The English Language
The popularity of English
A lot has been written about The English Language and its the popularity.
English does appear to be an extremely popular language and is studied all over the world.
Business people require English in order to communicate with foreign partners, students study English to complement their studies, and people who travel seem to like English in order to be able to communicate in another language other than the language of their destination.
English appears to be the ‘lingua franca’* of the world at this time.
There are various points of view around the usefulness and the politics of the use of English.
We should note that the English language is not the language spoken by most people in the World, but it has grown to become the language most widely spoken across the World.
* Lingua Franca – a common language adopted by speakers of different languages.
A few brief facts:
About 400 million people speak English as their first language.
Perhaps 300 Million people speak English as their second language.
A billion people are learning English at this time.
Nearly half of the world has been exposed to English.
The reason why English is the most widely spoken language across the World may have a lot to do with the history of the English language itself. English has not always been the English we speak and read today.
A little about the history of The English Language
The Celts and Romans
Before the invasion of the Romans in AD 43, Britain was an island populated by Celtic tribes who had arrived from Europe around 500 years earlier.
When the Romans arrived in Britain the Celtic ‘Britons’ would have spoken one of a handful of Celtic or early English languages. Britons would have had their own dialects – lexicon and pronunciation (words and the sounds of words).
Interestingly, today within the British Isles we still possess diverse regional dialects and accents and may on occasion have difficulties understanding each other.
Most of those countries that people recognise as speaking English as a first language: America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa have very distinct accents too, and may also have difficulties understanding one another.
The ‘Celtic’ languages that existed across the British Isles did not die out with the invasion of the Romans in AD 43 (the Romans had originally invaded in 55 BC).
Effectively, the Country was then governed in Latin, and people would have come to understand Latin for administration purposes; they would have continued their daily lives in their local languages or dialects.
After nearly 500 years in Britain the Romans left (440 AD), they left behind a distinct Romano-British culture and the addition of the Latin language to that of the domestic ‘Brittonic’ languages.
Latin would have a continued influence after that time with the conversion of Britain to ‘Roman’ Christianity.
The Danes and Vikings – Ye Olde English
Many people believe that the ‘English’ language originated from West Germanic dialects, which came to the British Isles with invaders.
After the Romans left Britain, Britain, which had always had trading relationships with its Scandinavian and European neighbours, fell to invasion by them.
Between 440 AD and 1066 AD, invasions, initially by tribes called ‘Angles’ and ‘Saxons’ from what is now Northern Germany and Denmark brought further languages to Britain. The Anglo-Saxon tribes colonised the South East and East of Britain, replacing the British tribes who had lived there.
It would be the ‘Angles’ who would give their name to ‘English’, and England.
Later invasions by Vikings and Danes from what is now Scandinavia followed.
The Vikings and Danes would lend their languages to the language that had developed among the mix of peoples living primarily in the area of the British Isles we now call England.
We now refer to this language as ‘Old English’.
Today, we can read and hear the influence the Anglo-Saxons and Vikings had on today’s English.
Many place names in the East of England ending in ‘by’, and certain sounds we hear in English such as ‘th’ and ‘sk’, as well as some of the days of the week:
For example Wednesday – named for an ancient Norse god – Woden (Woden’s day) is clear evidence of their influence.
Very few people can read or understand ‘Old English’ today.
Do you speak French?
Until now, ‘Old English’ English (a collage (mix) of Celtic , Norse and Saxon dialects) appeared to be able to adopt and adapt when it had needed to. Another invading People: The Normans, this time a neighbour from Northern France would lead an invasion of England in 1066 and bring with it its language: French.
The Norman French language (not the French language we know today) was one of a number of French languages spoken in what is now central and Northern France. And after the brutal conquest of Britain in 1066 and thereafter, Norman French or Anglo-Norman became the language that would come to govern Britain.
Over the next 300 years Anglo-Norman French remained the language of the Kings of England, the ruling classes and the government of the British Isles.
And although French appeared to ‘dominate’, the common tongue ‘English’ remained.
It was during this period that ‘English’ came to adopt and borrow much of the Anglo-Norman French language to become the language we now call, ‘Middle English’.
Today, most native English speakers would have difficulty understanding much Middle English, either in its written or spoken forms.
Over time there was a movement of pronunciation away from continental sounds.
Previously, all of the letters that spelled a word would have been pronounced.
Many of the ‘silent’ letters we see in English today arise from this change in pronunciation.
Writers and poets such as Geoffrey Chaucer and John Wycliffe wrote in Middle English.
Who am I?
Wars between the kings of France and England over the next 3 centuries had the effect of providing England with its ‘own’ language.
Importantly, it was in 1362 that King Edward III spoke to Parliament in English for the first time. Geoffrey Chaucer would write the Canterbury Tales in the 1380s.
But it was after the decisive Reigns of Henry VIII (1509 – 1547) that England truly found its identity. And it was during and after the reign of Elizabeth I (1558 – 1603) that England began to exert its influence in the ‘New World’. Firstly, to America (the first colonialists arrived in 1620), then to Canada and the West Indies.
Trade between the New World and the ‘Old World’ (Europe) continued the expansion of the English language.
Significantly, it was between the 14th and 18th centuries that English was to become what we refer to today as ‘Early Modern English’, the language that is recognisable to us today.
With what is now called the ‘Great Vowel Shift’ English moved away from continental languages German, French and Latin.
This ‘Great Vowel Shift’ was a subtle change, which happened over time, where the vowel sounds and pronunciation changed across the lexicon with the language becoming more standardize in spelling and pronunciation.
I’ve got a got a good idea. We can use this!
At and after the ‘Elizabethan period’ The ‘English Renaissance’ saw Greek and Latin re-enter the language and thousands of new words adopted and invented.
The King James Bible was completed in English in 1611, and Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary (1755). These two events that helped define the English Language.
During that time great writers and playwrights of the time: Christopher Marlow and William Shakespeare increased the popularity of the language and the vocabulary of the language.
William Shakespeare influenced the English language enormously. Before his time the rules of English Grammar were not standardized, his work contributed to the standardization of English.
Shakespeare may have introduced as many as 3,000 words expressions and phrases into the English language.
We can read and hear many of Shakespeare’s words and phrases today.
Words such as: alas, cold-blooded, fashionable, green-eyed, hence, lonely, marketable, obsequiously and worthless. Phrases such as: “Assassination” from his play Macbeth, “All of a sudden” – The Taming of the Shrew. or the expression: “in stitches” (to be) – today, means to paralysed with laughter.
At the same time English explorers and adventurers went out into the New World. Men such as: John Cabot, Martin Frobisher and Sir Francis Drake and Captain Cook not unlike European explorers such as Da Gama, Columbus, Magellan and Champlain and would bring back their discoveries and experiences.
Do you speak English?
During the 17th and 18th centuries the English language would continue to travel the Globe due to Britain’s trade with the ‘new world’. And then with the beginning of the ‘industrial revolution’ in England and the need then to sell manufactured goods and source raw materials across the World English expanded further.
The expansion of the British Empire carried the English language at different times to further and further places cross the Globe , such as:
West Africa and South Africa, India and Pakistan, the Philippines, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong.
Interestingly, in an echoing of the ‘Roman’ Empire’s administration of her colonies, The English language facilitated the administration of British Empire colonies.
With the expansion of the influence of Britain between the 18th and the late 20th centuries came an expansion and growth of the lexicon of the English language.
Explorers, adventurers, scientists, traders and writers went out and brought back from far afield: specimen, reports, goods and stories all enriching the language with experiences and ideas.
And with advancements in modes of communication such as telegrams and telephone, both written and spoken English helped to begin to consolidate ‘English’ as the language of global communication.
By the end of the reign of Queen Victoria, it could be said that the English language that we recognise as the English language that we use today, had arrived.
The English language we use today, we refer to as ‘Late Modern English’.
The Yanks are coming!
By the time of the 1914 – 1918 war (The First World War in Europe), America had become the most economically powerful country in the world. And because America had retained English as its language afterit had gained independence from England in 1776; it would be America that would take its ‘English’ voice into the World.
Between the end of The Great War (Europe 1914 – 1918) and the end of the 1930s the British Empire went into decline.
Later, with the conclusion of The Second World War (1939 – 1945) the British Empire met claims for independence from many former colonies such as India, Pakistan, Ghana, Nigeria and Singapore etc. All eventually gaining independence.
Many ex colonies would keep English as their first or administrative language as the Americans had done.
After the Second World War (Europe 1939-1945) and the liberation of Europe by British, American, Canadian, Anzac and ‘free’ European forces, the ‘American’ culture (spoken and written) came to exert its influence on Western Europe.
America’s jazz music, dance, movies, fast food ideas, consumer goods and know how crossing the Atlantic.
Similarly, after the defeat of Japan in 1945, American influence across the Pacific was equally powerfully felt.
America was now the most powerful nation in the World, and its power and culture would continue to reinforce the position of the English Language as the language of commerce and communication across the world.
Forward together!
The English language we hear and read today has crossed the Globe and has gathered and adopted elements from many of the cultures and languages that it has met.
The English language today is very different from its earlier forms.
The English language of a thousand years ago is hardly recognisble today.
Writers such as: Jonathan Swift, Henry fielding, Alexander Pope, Daniel Defoe, Lawrence Sterne, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Wordsworth, John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Shelley , Lord Byron and Jane Austin all wrote using English that we today might regard as a little antiquated, regardless of the subject matter. Later writers such as: The Bronte sisters, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, Robert Browning even Charles Dickens and Oscar Wilde may also seem ‘quaint’.
It isn’t until the 20th century that the English language sounds like the English language we hear today, with the writings of authors such as: William Butler Yates, Sean O’Casey, George Bernard Shaw, Joseph Conrad, Henry James, James Joyce (Ulysses), D. H. Lawrence, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway and HG Wells.
Today, the English language has over a million words. OED publishes 800k+.
No-one knows them all. No-one needs to know all of them.
The average adult vocabulary of a native English language speaker is reported to be around 20,000+ words.
The average person may use 10,000 words a day – depending on their circumstances.
Typically, only 1,500 of that figure are words that describe things or events (repeated words can only be counted once (and, the, this, a etc)).
Internationally, the English language is seen as one of the easiest languages to learn.
Today, English is seen by many as a necessity, a ‘modern life skill’. After all:
More than 50% of the Internet is written in English.
English is the language of international business, politics and diplomacy.
English is the language of Medicine, Engineering, Computers, Design, Science and the Internet.
Most students of the English language come to English via their school’s teaching curriculum.
Many students take college courses in English to ‘improve’ themselves.
Many businesses provide English lessons for their employees to support the individual’s personal growth, but also because English may be the company’s language of choice for internal and external communication. This is often the case for global organisations.
If we were to be able to travel forward in time, the English we would read and hear then might not be so very different in structure from today’s English. By then, English will have been exposed to more of the Chinese language / languages, Indian languages and dialects, Spanish and Portuguese; not to mention ‘local’ influences that English will meet across the globe (Asiatic, African and South American languages).
And today, with the advent of social media, and in particular the use of text language on mobile phones and further ‘local’ anglophone influences, English will have to further adapt. The English language itself will not remain unchanged.
Essentially, the English language has evolved from very modest beginnings on an island at the edge of the then known world to become one of the most powerful tools for communication and for the exchange of information and ideas.
We will probably see that in this increasingly multilingual and technical age that the English language will continue to be at the centre of international communication across the Globe well into the future.
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