Plurilingualism, a cultural revolution

We must move away from monolingualism.

When, in the wake of the first European Conference on Plurilingualism (Paris, November 2005), the organisers decided to create the European Observatory on Plurilingualism, people were a long way from imagining where the choice of the term "plurilingualism" over "multilingualism" would lead us.

Unlike the Council of Europe, which is the true creator of the term, the European Commission and the Council of the European Union have long refused to use it¹ and have long wanted to stick to "multilingualism", even if this means that the term covers very different realities. Since then, things have changed a little. Thus for the first time the term is used in the "Conclusions of the Council on plurilingualism and the development of language skills " of 20 May 2014, in its French version. In a Council Recommendation of 22 May 2019 on a comprehensive approach to language teaching and learning, the Council feels the need, in a footnote 4, to define the two words in the following terms:

"If the Council of Europe uses the term 'plurilingualism' to refer to an individual's ability to use more than one language, the official documents of the European Union use the term 'multilingualism' to describe both individual skills and social situations. This is partly due to the difficulty of distinguishing between 'plurilingual' and 'multilingual' in languages other than English and French.

The explanation is pathetic, it is an euphemism, because if the Council of Europe, in the context of the work on the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, and in the text of the CEFR itself, was able to create the word in French (« plurilingualism ») and in English (« plurilingualism ») around the 1990s, it is not clear why it would be impossible to create them in the other European languages which would lack them. This is especially true since the European Union is constantly creating new words, in its own specific language, and these new words are immediately translated and therefore created in these other languages by the translation services.

The footnote poses another problem. Is it reasonable to use the same word to refer to such different realities?

Power of the natural language and points of view on the world

For example, let’s assume that multilingualism is a factual situation: a country is multilingual but the majority of its citizens are monolingual. This is the case in Canada where 50% of French speakers speak English, but only 10% of English speakers speak French. The country is clearly multilingual, especially if we add the languages of the indigenous peoples, and if there is multilingualism, it is very asymmetrical. Only the Francophones and the indigenous people take it on.

Plurilingualism could be referred to either as a reality (Luxembourg, Switzerland) or as an objective. If we confuse the two terms we get :

"Country X is a multilingual country. Multilingualism should be developed there".

Weird, isn't it? Yet the example is real. It means that the word at the beginning of the sentence does not have the same meaning as the same word at the end of the sentence. Interesting! The linguists know: "My father is my father". In mathematics, we don't yet know how to say that the first "a" is a point of view on "a", and that the second "a" is another point of view on "a", but that "a" = "a" or that "a" is as true as "a". It's a question of point of view. But this kind of pseudo-similarity that works in natural language cannot be used in all circumstances.

On the other hand, "Country X is a multilingual country. Plurilingualism should be developed" makes sense.

Is the first formulation scientifically and linguistically acceptable? Obviously not. The first conclusion that can be drawn is that languages which do not make the distinction are simply deprived of the concept, when nothing prevents them from acquiring it. Each language has its virtualities, and all the simulations we have done on European languages show that all the languages can acquire it. In theory, all the languages can acquire all concepts and are, again in theory, able to accommodate an infinite number of them. In practice, it is different. All languages reflect different historical experiences, and this is why we can speak of 'world-views'. Languages have their corpuses, a notion that linguists are fond of, and these corpuses carry different world-views, but which can happily communicate with each other. These different "worl-dviews" explain why the starting point is a situation of generalised "incommunication"² , but the confrontation of these different world-views through deliberation leads to a better communication and understanding. In this respect, the European Union is an exceptional laboratory. But this exemplarity should not be exaggerated. Plurilingualism, and not multilingualism, is a commonplace situation in Africa today. It was also commonplace in the Europe of the past, where the traveller, pilgrim or adventurer had to learn the languages of the countries he was passing through or to be guided by people acting as interpreters.

The European Union clearly considers that the two words are equivalent or the distinction is unimportant. This can be seen from the fact that the "Conclusions of the Council on multilingualism and the development of language competences" of 20 May 2014 are entitled "Conclusions on multilingualism and the development of language competences", whereas the wording could and should have been "Conclusions on plurilingualism and the development of language competences".

The European Union an expert on linguistic ambiguity

Can we really conclude that the European Union does not know the concept of plurilingualism?

One could imagine that when the European Union says "multilingualism", as well as countries which do not know the difference in their languages, they actually mean "plurilingualism".

There is very little chance of this happening. The point to be made here is that the European Union, through its institutions, is an expert in ambiguity and practises the "confusion of languages" rather than their enhancement, as it claims. There is a persistent refusal by the EU to use the term plurilingualism.

Several elements support this hypothesis.

In the few texts in the French version which use the term "plurilinguisme" the English version systematically uses the term "multilingualism".

The European terminology database IATE always translates "plurilingualism" into "multilingualism" in English and the equivalents in other languages, and as it recognises the existence of several possible translations, it consistently recommends the term "multilingualism".

This is not just an expression of a concern for simplicity. By refusing the conceptual clarification which would be very useful, the European Union is in fact refusing the concept itself.

Different concepts

It is therefore worth explaining how the concept of "plurilingualism is fundamentally different from the concept of multilingualism" as it is commonly understood. Of course, some people use the two words interchangeably. Other people, the vast majority, have no idea that the terms do not mean the same thing, because they stick to a narrow definition that multilingualism, like plurilingualism, is the "ability of an individual to use several languages".

To make the difference clear, one could add that plurilingualism is more than speaking several languages.

And it is this difference that needs to be assessed and at the same time understood for what deep-seated reasons the European Union rejects the term, i.e. the concept.

After quickly considering the different aspects of the problem, we will see that plurilingualism, in relation to the European Union, is not an accessory of which some would like to get rid, it is the very support of the European political project. Plurilingualism" makes a major qualitative leap from "multilingualism" which the doxa is not ready to accept.

There are many sources for defining plurilingualism. What they have in common is that they are linked to a certain conception of language, that of the language-culture, which means that plurilingual competence is not separated from intercultural competence (the term "intercultural" having been preferred in the end to "pluricultural"). Let us nevertheless take up this historical definition by Daniel Coste:

Plurilingual and pluricultural competence refers to the competence to communicate linguistically and to interact culturally, a competence possessed by a speaker who has mastered, to varying degrees, several languages and has, to varying degrees, the experience of several cultures, while being able to manage all of this linguistic and cultural capital. The major option is to consider that there is no superposition or juxtaposition of competences that are always distinct, but rather the existence of a plural, complex, even composite and heterogeneous competence, which includes singular, even partial competences, but which is one as a repertoire available to the social actor concerned.³ .

At a conference in Nairobi, we found a very satisfactory formulation :

"The day when we understand that languages are not juxtaposed and compartmentalised in bi-plurilingual people but form a totality scattered in a circularity, we will integrate that linguistic plurality is far from being a handicap, especially in a world where it is more and more the rule.

But if we want to go one step further to reach philosophical anthropology, we need to integrate the idea that language, without being confused with it, allows thought to be fulfilled. Language is charged with history, because all words are linked to collective experiences, and this is why the meaning of words evolves in a shared historical continuity.

It is not a code, whose rules can be fixed for eternity; languages evolve naturally as history is written.

It is not a tool either, a concept whose traces can be found even in the documents of the French National Education.

In order not to appeal to linguists or philosophers, we would like to give two interesting accounts from this point of view. First, that of the painter Garouste:

"When I studied Hebrew, I thought I was learning a language like English. But by learning this language you enter another state, another logic. Apart from the vocabulary, you learn sentence constructions, a use of words that have nothing to do with what I knew. I'll give you a simple example: "bee" is said "deborah", a root of three consonants - there are no vowels in Hebrew - which are exactly the same as for writing "word", "desert" and "plague". So when you come across the word "bee", you must not separate it from these other words, which are neither synonyms nor homonyms. What is the relationship between the bee and the plague, or between the plague and the word? It's transmission: the bee goes from flower to flower, it communicates while foraging; and the plague is caught while speaking. So, in a dictionary you will read "deborah = bee", but in fact you have to link the word to a whole context to understand the orientation of the text. And here, we are in a process that becomes completely fascinating. When I started to experience this with my Hebrew teacher, it seriously oriented my paintings.⁴

And this second testimony:

"Indigenous languages contain the understanding of the world of our ancestors. Wabanakwut Kinew⁵ , Anishinaabe (quoted in Maurice Rebeix, L'esprit ensauvagé, 2022, p. 163)

Language is neither a tool nor a means of communication. It can be used in this way, but fundamentally it is infinitely more than that. Language as a tool or as a means of communication is not just the visible part, like an iceberg. The iceberg without its 9/10 volume under water does not exist.

The strength of the term "multilingualism" is its fundamental ambiguity, compatible with two opposing conceptions of language, which "plurilingualism" is not.

Multilingualism" suggests not the comparability of languages, but their equivalence. If languages are equivalent, we might as well have just one. Monolingualism as a goal is in this sense a matter of time. Languages are entities that can be added or subtracted. Learning two languages is learning one language twice. Like having two cars or two phones.

Plurilingualism" implies the idea of plurality, i.e. the arrangement of several realities which can be brought into resonance, but which cannot be reduced to each other. Two languages, three languages, are horizons that open up together and together form a new world. The languages form a system around the mother tongue in which the whole is more than the sum of its parts.

When the expression "plural left" was in vogue in France, no one would have had the idea of referring to a "multiple left", because in real life difference is as important as similarity.

When a European text speaks of Europe's cultural wealth, it is not an empty word.

Cultures of Europe

The first considering of the "Council Conclusions on the enhancement of intercultural exchanges through the mobility of artists and cultural and creative professionals, and through multilingualism in the digital age" dated 13 April 2022, therefore under the French Presidency, is worth mentioning:

Cultural and linguistic diversity is an integral part of the European Union and its fundamental values. It contributes to the development of creativity, creative freedom, cultural exchange and the variety and quality of the cultural and artistic offer for all Europeans. It favours mutual understanding and respect for cultures and languages, and is a common heritage, a wealth, a strength and a distinguishing feature of relations in Europe and with the rest of the world;

This type of wording cannot fail to attract attention, as it is extremely rare in European texts, dealing mainly competitiveness, mobility, employability, skills and assessment. A discourse analysis of the European texts would be of great interest from this point of view.

By wanting to preserve "multilingualism", the European institutions want to leave open the extension of the hegemony of English to the detriment of the other European languages.

There are those who militate to have English the only official language of the European Union with the idea of ensuring the unity of Europe and democracy in Europe through English. This is a sheere delusion.

Legitimacy crisis

The monolingualism promoted in the practices and symbolism of the European institutions weakens their legitimacy, a legitimacy that is already highly contested. It does not strengthen democracy, it weakens it. For democracy to work, it is necessary to promote intercomprehension, whereas the institutional domination of English promotes incommunication.

In the European Union, English is spoken by just over 1% of the natives, and between 95% and 90% of the population either do not speak English at all (around 60%) or speak only rudimentary English. It is clear that the all-English Europe is a factor of incommunication, lack of democracy and a generator of hidden costs. To get out of the incommunication, which is a natural situation, a kind of initial situation, requires a lot of efforts through the knowledge of foreign languages, translation and interpretation.

English can therefore only be one official language among others in a European Union where France and Germany represent 37% of the total population.

The established institutional hegemony of English tends to impose some kind of caste power. In some respects, the present situation could be compared to that of the Renaissance. All intellectual and social life was controlled by the Church who spoke in Latin, while the people had long since lost their understanding of Latin. As early as the 13th century^e Dante was the first to demand that the "vulgar" languages (the languages spoken in the families) be raised to the level of Latin. And it was for this reason that two centuries later Descartes wrote his Discourse of Method in French, and Galileo his Dialogue in Italian, in order to reach a wide audience.

In a democracy we speak in a language which everyone can understand.

The linguistic structure of the speech on the State of the Union delivered by the President of the European Commission should be thought-provoking in this respect.

This is a perfect metaphor for the state of the European Union⁶.

And let it not be said that English is a neutral language.

In order to ensure the free flow of ideas, plurilingualism involves translation, interpretation and raising the language skills of individuals in their practical and cultural dimensions in order to ensure intercomprehension and a successful communication.

Today's world loves violent revolutions which produce ever more violence. Because it affects inter-individual and international relations by pacifying them as much as possible, plurilingualism proposes a real cultural revolution.

In the European Charter for Plurilingualism, drawn up in 2005 at the end of the 1st European Conference on Plurilingualism, we highlighted the political dimensions of plurilingualism. We are attaching a selection of them to this editorial.