‘The experts are terrible!” declaimed Donald Trump in a 2016 rant about how irksome he found people with actual knowledge – for which he was roundly derided.
But sometimes, it can seem as though experts are indeed using their vast learning somewhat bloody-mindedly.
One recent report by a linguistics expert insists English is really substandard French. Where it’s not French, it’s Italian or Gaelic. Apparently, the English we’ve been speaking for all these centuries – and imposing on others as the ideal (ahem) lingua franca – is a hoax.
Another confounding new piece of research contends that the poorer the nation, the happier the population. Wealthy countries, including New Zealand, Australia and the UK, are utterly bloody miserable while places such as Sudan, Ivory Coast, Moldova and Colombia are quite chipper by comparison, despite poverty, violence and similar inconveniences.
As the sky darkens with flocks of pigs seeking landing strips, it’s worth looking at these seemingly bonkers findings, just for contrariness’ sake. Eminent French linguist Bernard Cerquiglini relies heavily on numbers, contending a third (80,000) of English terms are nicked from France and much of the rest from Latin and the Celts.
Cerquiglini’s treatise, entitled “The English Language Doesn’t Exist – it’s just Badly Spoken French”, finds 40% of the English version of the Bible’s words are French.
The new poverty-equals-happiness treatise is drawn from the fourth annual report on global mental wellbeing by Sapien Labs, which surveyed more than 419,175 responses from 71 countries in 13 languages. In a schedule of 71 countries, New Zealand was 52nd, Australia 66th and the UK 70th.
Dominicans were the most contented and resilient, and lower-decile African, Asian and South American nations dominated the list’s top half. “Greater wealth and economic development do not necessarily lead to greater mental wellbeing,” say the authors, who would be advised not to repeat this to a sub-Saharan African.
The study started just before the pandemic and subsequent geopolitical ructions, so has tracked the world through unusually troubling times. However, the authors’ key thesis now is that social media is a – possibly the – primary determinant of how mentally resilient we are.
There’s logic there. Rich populations bombard themselves with ceaseless information, much of it unreliable, larded with bullying, “cancel” culture wars and tsunamis of content deliberately designed to create envy and insecurity.
And this is while knowing how well off they are compared to poorer countries where, rather than pining for the latest Apple device or a “snatched” jawline, people strive simply to stay alive.
It’s a fair assumption that the world’s ill-favoured populations are too preoccupied with mortality to feel as sorry for themselves as they objectively should. But this research doesn’t suggest a logical response. If fostering economic prosperity will “not necessarily” make them happier, then what? Equip them with ultra-fast broadband so they, too, can become First World miserable?
Sapien’s findings also lob a grenade into the West’s immigrant and refugee struggles. How now to perceive those from “happier” countries who misguidedly risk death to come to wretched countries like the UK? Assure them they’d be happier at home, facing persecution or death?
Daft as that sounds, some illegal immigrants to Britain have recently been reported as being desperate to flee, having indeed found it grim. Ridiculously, the police must prevent them leaving because officialdom demands they complete due legal process even though it takes years.
Which makes as much sense as the world’s billion-odd English speakers claiming to be bi- or multi-lingual, à la Cerquiglini’s doctrine. Thankfully, there’s a precise Kiwi term for all this: yeah, nah.
