Lingua Anglica
That’s meant to be a pun on lingua franca, but because I don’t speak a bit of Latin, I probably just said something risque about monks by accident. Oh well. A lingua franca is a common language used by people who might not speak one another’s tongue. I hear it in my classrooms, when my Thai girls speak in halting English to my Urdu-speaker, because it’s the only mutual code they can access.
But what I’m pondering today is something I’ve noticed in my continued window-shopping for the perfect West Hollywood apartment. There are areas in Los Angeles that are veritable enclaves of non-English speakers. In particular, I’m finding a lot of Russian and Armenian neighborhoods where, even as I poke around the courtyards of units-for-rent, I hear conversations through open windows and in little backyards that are conducted entirely in another language.
I remember dating a Russian fellow from New York who showed me entire areas of the Bronx where three generations have come to adulthood speaking only Russian. They stay in their neighborhood, and they have everything they need. There is no pressing reason to learn English.
I feel sure that Los Angeles offers similar enclaves, but I notice that on all the answering machines I’ve encountered so far in my quest to view apartments, the messages are always in English. Heavily-accented English, perhaps, but English.
This is encouraging. It suggests an openness to let others into the enclave. I mean, if one were interested in making sure the 800 block of such-n-such street stays Russian, there is no simpler (legal) way to screen apartment applicants than to leave a message in Russian to scare off outsiders. But so far, no one seems to be doing it… not in West Hollywood, anyway. And little things like that mean a lot to me.
