What Is We?

What is We?  No, it’s not poor English.  Rather, it’s good, American English.

In a separate post, Stepwinder waxed eloquently over “Who We Are”.  I’ve been struck repeatedly with the notion of “We” since the National Academy.  It’s that phenomenon which I call the BoomerLang Effect; you know, where one first learns a new word, then suddenly comes across it everywhere?  Well, you’d think that I’d have learned what We meant, but that was before Will came into my head and shook it like a kid with a Christmas present.

Since the Nat’cademy, I’ve been pondering not just how Americans interpret We, but how other English speakers and non-English speakers understand it, as well.

Reading Jared Diamond’s The Third Chimpanzee, I was struck by his analysis of language and its relation to how it shapes our thoughts.  The degree to which structure and vocabulary express personal responsibility, causation, and emotion is phenomenal.  One passage, in particular, leapt out:

The English pronoun “we” actually lumps two quite different concepts: ‘I plus you to whom I am speaking,’ and ‘I plus one or more other people, but not including you to whom I am speaking.’  In Neo-Melanesian these two separate meanings are expressed by the words ‘yumi’ and ‘mipela,’ respectively.  After I have been using Neo-Melanesian for months and then meet an English speaker who starts talking about ‘we,’ I often find myself wondering, ‘Am I included or not in your ‘we’?    (157)

Of course, disenfranchised African-Americans felt the same way upon reading “We the People” for a long, long time; and even today, some groups do not feel included in the whole.

So what is We?  We means different things to different people based upon their personal experience. Currently in my class, we’re studying immigration. I can’t help but imagine being an Italian émigré and arriving here, trying to understand the subtleties of English.  Or even of my Anglo roots, as a Scot, trying to comprehend the rights I own as an American.  I wonder, too, about my first generation Indian-American students and how language is interpreted in their homes.  What an honor, as a teacher, to be able to help bestow a depth to English to these kids, to part of their personal experience which bridges India to America.

It’s important that we keep in mind that the language barrier can restrict an understanding of the Constitution for other peoples.  For if Americans are still figuring out who’s in the We, it’s bound to confuse others!

It’s a cliché line in comedies when an ignorant tourist babbles something like, “I speak American!”  Yet, there is something unique to the American experience with English.  Our history seeps through the space between the letters and punctuates our declaratives.  Our identity is present not only in the syntax, but between the lines.

It is crucial that students be exposed to some of language’s subtleties.  It provides them with an appreciation for the world’s diversity, as well as knowledge that it will take time for the world’s people to reach mutual understanding.

As Diamond points out, English, lacking the nuances of highly inflected languages like Latin, may not even be the best language for our much-needed diplomacy.   And, in my opinion, it’s always a good thing to suggest to students that America doesn’t own all of the answers.  Hmmm.  Which brings me back to my soap box about the Metric system…

It also brings We to Wii.  What role is gaming playing in closing the communication gap?  I gotta admit that I get pretty geeked when my kid plays people around the world in FIFA Soccer.  And although our virtual world can lack manners, I doubt that a world war will start over calling it FIFA “Football” instead.  Cosmopolitan folk learn the importance of context, and there’s certainly a role for gaming in that.  Opportunities abound for cultural exchange!  From the virtual communities through which we share to games based upon learning language; it’s only a matter of time before my mii is sitting at a Turkish cafe, struggling with the subtleties of a foreign culture, but learning, learning, learning.