Hey, I’m mono-lingual!

If ever there were a language crossroads, Saipan is it. Indigenous island tongues join English, Chinese (Mandarin, Cantonese, and maybe others I don’t know about), Korean, Japanese, Tagalog and other Philippine flavors, Russian, Thai…and I’m sure we’ve got a smattering of others.

Heck, I even encountered someone who spoke Canadian (eh?).

Along with all this comes the eternal argument about whether an American businessman is well served by taking a polyglot approach to things. A couple of decades ago, shelves on U.S. bookstores blossomed with books on “business Japanese,” as American executives tried to keep up with the Godzilla economy.

Meanwhile, those who claim to know such things have told me that bumbling and fumbling through basic Japanese is not a move calculated to sooth the Japanese ears, and that American executives are better served by hiring competent interpreters. I’ll buy this theory. I reckon I could study Japanese for three years and, and best, come up sounding like a half-bright five year old.

Heck, I studied French for five or six years and I can barely offer a cup of coffee in that twisted tongue. Which is largely moot, since all of Paris has yet to produce 12 fluid ounces of drinkable java. But what do you expect? You can’t even get Velveeta cheese or Spam from those barbarians, and history shows that the only essential French phrase is “we surrender.”

Ah…but back to this Japanese thing. There are those of quicker mind than mine who can pick up Japanese. For example, Anicia Q. Tomokane, former head of the Marianas Visitors Authority, had a flair with Japanese, and even taught it here. Anicia’s knowledge of Japanese language and culture struck me as a good reflection on the Commonwealth’s tourism aspirations.

But for ham-tongued Americanos like me, being mono-lingual is about the only option, and I’m not even remotely satisfied with my command of my native lexicon. But who is? Anyone who is smug in their communications skills is a fatuous oaf (no shortage of those, eh?). Few things said or written could not bear some improvement. Which is why my father’s advice on magazine article writing strikes me as sage: “You never finish a piece,” he said, “you just abandon it.”

With a healthy dose of island flair, we seem to get by with life in Saipan undaunted by language problems. For some reason–perhaps my anarchistic penchant for chaos–I like being around a diverse array of languages. Store signs written in languages I can’t even identify, let alone read, strike me as charming. I’ve never seen language barriers seriously impede any business deals.

Yet one wonders if the world’s crusade for rigid homogeneity will result in the emergence of a “universal language.” I’m sure there are high-powered fools trying to hatch schemes for just such a thing. I think we’ve got better sense than that here in Saipan. As yet more riots rage in the United States, the CNMI has succeeded in building the most multi-cultural community under the American flag….and, as a bonus, has better coffee than has ever existed under the French colors. Not bad, eh?

Ed Stephens, Jr. is an economist and columnist for the Saipan Tribune. “Ed4Saipan@yahoo.com”