COLLECTIVE ACTION

Retired judge Blair’s latest geopolitical treatise makes the case for bilingualism as a vital component of humanity’s future.

Blair has published multiple books and essays since 2012, centered on 21st-century geopolitics, global warming, and the necessity of collective global action toward creating a more equitable world. Here, the author argues that two-mother-tongue bilingualism (abbreviated throughout the book as “2 MT bilingualism”) is essential for achieving peaceable global unity: This form of language learning essentially involves children learning two languages simultaneously from a young age. As per the book’s ambitious recommendations, the United Nations’ “first step” in preparing for the future should be “the establishment of a global community of communication with a language rationalization policy of 2 MT Bilingualism.” Such a plan would bring a “psychological and emotional lift” to billions of marginalized people around the world who do not speak the 20 most popular languages and have been excluded from the global exchange of ideas and resources. “Smaller political entities,” the book argues, would have a greater stake in sharing “international agency” with dominant “empire-states” and would be better equipped to join the fight against climate change and other potential global catastrophes that would disproportionately impact poorer nations. Blair makes a convincing case that empowering the United Nations through 2 MT bilingualism would not create a one-world government “Leviathan” (as predicted by anti-globalists) but would instead lead to a more democratic world order. The author asserts that while past efforts to achieve a global language (most notably the creation of Esperanto in the late 19th century) have prioritized Western languages, the emphasis on 2 MT bilingualism is sensitive to the post-colonial demand for preservation of “smaller language communities.” The author’s plea for bilingualism is particularly sympathetic to famed Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe’s critique of imposed colonial languages and explores case studies from Tanzania and Indonesia on finding “an indigenous alternative to linguistic congruence with a European language.”

Blair argues that it was former European colonies after World War II who first rejected the Western idea of monolingual congruence as a necessity for nation-states and provided the foundations for “a new language rationalization policy for the 21st Century.” Blair’s book also effectively dismantles some prevailing linguistic myths in the West: namely the perceived national importance of monolingualism and the idea that English is the forerunner in the race toward a global language. And while admitting that “global linguistic congruence is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the resolution of our current problems,” Blair may still be overselling the democratizing effects of bilingualism. Despite the author’s own occasional linguistic eccentricities, the book is nevertheless compelling in its philosophy and thoroughly researched: In its 138 pages, Blair marshals more than 100 footnotes from scholarly sources to back its claims and utilizes many visual aids. And although the book is certainly serious in intention, it also incorporates snippets of playful linguistic humor: When discussing anachronistic gendered grammars, for instance, the book highlights logical inconsistencies, such as the French word for beard (la barbe) being feminine, while a woman’s breast (le sein) is masculine. Nevertheless, the book’s emphasis on a bilingual system that would benefit poor countries offers a potential solution to a myriad of global linguistic issues.

An evocative, well-researched, and convincing case for global bilingualism.