The
Origins of English
English is basically a Germanic language
with a lot of Latin words in it. In simple terms, that means that the grammar
and many of the most frequent words are Germanic, and the more formal or
technical vocabulary is Latinate. There is much of this Latinate vocabulary
that English is sometimes called a semi-Romance language.
This linguistic mixture is a result of
historical events. But the simple historical facts appear not to explain
everything about the development of the language. One interesting question is
why did the British not learn Latin from the Romans? After all, France, Spain,
Portugal and Romania all kept the imperial language after the end of the Roman
Empire. The answer may be the distance from Rome; the province of Britannia was
on the wild and uncooperative margins of Europe. Although the Romans were here
for 400 years, they did not leave very much behind them. It is hard to know how
much the Celtic language of the Britons took on a Latin flavour. Actually its
living descendant, Welsh, has a lot of Latin roots in it, so perhaps in the 3rd
and 4th centuries AD they were on their way to creating another
great Romance language. But it was not to be. The Anglo-Saxons who took over
from the Romans in Britain were relatively untouched by Latin influences, so
Celtic was replaced by Germanic, and the British romance with Romance was, temporarily,
over.
In 1066, the French-speaking Normans
invaded England. Over the next 300 years, their French merged with Anglo-Saxon
to create a new language: the writing of Chaucer (1343-1400) is not very far
from modern English. As in the rest of Europe, Latin, especially in its written
form, remained for a long time the language of science, philosophy and the
Church. But English was growing stronger; it was soon not only the language of
everyday life but also that of a flowering literature. Caxton introduced
printing into the country in 1476, and that did much to standardize forms –
spelling was very inconsistent at that time. Latin and Greek classics and the
Bible were translated into English. By the time of Shakespeare (1564-1616), the
language was highly developed.
ENGLISH
The
World’s Biggest Brand
Imagine
a brand bigger than Nike, bigger than Gap, bigger than Coca-Cola. Imagine a
brand used by 1.5 billion people the world over.
The
brand is English.
How
did English achieve global dominance? And what does it mean for the future of
English and the rest of the world’s languages?
Past
Why English became the number
1 language:
- Empire
At its height, the British Empire included
over one quarter of the world’s population and landmass. “Britain’s colonial
expansion established the preconditions for the global use of English, taking
the language from its island birthplace to settlements around the world,” says
David Graddol, author and Open University lecturer.
- Adaptibility
“We don’t just borrow words,” says writer
James D. Nicoll. “On occasion, English has pursued other languages down
alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.”
The fact that it came into contact with a
multitude of other languages turned it into a kind of linguistic mongrel.
English “borrowed” (some say stole) words from over 350 other languages, making
it richer and more adaptable than other well-established tongues.
- America
Even as the British Empire declined, the
rise of the U.S. as a global superpower ensured that the English language
continued on its path to world domination. TV, Hollywood, rock ‘n’ roll, and
now the Internet are all foot soldiers in the march of the new lingua franca.
Present
Why English is still number 1:
- It’s the language of technology
As the old joke goes, the international
language of technology is “broken English”. And it’s true that technology plays
an important role in the language’s continuing dominance. 80% of electronically
stored information in the world is in English. According to the British
Council, 66% of the world’s scientists read in English; and, of course, it’s
the language of international air traffic control.
- It’s the
language of business
Whether you’re a Japanese executive on
business in Brazil, a Mexican computer scientist at a conference in India, or a
Norwegian tourist haggling in a Moroccan street market, you’re probably
speaking English.
There’s never before been a language
that’s been spoken by more people as a second than a first language,” says
English-language expert David Crystal, author of English as a Global Language.
- It’s a big
business
Britain alone boasts a 1.3 billion pounds
English Language Teaching industry. It is predicted that by 2020 it will be the
UK’s biggest export, earning 20 billion pounds a year.
One of the fastest expanding markets is
China. Although Chinese is the world’s top language in terms of the number of
native speakers, the Chinese themselves are gripped by English Fever – they
even have their own term for it: Yingwen
re.
“Crazy English” – a method developed by
ex-newsreader, Li Yang – is taught in huge sports stadiums to classes of
thousands. As one 12-year-old Chinese student puts it: “If you can’t speak
English, it’s like you’re deaf and dumb.”
Future
Two future consequences of
English being the number 1 language:
a) The impact on other
languages
“While there are obvious benefits in terms
of global intelligibility,” says David Crystal, “on the other side of the coin,
when you have one language that is so dominant, the other six and a half
thousand languages in the world will naturally feel under threat.”
Crystal has little sympathy for the
anti-English sentiments of already-healthy languages such as French, Spanish
and German, which are worried about the influx of English words into their
lexicons. After all, openness to foreign-language influences is one of the
factors that has resulted in English’s amazing growth.
However, the threat of extinction is very
real for other languages. “Something like half the languages of the world are
so seriously endangered that they are almost certainly going to die out in the
course of the present century,” warns Crystal. These languages must be
protected for the same reasons we protect endangered animal species.
b) The impact on
English itself
As for native speakers of English, their
mother tongue has ceased to be under their control. Three quarters of English
speakers are non-native, and that proportion is growing. “The population growth
in countries where it is a mother tongue, like Britain, America and Australia,
is about a third of the rate of the population growth in countries where it is
a second language, like India, Ghana and Nigeria,” Crystal points out.
The result of this is hard to predict, but
it seems clear that these new English speakers are not simply learning the
language – they are shaping it. If some Asians have trouble making that “th”
sound, why spend hours trying to master it when they will be perfectly well
understood saying “one, two, tree”? If you keep forgetting to add “s” in the
third person, why not dispense with it altogether? Nobody is going to
misunderstand you if you say: “My mother work in an office” – indeed, leaving
out the “s” is perfectly well acceptable in the grammar of Jamaican patois.
So does this mean that the next time you
get your English homework back and it’s covered in red-pen corrections, you can
explain to your teacher that you didn’t actually make any mistakes – that, as a
non-native speaker of global English, you were shaping the language? We wouldn’t recommend it.
But it is
true that the international language belongs to you as much as anyone else.
English is yours to keep. Try not to break it!
