English is the modern Latin

I reread The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco, recently. One of the highlights of this novel is the part where a poor peasant girl sneaked into the kitchen of the Abbey. She was suspected of being a witch by the inquisitor, and couldn’t clear herself of the charge. This was because she could not speak Latin; the common language of the “holy” church, intellectuals and the powerful. “For all her shouting,” Eco wrote, “she was as if mute. There are words that give power, others that make us all the more derelict.”

     This episode reminded me of a scene from a barbecue at the South African Ambassador’s Residence in Tokyo. A lady from that country spoke to me but, unfortunately, I couldn’t speak English well and she left quickly. Nobody else spoke or paid attention to me. “I was like an invisible person,” I was thinking that night. At that time, I was already middle-aged, and had no alternative to “words”; beauty, youthfulness, talent or status...things like that. 

     But then I enjoyed the party in my own way; as an observer. I appreciated a sand painting of a camel rider in a desert, a large egg art―an ostrich eggshell―, the elegant white colonial mansion, the large lawn garden, the beautiful summer night view and the South African families who had a nice chat. The ambassador was of African descent, but almost all the guests were European. Some of their wives were Japanese. I felt like I had slipped into a villa in colonial Africa or India.

     In contrast, Jun, my Japanese friend who asked me to the party, fully enjoyed the “real” party. She talked and laughed with other guests. She wasn’t much different from me, but a good English speaker. (I just recently heard news about her. Our mutual friend Philip, a Scot, said that she married a South African gentleman.)

     It was nearly a decade ago. I’ve gone through similar experiences sometimes. I think that the influence of language is quite similar to the distribution of currency. The languages of countries with political or economic power (in addition to military power, perhaps,) become the common languages. Chinese used to be the common language of intellectuals in East Asia, including Japan. Latin was also the common language of European intellectuals and church for centuries, even after the Roman Empire collapsed. And you have no doubt that the today’s global common language is English―it’s the modern Latin. People who can’t speak English are the same as mute on the occasions of international exchange. Ergo the episode of a peasant girl in The Name of the Rose always reminds me of the summer night when I was “an invisible person”.