Zara Stands Up For English

Zara is currently attending the international school here in Bergen. It's by her choice - she was scared of the language immersion program in Norwegian public schools. By government fiat all the schools in the country enforce medocrity. Kids are allowed to advance at their own speeds and everyone is taught the same thing. This is also true for Maxwell who's in the public school system. The both joke about their remedial math classes. As a parent who worked so hard to help them get ahead, a little part of me dies inside.

Zara's classes are taught in English, but that is not the native language of all the students there. Thus, although her French and Norwegian classes are foreign language classes, so also is English class. This puts her in the odd position of being a native speaker of a lower register dialect. Yeah, the international baccalaureate program is British institution and we all know the linguistic class distinction of the British Empire. Well, everyone who watched My Fair Lady obsessively as a kid knows that. Also, as Americans we tend to overvalue the opinion of people speaking with any British accent.

I have to hand it to Zara. She's managed to convince her teachers to let her continue writing "color" instead of the British alternative "colour". I guess flavors don't come up much because she hasn't mentioned that. Today, however, she refused to be corrected for saying "going to the hospital" rather than "going to hospital". For her teacher this was a bridge too far. The American penchant for articles that increases as one travels westward can really drive the British crazy. Well, some of them. In the US we have the same sort of people who like to insist things like that "alot" is two words and care about the distinction between "may" and "can". Such people don't really understand language and are more interested in putting others down to establish their dominance. Zara's brilliance is in seeing their shallowness and standing up for her mother tongue, English.