and female scientists at a research university wear the audio recorders and go about their work. When the scientists analyzed the audio samples, they found there was a pattern in the way the male and female professors talked to one another.”  They found that the women scientists talked about their work in a quite different, and less confident, way to men than to other women.  However, “when the male and female scientists weren’t talking about work, the women reported feeling more engaged.”  The investigators concluded that the women were (likely unconsciously) responding (through hesitation, unassertiveness, self-doubts) to the wide-spread belief that women aren’t as competent as men in science.

This is a phenomenon known as “stereotype threat”, well-known in social psychology.  Experiments have shown that stereotype threat affects performance in a wide variety of domains.  The lead scientist, a German, reported that he experienced it himself when going dancing with his wife (a Mexican) and other Latinos:  everyone knows German can’t hold a candle to Mexicans in salsa dancing and registering that thought in the act of dancing likely negatively affected his performance.