Upside Down Under: Sprachbarrieren

As we move into the new year, a subject came up frequently during holiday gatherings and that was that our parents didn’t teach us a second language when we were children.

Granted, some people who were parents in the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s only knew English, but there were countless others who did speak a second, or even a third language, and for the most part, kept it to themselves. Perhaps the most obvious foreign language, at least in North Dakota, is German. A lot of our parents were the second generation of immigrants from Germany, Germans from Russia and Switzerland. Some were fluent in German… reading, writing and speaking.

One of the things I will always remember is in the summer of 1989, some distant relatives visited my parents from Switzerland. They came from Basel, the German part of Switzerland. They spent about a week in and around Hazelton and my mother was the translator for them since they did not speak English.

She also read a German Bible and translated letters from German to English for people who received letters from Europe and couldn’t read them.

Once in a while some of us could pick up a word here or there in a foreign language, but in hindsight, being taught a second language at home, or in school, could have created a lot of opportunities.

On the other side of that coin, there are some folks in their 40s, 50s and 60s today who do know German, or other languages fluently which is most likely a big help to them and their families.

North Dakota’s lack of a second language isn’t limited to German, however. It’s just that a lot of immigrants came from a German background.

One of the reasons people of German descent didn’t teach their children German was because of subconscious fear of retribution from the U.S. government following World War II since Germany was one of three enemies in that war. There may have been other reasons as well, but I’ve heard that one more than once.

Think about the ethnicity of the people of North Dakota. Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, Icelandic, French, Italian, Russian, Danish, Dutch, Ukrainian, Greek, Chinese, Japanese and others.

In more recent years, immigrants to North Dakota are coming from Africa and the Middle East. Those people are speaking new languages with English as a second language.

If you think of the state of North Dakota as a whole, and in general, the northern tier is mostly made up of people with Norwegian descent and the southern tier is mostly made up of people of German descent.

Imagine if just 50 percent of the people in this state were fluent in German, Norwegian or both?

Otherwise, there are pockets of people with French, Pilipino, Icelandic, Dutch, Ukrainian and other ethnic backgrounds.

Many of our high schools now teach Spanish, which is far reaching like German and Norwegian have been. Spanish encompasses so many countries, it’s a strong second language to English. Mexico, Spain, Philippines, Argentina, Panama, Costa Rica, Chile, Guatemala and others.

Those young people who know, and are fluent in Spanish, certainly have an edge in today’s job market.

In addition, because of our proximity to Canada, it’s good to at least know some French. It can help with job opportunities and it sure makes it easier for you to navigate when you are visiting.