So now that English has spread across the globe, propelled by the American economy and media, can we predict where the language will go next? Many linguists try to do so. David Crystal is unsure; in the conclusion to English as a Global Language (2003) he remarks as the most widely spread language in history there are “no precedents to help us see what happens to a language when it achieves genuine world status” (Crystal, 2003, p189). Will it splinter as Latin once did, or perhaps go another way? Andrew Dalby, in Language in Danger (2002), worries that “unless world-wide travel and communications change so drastically that people no longer find English of any special use”, it could swallow up other languages, resulting in a widespread loss of linguistic diversity (Dalby, p279).
Using the works of other prominent linguists I aim to look at how English got into this predicament, and what the effects of its global expansion might be.
A hybrid tongue
In order to foretell the destiny of the language, it is important to reflect on how English came to be in its present position. Ultimately it is a hybrid tongue, with elements of Low German, Danish and Norman French, and plenty of Latin and Greek vocabulary mixed in [McArthur p.14]. Its orthography is a mongrel blend of different influences, which would be to the annoyance of those foreigners learning the language, if they didn’t already recognise many of the words. English has a magpie tendency to use foreign words freely, and more recently it has repaid this generosity with enormous borrowing of English words by others (and I use the word ‘borrowing’ because many languages, such as French, seem determined to give these anglicismes back). The grammar, described by Robert Burchfield as “a rich and diverse linguistic system deposited on our shores 1500 years ago” (Burchfield, p51) has nonetheless been modified since Anglo-Saxon times. Many ‘complicated’ Germanic inflections have long disappeared. However, I will not say that any aspect of English has made it inherently ‘easier’ for people to learn over the years than any other language. The success of English is due to the success of the people who have spoken it, namely the Imperial British and the Americans. It would be easy to imagine that our language has always been on an upward spiral. In fact there have been occasions where English has been under threat of extinction, and each time it has come out of the experience as a more versatile speech.
The first time was when England was in serious danger of being swamped by the Norse-speaking Danes. Since the Viking raid on the Lindisfarne monastery in 793AD, the marauding Norsemen had regularly invaded British shores until they occupied almost half of England. By about the middle of the ninth century, “it became suddenly possible that English might be wiped out altogether” (McCrum, p.66), leaving the country to speak Norse. However the Viking’s attempts to take Wessex, the kingdom of the West Saxons, were thwarted by King Alfred the Great. Repelling the invaders, he inspired the Anglo-Saxons to think of themselves as ‘English’, and set about grand projects to promote the native language. He commenced the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a record of the events of English history, leading historians to call Alfred “the founder of English prose” (Baugh & Cable, p72). The advent of English writing helped the language consolidate its position, so when finally the Danes ruled the whole country under King Cnut the English and Norse tongues - both Germanic cousins - underwent a “natural pidginization that gradually simplified the structure of Old English” (McCrum, p69).
The Norse, it seems, were very keen to adapt. When they settled in great numbers in northern France, they abandoned their mother tongue and took up French. There they were known as the Normans, and it was their Duke William who conquered England in 1066, bringing not only soldiers and castle-builders but ‘Norman French’ with him. The élite in England now spoke French, and conducted the affairs of government and law in that language, using Latin for education and religion. The classes were thus divided by language. Speaking French meant social prestige - yet it did not replace the commoner’s tongue.
One reason for the sturdy resilience of English was that it was still an almost entirely spoken language. If legal documents were all in French, and prayer books in Latin, that didn’t matter since most ordinary folk could not read. Another reason was that the Normans began very quickly to intermarry with the Anglo-Saxons. In this period, the English language was in a chrysalis. Without a written form to regulate its usage, it began to fuse with French. The layers of vocabulary established in this period are still with us to this day. “The richness of English synonyms,” writes Baugh, “is largely due to the happy mingling of Latin, French and native elements.” (Baugh & Cable, p187) Examples of the three levels of English are often given using the ‘rise-mount-ascend’ model, with the first word being the popular (English), the second being the ‘literary’ (French), the third being the ‘educated’ (Latin). When the language emerged from this period with the newfound “capacity to make fine distinctions" (McCrum, p74), it was what we now call ‘Middle English’.
The rest is geography. Not long after French died out as a spoken language, William Caxton set up his printing press, and chose the dialect of the capital as the standard. The effect this had on the growth in importance of London English was great; it became the ‘prestige’ variety. It was from this that Modern Standard English grew. It had for a few centuries been spreading throughout the British Isles, notably to Gaelic Ireland, through the hegemony of the English Crown. By the seventeenth century English had migrated to the Americas, and by the eighteenth century was already becoming global thanks to the British Empire. The language never really looked back. Britain’s role in kick-starting the industrial revolution guaranteed the world a wealth of English vocabulary, but the economic boom of the United States in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries (and the political benefits wealth tends to bring) all but ensured the predominance of the American variety.
Globally there are now more than 350 million people who speak English as a mother tongue, with up to 1000 million people learning it as a second or foreign language (McArthur, p3). It may be a collectively remembered fear of the language falling into disuse all those centuries ago that has driven it to such a dominant position. This fear is still evident today in the US, where the ‘Official English’ movement is gaining considerable popular support. Several states have already installed English as the single ‘official’ language, thereby ‘protecting’ the language of white America from large numbers of immigrants from Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America (Dalby, p144).
Over much of the world, however, English has become a convenient lingua-franca. In the modern communications-driven world not speaking this particular language may put you at a disadvantage. The long-term effects of this are unclear. Will it follow Latin’s example and evolve into increasingly unintelligible varieties, or will it usurp all other tongues (as it did with Norse and Norman French) before becoming a universal ‘Babel’?
True Romance
The comparison between the fate of English and what happened to Latin is perhaps a little convenient, but is nevertheless useful. As far as classical Europe was concerned, the speech of the Roman Empire was the ‘world language’, and economic or political progress within the Empire often depended on knowledge of Latin. Now even the Romans had a ‘prestige’ language to look up to: Greek. The Greek language stood for much that was admired by the Romans, from literature and art to science and philosophy, and serious academics were expected to speak some Greek, if only to appear more culturally rounded (Dalby, p66). Nevertheless, even Hellenic scholars had to learn Latin if they were to bring Greek to a wider world keen to be educated. Latin meant Roman citizenship - the Empire was not simply one of subjugation but allowed the people it conquered to become assimilated into the Roman world. The incentive to learn Latin and be part of this wealthy, ordered culture was great. As Dalby says, “To attempt to prosper under Roman rule, Latin must have been almost a prerequisite.” (Dalby, p46). Often within conquered territories the only education available was that which the Romans brought with them; in Gaul for example the locals knew little of writing until the invaders taught them (Rickard, p1). As we see from our own experience in the internet world of today, widespread communication becomes much easier if everyone has knowledge of a common tongue. So we can see why Latin spread.
However, what we do know is that the Latin we study today is markedly different form the vernacular that developed into today’s Romance languages. Classical Latin, according to Baugh and Cable, was “a literary language with an elaborate and somewhat artificial grammar” (Baugh & Cable, p29). Primarily, language is a spoken medium. This is not unusual - the language you are likely to hear on the streets of Liverpool or Wichita is always going to differ from that which you will read in The Times or USA Today. It was the Latin of the people, or ‘Vulgar Latin’, that spread among the masses. It may be that the Vulgar Latin spoken in different parts of the Empire absorbed vocabulary and even grammatical traits from the languages it replaced, but there was a fair degree of homogeneity. As Rickard states, “many students of Vulgar Latin are reluctant to believe that there was any substantial regional differentiation before approximately the sixth century ad” (Rickard, p2).
When the central government of Rome lost control of the Empire, the provincials were left to fend for themselves. In some places use of Vulgar Latin died out with Germanic invasion, such as in Britain. In other places the varieties diverged further, due either to foreign occupation or to simple lack of communication with other Romance peoples. To understand this we will once again look at the example of Gaul. There it was the Germanic Franks who emerged as rulers, yet the Romance language we now call French persisted. This was not only due to inter-marriage between Franks and Gallo-Romans, but also because “Latin still enjoyed considerable prestige...even at the height of Frankish domination it was extremely rare for any other language to be used in writing” (Rickard, p8).
By about the ninth century the ‘Vulgar’ varieties were starting to be seen as separate languages. Dalby states that “if the Romance dialects are on record at all, it is because they were written by mistake,” by poorly-educated scribes attempting to write the Classical form (Dalby, p73). Latin remained the language of the Church and because of its literary tradition it became the obvious language of education. In the meantime the various dialects, with the rise in power of their respective speakers, became the languages of government as well as the people.
There are similarities with what happened in England in the Middle Ages, when after centuries of speaking Norman French the ruling classes gradually adopted English. The French that arrived in 1066 differed from that spoken in the Ile-de-France (from which modern French derives). Over the years the tongue of the King in London came to be derided as inferior to that of Paris. Many of the Norman nobility sent their young to France in order to improve their French; paradoxically this is one reason the language ceased to be used. As Baugh puts it, “one might well feel some hesitancy about speaking a language of which one had to be slightly ashamed”(Baugh & Cable, p141). We can certainly see that pattern amongst the Englishes of today. British English speakers have long sneered at their trans-Atlantic cousins: “it has been a common assumption that a word or turn of phrase is inferior simply by dint of its being American-bred.” (Bryson, p166) However, the main reason for England’s dropping of French as the language of government was political, and has its roots in the Hundred Years’ War (1337-1453). This conflict did much to galvanize the popular sense of ‘Englishness’, but more importantly French became increasingly seen as the language of the enemy. A similar thing happened in the early twentieth century in Britain when members of the aristocracy, realizing the great antagonism towards all things German, started to change their Hanoverian names. The Battenbergs became the Mountbattens, and even the Royal Family re-branded themselves, discarding the Teutonic Saxe-Coburg in favour of the unquestionably English Windsor.
What can we learn then from the examples of Latin in the post-Roman centuries and French in pre-Renaissance England? English has expanded across the globe, first fuelled by the British Empire, then by America’s Superpower status and economy. Will English become fossilized, to be used only as lingua franca and in education? This may have already become the case. However, it may yet lose its global dominance. A political backlash against the nations that English represents cannot be ruled out.
Politics
To look at one recent example of how politics can affect the number of people learning or using a language we need only turn to Russian. The influence of the Soviet Union upon its neighbours during the Cold War was unquestionable - most of them, particularly in Eastern Europe, had puppet Communist governments who answered to Moscow. Schoolchildren were taught Russian, for knowledge of that language was the key to success in the old Communist Bloc. The Republics of the USSR, who usually each spoke their own languages, often had (and still have) large Russian populations, so the incentive to learn Russian was even greater. Yet in the decade since the USSR collapsed, there has been a huge westward swing away from learning Russian as a second language in favour of English. In Estonia, which has a large Russian minority, it is increasingly English that brings the two communities together. Dalby explains that “Estonians no longer want to learn Russian and Russians never did want to learn Estonian.” (Dalby, p190)
In these countries English is seen as a neutral medium. On one hand it offers economic advantage - the West speaks English thanks to America, and it is the second language of most of the EU. On the other hand Russian is linked to a past in which they were subjected to the evils of Stalinism and the Soviet régime. For Estonians, and for much of Eastern Europe, Moscow no longer offers them opportunity.
Other languages have suffered in this way. I once spent some time in the south of Denmark, on an island not far from the German coast. I would frequently encounter German tourists speaking English to the Danes in shops, even though you would imagine that it would be economically beneficial for locals to learn the language of their wealthy neighbours. It transpired that people in that part of Denmark were not encouraged to learn German, due to the memory of the Second World War. Even those older Danes who knew German much better than English did not willingly converse in it, preferring to use bad English than good German. This pattern can be seen in many places, but will it ever happen to English?
In post-independence Ireland a backlash against English did occur. Centuries of British administration had given Irish Gaelic a very low status, and “to speak English became the only route to self-improvement” (Dalby, p110). After independence, the Irish Government decided to improve the lot of their dwindling mother-tongue. Even though the percentage of Irish citizens who actually spoke Gaelic was small, it became law that all teachers learnt Irish. As the national language it can be seen on signposts and official documents all over the Republic. While it is true that the profile of Irish has certainly been raised in the past century, it has failed to replace English. Globally, English is still too important to discard. According to Loreto Todd, having English has allowed the Irish to “continue to feel Irish and yet communicate easily and productively” with the rest of the planet (Todd, p139).
Under what circumstances then would people decide that English is no longer a neutral language and actively choose not to learn it? The current political situation does not suggest that there could be a threat to English. However we have seen the international importance of Russian all but evaporate in a relatively short period. We should not then believe that the same could not happen to our own language. The Iraq conflict saw the US and Britain lose a lot of support internationally. It is not inconceivable that the interference in the Middle East of the rich English-speaking armies could have a knock-on effect on the prestige of our language not only in that region but around the world.
The major difference between English and Russian, however, is that the former is just too widespread. It is spoken on every continent. It may well be that the US and Britain find themselves politically at odds with the rest of the world, but that does not mean that English will cease to be spoken. Preference may be given to other forms of English such as South Asian English, which although originating from that of Britain is now used by far more people. In India it is an associate official language alongside Hindi, but according to Tom McArthur many South Indians, who do not speak Hindi and regard it with some disdain, consider English “to be a necessary pan-Indian medium long since shorn of its imperial associations” (McArthur, p313). In short, it belongs to them now, not the British. It is the impact of ‘World English’ that I will now discuss.
A World of Englishes
Jeremy Paxman calls it “the greatest legacy the English have bequeathed the rest of humanity” (Paxman, p234). Originally spread by trade and Empire, English is now spread through mass-media and communications. Hollywood movies have sold globally - but you do not need to speak English to watch one, as many are either dubbed or sub-titled. Music on the other hand is generally neither, and the most marketed artists in the world have been Anglophone - everybody has heard of the Beatles or Elvis. Radio has long been the medium of the poor, and the BBC World Service has broadcast the English language globally since before World War Two. In the new millennium, the one medium that is spreading English faster than any other could is the Internet. On the Web there are fewer controls, so the propensity toward ‘bad’ or ‘non-Standard’ English is greater. This may be because, as Crystal puts it, “most of the interactions are in the form of a dialogue - doing the job of speech, only in written form” (Crystal, p130). This effectively makes the Internet a huge linguistic melting-pot, with English at the fore. If English is already the ‘unofficial’ language of the Web then it no longer requires the success of its mother-tongue nations to ensure its survival. According to Kanavillil Rajagopalan, World English is “a hotchpotch of dialects and accents...where there are no real rules of the game” (Rajagopalan, p115). The internet may well be the reason that the ‘Vulgar’ tongue does not split apart, but grow ever larger, acquiring an enormous vocabulary on the way. It is the story of English so far.
So how will this affect the linguistic make-up of the world? As already mentioned, more people are learning English than ever before. The lexical invasion continues in earnest. Across the globe there are hybrids with names such as ‘Spanglish’, ‘Taglish’ and ‘Russlich’, for English incursions into Spanish, Tagalog and Russian respectively. ‘Franglais’ has long caused problems for the Académie Française, which governs French usage. Scanning through any French magazine - in particular those concerning sports or entertainment - will provide the reader with a flurry of anglicisms. Rickard notes that these borrowings offer the language an alternative to an existing word, and that “sometimes a loan-word relieves a French word of one of a cluster of meanings” (Rickard, p132). Yet these are all large, metropolitan languages spoken by millions - they need not fear the spread of English. On the other hand, there is a very real risk for the thousands of less widespread tongues. Estimates vary as to the number of languages currently spoken worldwide - perhaps five or six thousand - but the vast majority of these are in danger of extinction (Nettle & Romaine, p8). We have seen that communities often abandon their native speech for the local metropolitan one in order that they may take part in the wider world. If we take the negative view, as Andrew Dalby does, then we could see an unstoppable eradication of linguistic heritage, with all the stories and wisdom that go with them. Many have waned because they have been dismissed as a dialect - a good example would be Scots, which is never used as a written language except in poetry. In France Alsacien is in decline for similar reasons, although its Germanic roots give it enough difference from French to merit its own news programmes and appearance on street signs. While in Strasbourg I did meet older people who knew the language, but not a single young person. For them, French is the future. The old saying is true, that a language is “a dialect with an army and a navy” (McCrum, pxvi).
Of all the large languages, English is in a position to emerge as the single global language. It may come to have a diglossic relationship with the local language, as has been suggested within the EU, which currently spends around $300 million a year on translation (McArthur, p156). Alternatively it may replace the local speech, which ultimately would lead to the death of all languages except English, which Crystal believes would be “the greatest intellectual disaster that the planet has ever known” (Crystal, 2003, p191). This possibility poses a dilemma for all English-speaking linguists: are we, by merely coming into contact with the smaller languages, inadvertently sealing their doom? Are English teachers the modern equivalent of Christian missionaries, preaching the ‘true’ language to the pagan? If a monolingual future were to be the case, however, the chances of English evolving into unintelligible varieties would surely be even greater. Mass-communication has been around for the shortest time, and we cannot believe that it will be around forever. We know the oil will run out one day, which will bring social changes we cannot imagine. Latin diverged during Europe’s Dark Ages; we can never be sure that more Dark Ages are not to come. The language will follow the pattern of the people who use it, as it always has done.
Pete Scully, March 2004