U.S. Campus Life A new lingua franca By Masako Yamada	フレームで見る  英文をプリントする  脚注をプリントする
研究室の新しい共通語 雅子さんの研究室には世界各国の研究員や学生が在籍しています。そのため、研究室内の共通語は、ドイツ人が多い時期にはドイツ語、イタリア人が多い時にはイタリア語と、時期ごとに変わります。最近はスペイン語圏からのメンバーが増え、研究室内の共通言語はスペイン語になってきています。

A Spanish friend Miguel and I were walking down the street when we ran into Antonio, another Spanish friend of mine. As we walked away after exchanging some quick greetings (in English), Miguel asked me whether I thought his accent was different from Antonio's. I asked Miguel whether he could tell what region Antonio was from based on his accent in English. He said that he would have guessed Barcelona, and he was close: Antonio was from Majorca.

Until recently, I had no way of distinguishing people from different regions of Spain based on their accents. As a matter of fact, I couldn't even distinguish what Spanish-speaking country they were from. Pretty soon, however, I might be able to distinguish these subtle differences. Suddenly, it seems that I hear Spanish (and Spanish-accented English) all around me.

For a long time, my lab has had a high proportion of Italian members, so I've gotten used to picking up the phone to the sound of "Pronto," and seeing e-mail messages with "Ciao ciao" at the end. In fact, I've gotten quite accustomed to hearing Italians from different regions boast about their home towns: Sardinia, Sicily, Naples, Rome, Florence, Milan. These names used to mean nothing to me, and now I can attach them to faces and personalities.

It seems the lingua franca in our lab is now Spanish. Not only have we recently welcomed about four or five members from different parts of Spain, we also have researchers from Venezuela, Argentina and Puerto Rico. I don't know whether this reflects the growing influence of Hispanic culture in the United States — I have the sense that this is not the case, since all of these researchers came directly from their mother countries and are not U.S. Latinos.

Not too surprisingly, there is a large difference between Spaniards and Latin Americans. However, the different Latin American countries have distinct personalities as well.

One Latin American told me that she feels much closer to Spaniards than to Northern Europeans. However, a Spaniard has told me that he feels like a close cousin to Northern Europeans in comparison to Latin Americans. I enjoy listening to the different stories that my new friends have to tell, and the different perspectives they have to offer.

Even little things can turn into big arguments: Should one put onions into an omelet? Answer at your own risk! The big regional debate in Spain is whether omelets should contain just potatoes or potatoes with onions. Even adding an extra ingredient like garlic is cause for serious debate. I have chosen not to tell them that Japanese cookbooks suggest adding ham and green peppers to Spanish omelets, lest I start an international conflict. Slowly, but surely, I am learning to distinguish the finer points of language and culture among the different countries and the different regions.

In spite of this recent trend, I can't say that I believe Spanish will continue to have such a strong presence in our group. It's true that once a strong connection is made between a particular foreign university and our laboratory, the connection tends to grow stronger, but these things change: at one time, German and Russian used to be strong languages in our group, too.

So, what will the language of the future be? I think it will be either Chinese or a language from India. Our group already has about five Chinese students and four students from India. I've already started trying to distinguish among different Chinese accents. Unfortunately, India is a tougher nut to crack, since there are so many languages in that country.

One thing I'm pretty sure of is that Japanese won't gain this kind of prominence in our group in the near future. I don't think Japanese will become the new lingua franca any time soon because not many Japanese graduate students and researchers have joined our lab in the past. As a matter of fact, it seems that most of the graduate and research departments (besides business and medicine) at Boston University have very few Japanese. At least, I've hardly seen any.

Shukan ST: July 27, 2001

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