The Language of the Sea is English

The language of the sea is English and whilst Mr Kwong (Second Engineer on some illegal North Korean Nuclear Transport vessel) or Jaun Carlos Castro (Cook and part-time Havana Cigar exporter on the MV Fidel) might not agree with or know about this statement most other seafarers do!

The International Maritime Organization (IMO) rolled out this law ages ago, that English would be the language of the sea, after they themselves suddenly realized that they could not understand each other! Many years ago from China to Chile this law was rubber stamped but it was not until the turn of the century that it could be said that it was the norm on board. The IMO may well have loads of well-paid translators, expensive ear-phones that can perform magic tricks and they may have had the luxury of years to reach a unified decision but onboard ships all that the seafarers had was this law in one hand and a well-thumbed dictionary with half the pages missing in the other!

It was common during the eighties and nineties to find ships fully manned with one nationality, Pilipino, Russian, Indian, Alien, etc – with no reason for those seafarers to speak any other language than that with which their mothers and fathers forced them to choose a career at sea all those years ago! The Captain may have had to know a smattering of essential sentences like "pleeese, where be I", or "big ship, big ship, get out the way" but the engineer down in the engine room had no need for English – very useful ignorance when port state control started snooping around or the superintendent visited! For the most part the working language of many ships was whatever the predominant language was on board, with the deck officers simply memorizing some essential sentences in English that enabled the ship to get into and out of some foreign port!

Today, many ships are manned from top to bottom with officers and crews of varying origin, varying ranks of Poles, Cape Verdes and Indonesians work side by side over failing engines; all ‘effin and blindin’ at each other better than any British seafarer ever could and up on the Bridge the Captain speaking the Queens English over the radio to some Welsh harbor Master who nobody can understand outside of Wales!

Today it is quite normal for ships to sail with a compliment of twelve fine and able crew members! It is also possible for this very same vessel to sail around with twelve completely different nationalities, all speaking English daily, all communicating, socializing and swearing in that one common language! A Hungarian, a South African and an Indian heading off ashore to ‘look at the local woman’; an American, a Croat and a Cape Verde arguing over who can ‘see further at night’ – all using English as the language of communication!

Twenty years ago a certain vessel ended up aground not five minutes after exiting Falmouth dry dock! Whilst the damage was not great and the vessel managed to scrape herself off the mud to proceed on her way (after suitable inspection and a new Captain), the event occurred simply due to the language barrier on board! The very frustrated Chinese Captain was at the moment of the grounding, spitting hysterically into the mouthpiece of the bridge phone in Mandarin. He was obviously trying to educate the Nigerian Chief Engineer below, who was by then shriveled in fear underneath the console, that he needed an astern movement on the engine. Due to the serious lack of a common language regulations like the one produced by IMO came into being.

Somebody may like to point out that many ships floating around today are filled from top to bottom with some weird speaking Scotsmen that even a Scottish lowlander cannot understand (some say this is not English, more like a group of people clearing their throats in a loud and unapologetic fashion) and others have noted that some ships sail around with Singaporeans who have created their own English language which again nobody can understand and that comes without a dictionary, but this anomaly might have to be accepted without question. No law in this world, no dictionary, translator or reduction in salary is going to make a Scotsman or Singaporean talk in understandable English so whilst all other nations have made great effort to learn the language and to use it in favor of their own tongue, they will just have to accept the fact that half those whose mother tongue is English can’t be understood by anybody else!

The Language of the Sea
Articles and Tall Tales of the Sea by Ieuan Dolby