[when in rome] speak italian and mix with the locals

When in Rome ...

Anyone found to be regularly misusing the Slovak language in public office now faces a fine of up to $7,000 (£4,300), the equivalent of nearly a year's average pay in Slovakia, reports say.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has said the new law respects the rights of minorities, but has noted the concerns and risks related to its enforcement.

How precisely does the new law "respect the rights of minorities"? I'd like to see this spelt out. This is one issue where there's a bit to be said each way.

Thinking immediately of Russia and it's insistence that Russian only be spoken in its buffer states, there are a number of differences to the Slovak situation. The Hungarians who are complaining have come into the country of Slovakia, a sovereign nation, yet a new nation and a language is not something which can be suddenly brought into being, as a new country can, at the stroke of a pen.

Still, a country does have the right to demand that its own language be spoken as the primary language and there are clear benefits to it. There certainly were in Russia, where a foreign language was imposed on countries with their own languages already. Within the Russian Federation itself, it's an arguable point. Some of the fifteen states have their own language which was suppressed during the time of the Soviet Union.

For all the whys and wherefores of that, it certainly smoothed communication and infrastructure building and even today, ethnic minorities, no longer constrained by the enforcement of law still choose to use Russian, simply because everyone else does. Ardent nationalists insist the mother tongue of the region is used.

It's an ongoing debate. During the period of the waning of Soviet influence and consequently Russian influence, there was a stark reminder within the school where I taught some hours each week. The local government, emboldened, brought in a law where the teaching hours each child devoted to the local tongue were going to be 8, up from 3. Russian, in its various disciplines, was to be reduced from 8 to 5 and English was to be dropped from 5 to 3 in any week.

Naturally, the English departments [and remember that these were schools of extensive English learning] were up in arms but the big mistake was to reduce Russian. This was a very powerful lobby who'd always been locked in mortal combat with the English mafia, as our department was called.

I walked into the staffroom one morning and the Russian speakers clammed up when I came through but I'd heard someone say, in Russian, that English was only good for business but for literature, Russian was far more expressive and melodic. Well, that happens to be true in poetry and I said so, in Russian, to their surprise.

The upshot was that I was entered in the Pushkin competition for his birthday celebration [their little joke on me], local media came and videoed me speaking "Я помню чудное мгновенье: Передо мной явилась ты ...", roughly translated as "I remember the miraculous [fabulous, wonderful, magnificent] miracle [when] in front of me you suddenly appeared ..."

With its sybillant sounds and nuances, Russian in the hands of an educated person like the Russian lit teacher I fell in love with, can be a beautiful thing. I was told, by other Russians, that this lady couldn't even be understood by other Russians, so what my strangulation of the tongue did to her ears I shudder to think.

From all that, I learned that everyone was smiling that the local language was going to be upped form 3 to 8. "What are the children to do in lessons?" laughed the Russians. "Twiddle their thumbs?"

The result was, of course, that there were simply not enough good teachers about, qualified to teach the local language and the children were passively but with hostility, resisting it. This included children of local ethnicity.

That's a bit different to Britain and to Slovakia. Slovakia needs to establish its national identity and it can only be done with uniformity of language. Slovakia has the right to demand that in its own land. In Britain, the need is even more cogent and urgent.

To hell with minor ethnic moaning - if they're in this country, they speak the local language - English. How else are they to absorb the local culture and think more like a Brit? I'm sorry but I'm pretty intransigent on this - if they refuse to assimilate then what the hell are they doing here?

I never thought for a moment not to speak Russian over there. When I walked out of the classroom, I switched to Russian. Children were line ball as to which was their favourite language, with some adoring English and some preferring the mother tongue. Me? I preferred Russian - hell, I was using English on the blog every day and needed a break from it.

If you're just on a visit, well OK - most places speak English but I find it bizarre to go somewhere and not try out the local cuisine, the local sights and the local tongue. Besides, you get much better treatment from the locals. When in Rome ...

It was the greatest pleasure to learn some Cantonese and try it out on the Hong Kongers at one stage and actually see it work! That's such a buzz. It was a pity, in Sicily, not to have more time to devote to Italian but I loved to slip out to a cafe, talk to the people there and read the local newspaper. One cafe owner brought over an English language paper to me and I waved it away with a smile. His eyebrows went up. Well really, what was I there for, if not to immerse in the local culture?

In Paris, when the waitresses actually understood my French and when I could see they liked that I was trying to speak it, that when they were compassionate enough to drop into English but I didn't want to - call me strange but I think that's the way it should have been.

So I'm sorry if you demand that your own language be spoken over here. No, no, no, no, no! You speak our language please and not only that, you learn a high version of it too ... but that's another blogpost.