Does Language Character Exist?

Does “language character” exist? Why is it that sometimes people say that a language is “nice” or “horrible”? Does that even make sense? Sometimes I get asked to “proofread something in UK English rather than US English”, and I’m still none the wiser…

When I talk about “language character” in this post, I don’t mean how its nature depends on what words are used. I’m not talking about register, about how it may or may not be formal or dramatic or casual or whatever (as in how “You are kindly requested not to consume food within in this area” and “Nobody eat any f**king nosh round here” may mean the same thing, but they are indeed different in nature: people are often discouraged from saying the latter rather than the former for obvious reasons).

I am very fond of the old comedy TV series “Mind Your Language”, where Barry Evans plays a teacher who teaches English as a foreign language in an evening class. Although you can still get it on DVD and watch it on Youtube, according to Wikipedia they stopped showing it when someone said that the national stereotyping of the students was offensive. What a pity. Sure, it’s not particularly unlikely that the natives of a country will regard foreigners there as “different” – and not unlikely that they will not keep quiet about it – but that’s no reason to believe that the natives will be intent on victimising the foreigners just because they are different. …Well, isn’t it? Surely that would be as ridiculous as it would be shameful?

I can just about appreciate that sometimes it’s the case that, even if foreigners in a given country are not mistreated by the natives as such, they are simply fed up – maybe even a bit upset – of the natives having prejudiced (if innocent) views and opinions about them. They must feel so irked sometimes at natives appearing ignorant as to who they really are, labelling them as only, for example, “Mr. Beret and Baguette” if they’re French, or “Ching Chong Rice Lover” if they’re Chinese, or, in my case, “That Jolly Good Fellow Who Loves Drinking Tea And Playing Cricket” (I don’t play cricket, by the way), and persistently attributing unnecessary humour to it. But uncomfortable? Maybe it’s something you only get used to after you’ve travelled the world enough. It is of course fine to be proud of where you’re from, but no-one should forget that, ultimately, foreigners are as foreigners do. It’s not enough to state that “foreigners are what they are” – foreigners make themselves what they are. Just like any human being, really.

So what has this got to do with “language character”? Well, sometimes when I want to send an application for freelance work with a translation agency and I say that I translate into English (mainly), sometimes I specifically get asked whether this is “British English” or “American English”. I don’t really think of the two as “different” except for how the Americans say things like “sidewalk” rather than “pavement” and “candy” rather than “sweets”; and they leave out the “u” in words like “colour” and “favour”; and end words like “recognise” with “-ize” rather than “-ise” and so on.

Some people in Britain like to make jokes about how the Americans “don’t speak English properly”; they will virulently claim that it is British English is the correct, conventional, standard form of the language. There can be little doubt that these are the same British people who say “Americans are stupid”, as if that alone is enough to suggest that they can speak with authority about the Americans. But there are people whose English is not their first language who speak it very well, and very bad users of it in London, Oxford and Cambridge. Are we encouraged to regard British English as categorically different from American English merely because of popular opinion about “what British / American people are like”?

At the end of the day, even if Americans actually are… less bright than the British, it does seem to me that these attitudes encourage stereotyping. Is this why I’ll likely never see the fourth series of Mind Your Language?

Sometimes when I’m filling in an application form and I mention that I translate from French and German: if it’s French I specifically get asked if it’s French (France), French (Canada), French (Belgium) or whatever; if it’s German I might specifically get asked if it’s German (Germany), German (Austria) or “German (Switzerland). So how are the variants of those different, not just in linguistic concepts, but in character?
Isn’t anyone going to tell me?