I speak Swedish

Here in Sweden ears see English and eyes hear English. It is a second language or an unofficial language. It is a bastard child no one wants to admit as their own; they refer to it as främmande. Which is to say strange, främmande is also a word they use when they have guests in their house, har du främma? Do you have strangers at your house? So English here has quite a few speakers who will readily admit to you that they aren’t English speakers at all, kind of reminds me of my Swedish. I will readily admit to anyone and everyone that I do not speak Swedish though I join the million immigrants that speaks one form or another of Swedish.

I thought about this the other day.

The curious thing about it is that society just goes about without giving it much thought. This despite that one of the industries that Sweden exports the most is music, yes, in English. Teachers at the University of Stockholm also go about without giving this idea of English as an unofficial language very much thought; they teach it as a foreign language even though English lessons are given to children already in grade three.

When is language a mother tongue?

So here I am teaching English to English speakers. Who am I to correct an English that has millions of speakers who live in denial they don’t speak English at all?

I thought about this the other day.

My own dialect, Chicano English suffered, and probably still suffers, the lashings of WASP people who have considered our way of pronouncing English wrong. And here I am correcting others how to pronounce English, an unwilling participant of this charade ….