Language and the History of the Olympic Games as a Cultural Event

Abstract

This paper reviews the goals of the Olympic Games cultural program, going back to the art competitions devised by Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic Games. Envisioning the cultivation of individuals with a well-rounded mix of physical and mental attributes, Coubertin sought for athletes to achieve artistic excellence. In his Ode to Sport, submitted under a pseudonym for the literature competition at the 1912 Games, he extolled human effort in addition to the possibilities of sports. After the Second World War, the art competitions were repurposed as an art exhibition, and further revised as a cultural program starting from the 1992 Barcelona Games. The Olympic anthem was revived in 1958, and the Japanese translation conveyed well the stirring quality of the original text. The 1972 Sapporo Winter Games and 1998 Nagano Winter Games lacked exhibitions of linguistic culture, but an engagement with language was shown by student essays and by the One School One Country Programs, in which schools would undertake cultural exchanges with a country chosen from among the participating countries. A cultural program is being planned for the 2020 Tokyo Games, but there seems to be little emphasis placed therein on linguistic culture. Nevertheless, it is to be hoped that the Olympic and Paralympic education and will provide the opportunity to experience the linguistic culture of many countries.