Language galore - The 'European' culture of subtitles and dubbing - Part 2: We resist English and love our native language

This post is heavy on the linguistic side and more culturally than media related.

One defining characteristic of Europe as a continent is the sheer number of languages that exists here. There are never more than 2-3 countries that share the same official language. Most countries have their own, unique language. European languages are all derived from the same roots so there are very distinct similarities  between certain languages. Spanish and Portuguese are a good example. Both of these languages have their roots in Latin and and their vocabulary and spelling is quite similar. The biggest difference is in pronunciation. I have read my way through a Portuguese language book and I breezed through it as I already had a good ground in Spanish. I actually got annoyed as there was so little challenge involved! However, listening to Portuguese is like listening to Russian in my opinion with the harsh pronunciation and it shares many sounds and the harsh quality with my native language which interested me. In my opinion it is as if French (alphabet) and Spanish (vocabulary) had a child (Portuguese) and it was then raised by a Russian (pronunciation).

This similarity between languages means that knowing one language opens the doors to many others. This makes it easier as one does not have to study a lot of languages to be able to understand many others. This linguistic similarity means that people are both able to understand each other with ease but it also sheds a light on the incredible linguistic variety that exists here. It amazes me that there can exist so many languages that are derived from the same root (there are several sources of European languages) and have some similarities but are also so different from each other. I find it absolutely amazing, the fact that within the continent there is such an incredible array of languages that share so much and yet so little. This is one of the things I love about living here. It is a heritage and trait that needs to be nurtured and kept alive.

But then there enters into the picture the English language which has become a global language. In Europe there are only two countries that have English as their official language, Ireland and Britain. And yet, English is taught in every European country and good command of English has become a necessary trait in today's world. It seems that everything is in English these days. I grew up with the English language all around me and looking back, it amazes me why I did not find it strange before that in a country that does not have English as a native language and very few people are native speakers of the language English was everywhere. 

Why is it that English has overridden everything in today's world; media, culture, academics, science, humanities, cross-cultural communication?

In a continent like Europe that has such an incredible array of languages, why did English become so important? And should it really be so important? Because we have survived fine without it for centuries.

I am a speaker of a minority dialect and words cannot describe how much I love my native language and how much I treasure it. It is a big part of my world and who I am as a person and it is one the priceless treasures God has blessed me with and I am thankful he did. Because with my native language does not only bring a startling array of strange speech sounds (there is a reason for why I laugh when I listen to Portuguese as it is funny to find a language that has similar crazy speech sounds), an amazing vocabulary of funny words, a frighteningly difficult grammar and terrible accent but also culture, heritage, literature, ideas, values and traditions that I treasure. It means the world to me to be able to have that and it is what my native language brings. I would not trade it for anything and am proud to be a speaker of such an amazing language.

I am also proud to be able to speak English and another language fluently and to be able to understand some others. I am proud of the linguistic variety I have access to and what an incredible treasure it is.

This is what English threatens. With English taking over everything it threatens linguistic variety and the existence of minority languages and there is an abundance of them over here. 

This is something that we resist here. We want to protect our languages that mean so much to us and our heritage and the linguistic variety. 

And that is a part of the reason for why we dub things.