The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 280 No 7500 p537
3 May 2008

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• Trimethoprim (2)
• Personalised service
• Shambolic procedures
• White Paper
• Workload
• Patents and generics
• Learning@lunch
• Minority languages
• Domain names
• Public relations (2)
• New professional body (2)
• The Society

Letters to the Editor

Minority languages

Benefits of speaking a patient’s language

From Mr G. Jones MRPharmS

I read with interest the research on the provision of pharmacy services in Welsh in Wales (PJ Online, 22 March 2008). Having lived in New Zealand/Aotearoa for some years I have seen parallels between Te Reo Maori and Welsh: both languages have suffered from linguistic imperialism and are making a slow but steady recovery (Maori television has recently been launched).

At a superficial level one could argue that there is no need to provide services in indigenous languages where a common knowledge of a second language exists. However, knowledge of a patient’s language (even at a minimal level) earns respect from the patient and builds their confidence in one as a health professional.

Surely the “they can all speak (insert dominant language) there anyway” attitude is now anachronistic and outmoded. Correct pronunciations of names and addresses of patients is a start. Every day, I hear the verbal mangling of beautiful Maori place names by people who have made no effort to learn even the basics of the indigenous language.

I am aware of the difficulties of learning a new language as an adult. On arriving in Aotearoa I had great ambitions of becoming fluent in the Maori language, but I am still at a basic phrase-book level. Here, as in Wales, there needs to be more support for people to learn the language in a healthcare setting. A start would be to offer a course during employment.

This approach could easily be incorporated in NHS hospitals. How interesting and challenging it would be for a recent graduate to work in a hospital gaining a clinical pharmacy diploma and a qualification in Scots, Gaelic or Welsh or other minority language depending on locality. The challenge is hard in community pharmacy, but not insurmountable.

Another challenge is to have a dictionary of pharmaceutical terms in the indigenous language. I am aware of such terms in Welsh as gwrthfiotic (antibiotic) or poenladdwyr (painkillers) but would not know what the Welsh is for “transdermal absorption”. It would be interesting to see how speakers of other minority languages respond to the challenge of updating vocabulary of a specialised/technical nature in their languages.

However hard the challenges, they are worth addressing if we are to retain our linguistic heritage. Surely, the aim for the future will be the retention of one’s indigenous language in addition to a common global language (whichever that may be). Readers who are not convinced by the linguistic argument might consider a recent Canadian study that showed that bilingual people showed symptoms of dementia four years later than monolingual people.¹

Gerallt Jones
New Plymouth, New Zealand

Reference

1. Bialystok E, Craik FI, Freedman M. Bilingualism as a protection against the onset of symptoms of dementia. Neuropsychologia 2007;45:459–64

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