Is fluency in a language required for regional expertise?

In a followup to previous posts on learning language and living abroad, I’d like to open up the discussion regarding the question in the post title. In a discussion with a reader, he answered in the negative:

I feel that many westerners don’t know what they’re talking about when they write about the U.S. in English. And given that this is often the case, I’d think that being able to get it correct in another language is even more difficult. Perceptions and positions, are perceptions and positions, regardless of the language. You simply find the words which fit your perceptions.

That’s looking at the question backward. Language expertise does not automatically make a person’s analysis valid. And a person without language expertise can offer insight and valuable opinion. But knowing the language is generally a prerequisite to being taken seriously as a regional studies “expert.” What would most American readers think of an “expert” on the United States in Turkey, China, Brazil or elsewhere who didn’t know English? Think how limited that person’s access would be to materials on America! I have met Japanese scholars of “American Studies” who don’t know English, and it’s a pretty sad sight. But it’s rare in Japan—the problem is a widespread phenomenon in the United States.

Regulars won’t be surprised that my opinion is greatly influenced by my life in Japan and what I see coming from the Western academy. Many (even most) academics and “experts” on Japan who write for a Western audience are not fluent in the language. The result is pretty dismal analysis that is often useless and wrong. Lack of language expertise means these so-called experts are generally confined to English texts, and must rely on translators for real original research. In the academic world, this results in intellectual incest ad absurdum—unoriginal, even incorrect research is quoted and rehashed in the ivory tower until it becomes accepted doctrine.

As discussed in the comments at MF, it’s why I’ve given up reading books in English about Japan. Because there is so little interest for specialized books, most English texts on Japan are the author’s (re)interpretations and a general overview of Japanese politics, business, or society.

So I only read books on Japan in Japanese, to which the reader asks:

What have you found out in Japanese that you think a non-Japanese speaker couldn’t know?

The issue is material and access. This year alone I’ve read a dozen books in Japanese that are simply not available in book or article format anywhere in English. And if you want to be an “expert” on Japan, a lot of this reading is priceless. Take these three books on Japan that I read this year (titles for you diehards out there):
(1) a book on newspapers and public opinion before and during the Russo-Japanese war （日露戦五°Ã¯Â½Å¾Ã£”š”šÃ£Â?” Ã¤Â¸â‚¬Ã£Â?¤ãÂ?®ç”°Â©Ã¨ÂªÅ¾Ã¯Â¼”°
(2) a book on the development of the Japanese language during the Meiji Era （明治ãÂ?®ãÂ?“ãÂ?¨ãÂ?°ï¼”°
(3) a modern edit of the “Dutch Studies” book that inspired Japan’s modernization （蘭学五¹Ã¥Â§”¹Ã¯Â¼Å¡Ã¦”“°è¨³ï¼”°
(The only reader probably interested in my reading on civil, family, and criminal law is Joe, so I’ll exclude those titles.)

Which brings me to my final point. If you want to study Japan, guess what—most of the novel research on Japan is done in Japan, by Japanese people, in the Japanese language. Only a fraction of it is translated. That’s true regardless what the topic is, whether it’s business, politics, culture, history, law, economics, or anything else. And it’s true not just about Japan, but the world in general. Experts in the West who build their career on knowing a region had better know the language if they want to be taken seriously, and as consumers of the analysis we should be wary of who and what we read.