Richard Lederer라는 사람은 영어 매니아들에게는 어느 정도 알려진 이름이다. "English is a crazy language (영어가 미쳤지)"라는 글이 "뒤집어본 영문법, 네오퀘스트, 김영사, 1998"이란 책 맨 뒤에 영한 대역으로 소개된 바 있다. 소개된 부분은 필자가 알기로는 4부작 글 중의 제1부로, 영어의 불합리성을 유쾌하게 비꼬니까 우리같은 입장에서야 재미있을 수 밖에. 아래 있는 그의 홈페이지에 가서 찾으면 지금도 볼 수 있다(http://www.verbivore.com/arc_ceng.htm#ce1). 우리말 '붕어빵'에 '붕어'가 없다는 식으로, 영어의 'eggplant(가지)'에는 'egg'가, 'hamburger'에는 'ham'이 없다는 식의 재미있는 예를 수도 없이 수집하고 비꼰 글. 하지만 세상의 언어치고 처음부터 끝까지 철두철미 합리적인 것이 있을까? 언어는 사람사는 세상의 반영일 뿐이다. 그런데 아래의 글은 웃고 있는 얼굴에 찬 물 또는 불을 끼엊는 것 같다. 무어라 반격할 수 없음은 더욱 씁쓸한 일이고. 이런 사람이 우리 사회의 '영어 발음을 위한 혀 수술'과 '기러기 아빠'까지 알고 있을 줄이야... 다음은 그의 사이트(무료 공개 사이트이다)에서 금년 4월초 퍼놓았던 글이다.
English Is Everywhere
It has recently come to light that mothers in South Korea have been going to great lengths to give their children not just a leg up, but a tongue up on speaking English. Not only do these ambitious parents play their children English nursery rhymes in the womb, hire pricey tutors for their toddlers and send their preschoolers to America to pick up the accent. Now, in an effort to give their children an advantage in a highly competitive global society, the parents are turning to surgery to sort out misplaced l and r sounds. The procedure, which takes 20-30 minutes under local anesthetic, involves snipping the thin tissue under the tongue to make it longer and supposedly nimbler. (한국의 어머니들이 자식을 도우기 위해 다리 한 쪽 거들어 주는 정도를 지나, 영어를 잘 하게 하려고 "혀"까지 들어주고 있다는 사실이 최근 화제가 되고 있다 - 말장난(pun)으로 영어를 우리말로 옮길 때 제일 어려운 부분으로 생각된다. 'give someone a leg up'이 숙어로 "누구를 도와주다, 다리 한 쪽을 들어 탈 것에 태우다"라는 뜻인 점을 이용하여, 'give a tong up on speaking Enlgish'라고 비꼬고 있다 - 이 야심에 찬 부모들은 태아에게 영어 자장가를 들려줄 뿐만 아니라, 아장아장 걷는 아이들을 위해서 값비싼 영어교사를 고용하고, 취학 전 아동들에게 미국식 액센트를 터득하게 한다는 구실로 미국에 보내기도 한다. 드디어는, 경쟁이 치열한 세계화 사회에서 확실한 이점을 준다는 의도에서, 이 부모들은 잘못된 'l'과' 'r'발음을 바로잡아 주는 외과수술에 의존하기에 이른 것이다. 이 과정은 국소 마취 하에서 20~30분 걸리는데, 혀가 더 길어지고 아마도 더 잘 돌아가게 하기 위해, 혀 아래 쪽의 얇은 근육조직을 잘라내는 것을 포함한다.)
The mania to learn standard English has even induced changes in the Korean language, like "goose fathers." These are dads who work in South Korea and fly to the United States for seasonal reunions with their kids - who have been transplanted to the America just to learn English.(표준영어를 배워보겠다는 이상한 열기는 한국말에 "기러기 아빠"같은 신조어까지 초래했다. 이 말은 한국에 직업을 가진 아빠들 중에서, 단지 영어를 배울 목적으로 미국에 보내진 자식들과 일년에 몇 번 계절적 상봉을 위해 미국으로 날아가는 사람을 말한다.)
This flap about a flap of skin in South Korea is just one example that English has become the closest thing this planet has ever had to being a universal language. Like it or curse it, about one out of every six of us riding this planet use English in some form. 51.5 percent of those people learned English as a second (or third or fourth) language. China and India each have more English speakers than the United States!
A little more than 1,000 years ago, the Vikings conquered England. Today it's the English are conquering Scandinavia, through their language. Most of the children in Norway, Finland, Sweden and Denmark learn English by the age of 10, partly because larger businesses require English to be used as the official language.
Recently, some organizations in Germany joined forces to compile a list of the hundred words that best reflect the 20th century. AIDS, beat, bikini, camping, comics, computer, design, Holocaust, image, jeans, pop, single, sex, star, stress -- English words that became part of the German language during the past hundred years -- are featured in the list. "I think that language is a mirror of history, and these words reflect that," observed the head of the Society for German Language. "The English language has become a lingua franca, a language that the whole world understands."
A professor of English emeritus at National Taiwan University fears that the spread of English is doing subtle damage: "China has always been a civilization of great politeness and courtesy," she sighed. "But now our young people through the English they're studying, are learning to be so off handed. They say 'Hi' to everyone they greet, and everything is 'OK.'"
Horrors!
Teaching English as a second language has become a multimillion-dollar business the world over. Reported the director of Bogota's Winston-Salem Language School, "English is the most profitable business in Colombia - next to drug trafficking, of course." The majority of best-selling songs world wide have English titles. "English was lyrics to me before it was a language," said the lead singer for a popular Japanese group.
Moscow Radio has been running a series of programs designed to teach the essential vocabulary of capitalist society. "Trading Words" teaches its eager listeners the meanings of phrases such as "Let's talk about that over lunch" and "Do we have a deal?"
Cuba has been replacing the teaching of Russian with the teaching of English. In discussing the role of English in Cuba's elementary-school curriculum, Fidel Castro commented, "Although we might not like it, it's a universal language, much easier to learn than Russian and more precise above all in technical matters."
India, with 179 languages, relies on English to unify the country. "I could never have married my husband without it," said one Indian woman. "He comes from the north and speaks Hindi. I'm from the west coast and speak Konkani. I still have trouble speaking with his mother, although I suppose that's not such a bad thing."
The English language continues to be one of the world's great growth industries, adding about a thousand new words a year to its word store and, since World War II, garnering new speakers at an annual rate of more than two percent. Over the course of a millennium and a half, it has evolved from the rude tongue of a few isolated Germanic tribes into an international medium of exchange in science, commerce, politics, diplomacy, tourism, literature and pop culture. If our descendants ever make contact with articulate beings from other planets and other solar systems, English will beam its vocabulary across outer space and become a truly universal language.
© Richard Lederer (http://www.verbivore.com/arcartcl.htm#English)