EDMOND — David Lloyd George was the Prime Minister of England during the First World War, and he is considered the architect of that nation’s victory in that conflict. Prior to the First World War Lloyd George had served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in a Liberal government and sponsored legislation designed to aid the less fortunate and underprivileged.
Prior to that time he achieved public recognition as a fiery critic of the Boer War that England fought against the Afrikaners of Southern Africa. Lloyd George traveled throughout the British Isles and spoke to large anti war rallies and often told the attendees that every shell the British Army exploded on the South African veld could have been better spent on funding a pension for a retired British worker. But Lloyd George had begun his career in the British Parliament as an advocate for home rule for his native Wales, and he was perhaps best known as a supporter for that cause before the Boer War.
His family was Welsh and the Welsh language was spoken in his boyhood home. Lloyd George used to give a speech to his Welsh constituents in which he reminded them of how when the Romans conquered Wales they prohibited the use of the Welsh language and required that their language, Latin, be spoken by the citizenry instead.
The Romans also constructed guardhouses on many roads in Wales where Roman soldiers were garrisoned. Lloyd George would go on to say that several of those structures still were standing, and he recently visited one that had been converted into an elementary school for Welsh children. While he was there the children and teachers were speaking to one another in the Welsh language, and while the language of the Roman conquerors was taught there, he reminded his audience that it now was a dead language.
Lloyd George’s observation about the Romans’ inability to force their language on the people of Wales should be borne in mind when proposals to make English the official language of Oklahoma and the nation by elected officials are made.
It is somewhat ironic that conservative politicians and commentators who are quick to remind us that there are limits to what government can do and the power of government should be used sparingly in a free society now are among those who believe legislation should be enacted that mandate that English be our official language.
It could be argued, based on history, that when advocates of a language have to turn to government for its protection it’s a sure sign the primacy of that particular tongue is in jeopardy. In the late 1970s the separatist government in the Canadian province of Quebec passed laws that required French be the official language of government and business there, but it remains to be seen if those efforts will be successful during the long term. The Soweto riots in South Africa that historians consider the beginning of the end of White rule there began as a peaceful protest by high school students who did not want their courses taught in Afrikaans, the language of the white Afrikaner minority that ruled South Africa at that time, because they viewed it as the language of their oppressors. Interestingly, those students wanted to be taught in English.
Most polls of immigrants to this nation indicate they want to learn English as a way to become part of our national economy. Instead of passing laws proclaiming English as our official language, a better course of action would be to fund programs that teach English to immigrants and their families.
WILLIAM F. O’BRIEN is an Oklahoma City attorney.
Opinion
Poll: Immigrants want to learn English language
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