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On the wall of the classroom where I had my TEFL course, a poster cited a statistic to the effect that 25% of the world’s population speaks English. There was no source given for the statistic, nor was there any context. What level of fluency, for example, is encompassed by this statistic? Does it include people who took a year of English in high school 30 years ago, for example? And even if it does, 25% still seems awfully high.

Living in Prague, though, I’m starting to come around to the view that English really is becoming a lingua franca. On tours and in restaurants and shops, I frequently hear conversations being conducted in English between Czechs and tourists who are obviously not Anglophones. And even once I get off the tourist track in Prague, I have no trouble finding people who can manage at least a little English. Occasionally, as they apologize for their limited English, they come up with some novel constructions. (I once had a clerk quote me a price of "1000 CZK less 1", rather than 999 CZK.)

I suppose this effect was present in France, too, although to a more limited extent. Paris, at least, offers a lot more accommodation than does Prague to tourists who speak neither French nor English. On the other hand, although my classmates at the Institut Catholique were not exclusively American, almost all of them spoke some English in addition to French and their native languages.

So I was interested to see this article in The Economist recently, which takes for granted English’s exalted status and goes on to discuss the problems. In particular, that "English, in effect, blocks the learning of other languages", and not just for notoriously foreign language averse Americans. It’s good news, of course, for a would-be English teacher.

Yet another reminder of the ways in which I’m one of a priveleged few!

The other trip I’ve taken outside of Prague since my arrival was to Kutna Hora, a UNESCO-protected Heritage site.

Kutna Hora mainly came to fame in the 13th century because it was close to the site of some very prolific silver mines; it remained one of the richest cities in Bohemia until the mines finally petered out in the 18th century.

Sites in Kutna Hora include the Cathedral of St. Barbara (the patron saint of miners):

Another view of St. Barbara’s, including a charming view of the scaffolding:

Instead of the usual crucifix, the altarpiece is a painted bas-relief of the Last Supper, which is something I’ve never seen before, but which makes perfect sense.

Horse-drawn carriages are a popular tourist fixture in Kutna Hora (in Prague as well):

The proximity of Kutna Hora to the silver mines led to the establishment of a Royal Mint. We toured the site of the mint, where coinmaking was demonstrated by a resident coinmaker:

I had always thought that coins were molded, but instead (at Kutna Hora, at least) they were stamped.

We passed by a plague memorial:

All in all, while Kutna Hora is a very pretty town, it didn’t really seem to be worth the trouble of the trip, and I’m not quite clear on why UNESCO has chosen to add it to its list of Heritage sites. Of course, I visited on a Sunday, when everything was shut down. I might have derived a more positive impression had it been livelier.

The tour included a trip to the Sedlec Ossuary, which was indeed worth the visit. The ossuary is home to something like 40,000 (!) human skeletons, which form some of the "decorations" for the chapel. This chandelier, for example:

Or this coat of arms, for the Schwarzenberg family:

There’s also an unremarkable graveyard outside the chapel:

I’ve taken a couple of tours outside of Prague, one of which was to Terezín (the so-called "Garden Ghetto" of the Nazi era).

The tour started with the fortress at Terezín. I had actually never heard about the fortress before. Terezín had originally been built in the 18th century as a fortress by the Austrians. During WWI, it was used as a prisoner of war camp; Gavrilo Princip, whose assassination of Franz Ferdinand set off the war, was imprisoned and died (of tuberculosis) there.

During the Nazi occupation, the Small Fortress was used as the Gestapo prison for the Prague region. Roughly 90,000 prisoners passed through the Fortress; some 2600 died there. For the most part, the prisoners were not Jewish, unless they were also political prisoners. Terezín wasn’t used as an extermination camp: for the most part, those who died, died of disease brought on by overcrowding, malnutrition, and poor hygiene.

The cemetary at the entrance to the Fortress:


"Work shall make you free", over the doorway leading to the original cell blocks:

We also visited the town of Terezín, which is now a perfectly ordinary looking town. The phrase "the banality of evil" comes to mind. Although, according to the tour guide, you can buy an apartment in Terezín for just about 15,000€: it seems that few people are interested in making their homes in a town with such a history. Some of the buildings have been repurposed as museums and memorials. The permanent displays especially feature art, both official and secret, created by the prisoners.

Although Terezín was not an extermination camp, only a few thousand of those who passed through it survived the war: if disease didn’t get them in Terezín, they tended to end up in extermination camps elsewhere.

Ya know, sometimes one of the reasons that I hold off on posting is because I have all these photos piled up, and so I wait ’til I get them formatted, then I have to think about how to weave them into a coherent narrative, and it’s just all so daunting that I put it off and put it off and put it off…

So, I’m just going to put up this little slideshow, mostly from a walking tour I took of Prague, and then I can just get on with posting about life here without having these photos hanging over my head!

Well, Prague has achieved a "just right" on my Goldilocks comfort scale (cf my post Next Stop: Prague). I’ve found that not speaking the language goes a long ways towards determining the Goldilocks rating. At any rate, I’ve decided to settle here, at least for a year or so.

In honor of my decision, I’ve rebaptized my blog, giving it a Czech name. According to my preceptress (thanks, Alena!), Život v Cizine means "Life Abroad".