The Future of English As a World Language

The Future of English as a World Language

Oavid Crystal debates the future of the English language

being taught in a standard way through• the period of real expansion. new millennium - the last one, that is out the civilised world. On the other Now consider English from the time Imagine- YIK. weWeareareat thein thebeginningyear 999,of a hand, there was now clear evidence of of Aelfric. Another period of almost attending the triennial meeting of the unintelligibility among communities, 1000 years. And signs of language Anglo-Saxon Speaking Union, held in with those who had once spoken Vulgar change very early on. During the Winchester. Its theme might well have Latin in Porhlgal, Spain, France, Italy, eleventh century, a new variety of been: building bridges to the new mil• Romania, and elsewhere increasingly English began to develop in Scotland, lennium. So let us speculate: what would diverging from each other. Conference much influenced by the refugees who have been our Anglo-Saxon forebears' members would certainly have speculated had fled north in the years following the evaluation of the global linguistic scene about the £inure of Latin, given these Norman Conquest; this Middle Scots 111 Britain, Europe, and the already existing trends. Would the lan• was the basis of the very distinctive Scots Mediterranean countries? guage fragment totally? Would Latin English we know today. But the first It is safe to say that most of the dis• remain as a world lingua franca? Would overseas development was not until the cussion would have been in Latin, and there be anyone still learning the stan• end of the twelfth cenhlry, when English about Latin - or rather, Latins, for in dard form in a thousand years? rule was imposed on Ireland by Henry II Europe at that time there vvere many A thousand years on, and we see what in 1171; the influence ofIrish Gaelic on varieties of the language. There was the happened. The standard forms of these English must have been heard not long prestige variety - the classical literary languages are now indeed mutually after. And from then until tlle twentieth Latin written throughout the Roman unintelligible. Standard Latin is still century, covering the major period of Empire (chiefly in the West). Then there used, but only by small numbers of cler• English expansion around the world, we were the everyday spoken varieties of the ics and scholars, chiefly within the have - just like Latin - 750 years. language, referred to now as Vulgar Roman Catholic Church. A body of stal• We can push our parallel a little fur• Latin. Cicero, writing in the first century wart classicists, in universities and ther. What we consider to be the "clas• BC, commented on the provincial pro• schools, try to maintain a tradition of sics" of Latin literature - the "Golden nunciation heard in the Latin spoken in Latin teaching, but do not find it easy. Age" of Augustus, with Ovid, Virgil, Cisalpine Gaul. By the eighth century, Latin, for most intents and purposes, is a Horace, Livy, et al - emerged during the there is evidence of considerable shift, so dead language now. But its daughter• first century BC, some 400 years after much so that the way of referring to the languages are very much alive. the beginning of the Republic and some language was changing: the "lingua lati• 200 years after the First Funic War. The na" was being described as "lingua first "classic" of English literature, Latin and English romana" or "rustica romana lingua". Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, was written Certainly, by c.900, when we find the Could this scenario happen to English? some 400 years after our YIK starting• first texts representing the spoken lan• For certainly, there are some striking par• point, and some 200 years after the Irish guage of Gaul, we can no longer talk of allels. English spread around the modern expedition. Latin, but of Old French; and the other world in a time-tiame not too dissimilar Let us move on anotller 200 years. Romance languages begin to emerge at from that which must have affected This was a very significant century for around the same time. Latin. Rome became a Republic in 509 both languages. During the third centu• The debate of the ASU, in 999, would BC, and the First Punic War (264-241 ry AD the barbarian invasions began have surely had these changes as the BC) resulted in the acquisition of her throughout Europe, becoming incessant main talking point. There would certain• first overseas province, Sicily. Some novo in the next hundred years, and eventual• ly have been a paper on The FUhlre of centuries later, Augustus established the ly leading to the decline of the Western Latin as a World Language. They would Empire (31 BC), which lasted in the Empire. Classical Latin became increas• have been able to see the problem. On West until 476 AD. So basically, we are ingly an elite language, and as lines of the one hand, there was written Classical talking about a period of almost 1000 communication with Rome became Latin, apparently alive and well and years, with something lilce 750 years as more tenuous, so speech differences on

4 CONCORDJ A N U A RY 2 000 WORLD LANGUAGE

the ground increased. Latin began its period of decline, as a spoken lingua franca. Another 200 years in England also brought a turning point. We are now at the end of the sixteenth century. This was a time when the merits of English vs other languages, especially Latin, were being hotly debated, and tllere was much talk of decline. Richard Mulcaster, the headmaster of Merchant Taylors' School, was one of tlle strongest supporters of English, arguing for its strengtlls as a medium of educated expression, along• side Latin. But even he saw that English could not compete with Latin as an international language. Writing in 1582, he says: "Our English tongue is of small reach - it stretcheth no further than this island of ours - nay, not tllere over all." And he reflects: "Our state is no Empire to hope to enlarge it by commanding over countries". There was no realliter• ature to be proud of, either, not since the time of "Father Chaucer", as people would say, 200 years before - and that, thanks to the major pronunciation changes which had taken place in the early fifteenth century, was becoming virtually unintelligible. 1582. What a time to be saying such a tlling. In the course of the next genera• tion, things changed totally, both in pol• itics and literature. Within two years, WaIter Raleigh's first expedition to The Cambridge Encyclopedia of The English Language by Oavid Crystal, published by Cambridge University Press America was to set sail, and altllough this was a failure, the first permanent English

CONCORD J A N U A RY 2 000 5 THE FUTURE OF ENGLISH settlement was in place, in Jamestown, ond -language, and foreign -language English introduced will be applied to Virginia, in 1607. Loan words from speakers alike. Language is an immense• new settings and take on different sens• Indian languages into the English spo• ly democratising institution. To have es. Tlus has often happened in the lan• ken there - which as a result started to learned a language is immediately to guage's history; for example, in the turn into American English - become a have rights in it. You may add to it, mod• Anglo-Sa;xon period Christian missionar• significant feaurre of contemporary writ• ify it, play with it, create in it, ignore bits ies took over pagan words (such as heav• ing virtually immediately. Captain John of it, as you will. And it is just as likely en, hell, God, and Eastel') and gave them Smith, writing in 1608, describes a that the future course of English is going new mealUngs. Today we see it in tl1e vacoon; totem is found in 1609; cavibou to be influenced by those who speak it as way, for example, a biological species in and opossum are mentioned in 1610; a second or foreign language as by those tl1enew country sin1ilarin appearance to moccasin in 1612; moose in 1613. who speak it as a mother-tongue. one found in tl1e old will often keep tl1e Reference is soon being made to the dis• Fashions com1t, in language, as any• old name, even tl10ugh it is not the san1e tinctive sound of the American accent. where else. And fashions are a nll1ction entity - pheasant in South Africa is usu• As for literamre, 1582 was also a sig• of numbers. It is perfectly possible for a ally found for certain species offrancolin. nificant year, as it "vasthe year in which a linguistic fashion to be started by a Secondly, words will be taken over young man in Stratford, Warwickshire, group of second- or foreign-language ("borrowed") from the local setting • fell in love - not with Gwyneth Paltrow learners, or by those who speak a creole usually, words from tl1e indigenous lan• (that came later) - but with Anne or pidgin variety, which then catches on guage or languages spoken in tl1e coun• Hathaway. Soon after - we do not know among mother-tongue speakers. try. An example fi'om tl1e South African how or when - he moved to London, Rapping is a case in point. And as num• Sunday Times: "Diplomatic indabas only and by 1592 was already being talked bers grow, and second/foreign-language rarely produce neatly wrapped solutions about as a writer. Within 20 years, speakers gain in national and interna• to problems." lndaba, from the Ngmu English literature would never be the tional prestige, usages which were previ• group of languages, was originally a trib• same agam. ously criticised as "foreign" can become al conference, but has now been extend• Si-, hundred years into the history of part of the standard educated speech of a ed to mean any conference between Latin, and we see the beginnings of its locality, and eventually appear in writing. political groups. decline. Six hundred years into the lusto• The bulk of the new distinctiveness of How many words will grow, in tl1ese ry of English, and we see the beginnings English is going to lie in the area of ways? It does not take long before such of its expansion. Some 4-5 million peo• vocabulary - by which I mean not just word-lists and dictionaries reach several ple spoke English late in the reign of new words, but new meanings of words, thousand words. There were over 3,000 Queen Elizabeth 1. This had grown to a and new idiomatic phrases. This isn't items recorded in the Branfords' first quarter of the world's population, some surprising, when you tl1ink of the range edition of the Dictionavy of South 1.5 billion, late in the reign of Queen of domains likelyto generate such vocab• Afvican English (1978). There are over Elizabeth n. The conU-astbetween Latin ulary in parts of tl1eworld where English 6,000 entries in David Grote's Bvitish and English seems total. Or is it? is being freshly used. There is a counu'Y's English fov Amevican Readers (1992). biogeographical muqueness, which will The Concise A~tstvalian National generate potentially large numbers of Dictional'y (1989) has 10,000 items in Centrifugal forces words for alumals, fish, birds, plants, it. There are over 15,000 entries in When a language spreads, it changes. rocks, and so on - and all tl1eissues to do Cassidy & Le Page's Dictionavy of The simple fact that parts of the world with land management and interpreta• Jamaican English. differ from each other in fauna and flora tion. There will be words for foodstuffs, The totals are small compared with the means that words will come into use in minks, medicines, m'ugs, and the prac• size of English vocabulary as a whole; one area that are unknown in another, as tices associated with eating, health-care, but the effect of even fairly small num• we have seen in the case of American disease, and death. The country's bers of localized words can be great. The English. But the impact of a new culture mytl1010gyand religion, and practices in new words are likely to be frequently upon English affects far more than fauna astronomy and astrology, will bring forth used within the local commmuty, pre• and flora alone. Think, for a moment, of new names for personalities, beliefs, and cisely because they relate to distinctive all the culmral domains which are likely rituals. Oral and perhaps also written lit• notions there. Also, these words tend to generate new vocabulary when erauu-e will give rise to distinctive names not to occur in isolation: if a conversa• English comes to be used in such places in sagas, poems, oratory, and folktales. tion is about, say,local politics, tl1en sev• as West Africa, Singapore, India, or There will be a body of local laws and eral political terms are likely to come South Africa, and speakers find them• customs, witl1 their own terminology. together, making it impenetrable. selves adapting the language to meet The culture will have its own technology "Blairite MP in New Labour Sleaze their conm1unicative needs - not just which will have its technical terms - such Trap, say Tories" might be a British native speakers, of course, but those who as for vehicles, house-building, weapons, newspaper example. Six words with learn it as a second or foreign language clotlung, ornaments, and musical insu'u• British political meanings or overtones as well. ments. The world of leisure and the arts tl1ere, in quick succession. Exactly the It is a point often forgotten, especially will have a linguistic dimension - names same kind of piling up of foreign expres• by native speakers, that a language which of dances, musical styles, games, sports • sions can be found in areas where new has come to be spoken by as many peo• as will distinctiveness in body appearance Englishes are emerging. In tl1is example ple as English has ceased to be owned by (such as hair styles, tattoos, decoration). fi'om the South African Sunday Times, all any of its constituent commmuties - not Virtually any aspect of social structure the local words are Afrikaans in origin: the British, with whom the language can generate complex naming systems • "It is interesting to recall that some began 1500 years ago, nor the local government, £1mily relationships, verkran1pte Nationalists, who pose now Americans, who now complise its largest clubs and societies, and so on. as super Afi'ikaners, were once bitterein• mother-tongue commmuty. The total So, when a community adopts a new del' bloedsappe." [verkramp, bigoted; number of mother-tongue speakers in language, and starts to use it in relation bittereinder, die-hard; bloedsappe, the world, some 400 million, is actually to all areas of life, there is inevitably staunch member of the United Party, falling, as a proportion of world English going to be a great deal of lexical adap• formerly the South African Party, or users, wluch probably now total some tation. This will happen in two main SAP] 1.5 billion - a quarter of the world's ways. You can see how tl1ings nught develop population. And they all have a share in First, some words will change their nlrther. It isn't just an Afrikaans noun the nlture of English, first-language, sec- meaning. Words from the variety of which is distinctive; in that example it

6 CONCORDJ A N U A RY 2 000 THE FUTURE OF ENGLISH was a noun phrase. So, if a phrase, why travel to the countries concerned. watch American football on TV each not a whole clause - as in English [sic] week, and their awareness of that game's "Je ne sais quoi" or "c'est la vie". Quite technical vocabulary increases as a result. Centripetal forces lengthy sections of an originally English When we reflect on tlle opportunities for sentence might come to contain chunks Six hundred years into tlle spread of both contact these days, the chances are tllat of borrowed language, or vice versa. And Latin and English, there was a tunling• the standard element in international this is what we find. point. In dle case of Latin, it was the English will be strengthened. Satellite When people rely simultaneously on onset of fragmentation. In the case of television, beaming down Americall and two or more languages to communicate English, it was the onset of expansion. British English into homes all round the with each other, the phenomenon is But now it looks as if tlle period of world, is a particularly significant devel• called code-switching. We can hear it expansion contained the seeds of frag• opment. An increasingly standardized happening now all over the world, mentation. At the beginning of the new spoken English is a likely outcome, I between all sorts of languages. But millennium, can we avoid the conclusion believe. because English is so widespread, it is that, left to itself, English is going to These centripetral forces were lacking especially noticeable there, in writing as fragment into mutually unintelligible a thousand years ago. Once the Roman well as in speech. In The English varieties, just as Latin did? The forces of Empire had begun to fragment, there Languages, Tom McArthur gives an tlle past 50 years, which have led to so was nothing to stop the centrifugal example of a bilingual leaflet issued by many newly independent nation-states, forces tearing spoken Latin apart. The the HongkongBank in 1994 for Filipino and a tripling of the membership of the numbers of Standard Latin speakers workers. The Tagalog section contains a UN, certainly suggest dlis conclusion. around Europe were small, and commu• great deal of English mixed in. For English has come to be used, in several nication between groups was difficult. example: of these countries, as the expression of a The whole globe now is commllllicative• sociopolitical identity, and received a ly smaller than Europe was then. It is the Mag-deposito ng pera mula sa ibang new character as a consequence, conven• relative isolation of people from each HongkongBank account, at any tionally labelled Nigerian English, other that causes a formerly common Hongkongbank ATM, using your Cash Singaporean English, and so on. And if lallguage to move in different directions. Card. Mag-transfer ng regular amount significant change can be noticed within In the Middle Ages, it was very easy for bawa't buwan (by Standing Instruc• a relatively short period of time - a few communities to be isolated from the rest tion) galang sa inyong Current 0 decades - must not these varieties of the world. Today it is virtually impos• Savings Account, vvhether the account become even more differentiated over sible. is with HongkongBank or not. the next century or so, so that we end up

with an English 11 family of languages "? A synthesis This kind of language is often described It is possible. But there are certain using a compound name - Taglish (for pressures working in the opposite direc• Cenu"ifugal and centripetal forces co• Tagalog-English). We also have tion. Not everything is centrifugal. exist, and we want both. We want to Franglais, Tex-Mex, Japlish, Spanglish, Alongside the need to reflect local situa• express our identity through language Wenglish, and many more. Traditionally, tions and identities, which fosters diver• and we want to communicate intelligibly these names were used as scornful appel• sity, tllere is the need for mutual intelli• through language. We want to be differ• lations. People would sneer at Tex-Mex, gibility, which fosters standardisation. ent and we want to be the same. And the and say it was neither one language nor People need to be able to understand splendid thing about humans using lan• the other. It was gutter-speak, by people each other, both within a country and guage, of course, is that this is the kind who had not learned to talk properly. internationally. There has always been a of situation the brain handles very well, Now we know better. We can hardly call need for lingua francas. And as supra• because it is so multifunctional. One of a language like Taglish gutter-speak national organisations grow, the need the main insights of linguistics during when it is being used in writing by a becomes more pressing. The 185 mem• the t\ventieth century was to demon• major banking corporation. Linguists bers of the UN are there not simply to su"ate the exu-aordinary capacity of the have spent a lot of time analysing these express their identities, but also because brain for language. Bilingualism, multi• "mixed" languages, and found that they they want to talk to each other. And lingualism, is the normal human condi• are full of complexity and subdety of whatever languages are chosen by an tion. Well over half of the people in the expression - as we would expect, if peo• organization as lingua francas, it is essen• world, perhaps two-thirds, are bilingual. ple have the resources of two languages tial - if dle concept is to work - for Children learn their lallguages - often to draw upon. everyone to learn the same thing, a Stall• several languages - at extraordinary Mixed languages are certainly on the dard form of the language. In the case of speed. Evidently, there is something in increase, as we travel the English-speak• English, when people get together on our make-up which promotes the acqui• ing world; and it is important to realise international occasions, or read tlle inter• sition of talk. I therefore see no intrinsic that this is happening. It is quite wrong national press, or write books for inter• problems in the gradual emergence of a to think of the "future of world English" national publication, what they use is tri-English world - a world, that is, in as if it was simply going to be a more Standard English. which a home dialect - often very mixed widely used version of British English, or In fact, it isn't totally identical every• in character - a national standard dialect, of American English. These varieties will where - the differences between British and an international standard dialect stay, of course, but they will be supple• alld American spelling are one obvious comfortably coexist. It is a prospect mented by other varieties which, point - but in writing it is over 99% the which our Latin forebears would have although perhaps originating in Britain same. It is somewhat less established in envied. or the USA, will display increasing dif• speech, where differences will frequently ferences from them. The signs of this be heard identifying people as British, David Crystal is Honorary Professor of period of diversification have been American, and so on. However, these are Linguistics at the University of Wales, around a long time, but dle extent of its still very few,and are likelyto diminish as Bangor and divides his time between presence has only recently come to be international contacts increase. It is a work on language and work on general appreciated. It is not sometlling we usu• cliche, but dle world has become a small• reference publishing. He is the editor of ally see in print - except insofar as a nov• er place, and this has an obvious linguis• The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the elist captures it in a conversation, or it tic consequence - that we talk to each English Language and is a member of turns up in informal writing in a newspa• other more, and come to understand the English Language Council of the per. But we readily encounter it when we each other more. British people can now English-Speaking Union.

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