Weitere Files findest du auf www.semestra.ch/files
DIE FILES DÜRFEN NUR FÜR DEN EIGENEN GEBRAUCH BENUTZT WERDEN.
DAS COPYRIGHT LIEGT BEIM JEWEILIGEN AUTOR.
Trends in English language history
•
•
•
•
•
•
spelling remained fixed while the pronunciation changed  irregularities in spelling
phonological change: great vowel shift
high vowels were diphthongised, low vowels were raised by a drag-chain. long vowels
became diphthongs
change in morphology: many inflectional endings, such as case and gender markers, got lost.
change in syntax: due to the loss of inflection, the word order became more and more fixed.
the subject has to precede the main verb; OVS is no longer possible.
change in the lexicon: owing to the influence of many languages at various stages in history,
English possesses a huge balk of lexical items: Anglo-Saxon (Germanic), Scandinavian,
Norman-French, Latin
diversification: after the global spread of English due to the expansion of the British Empire,
English spread around the globe and evolved in many different places so that many variants
of English came about.
internal language history: deals with the changes occuring the language system per se
external language history: influence of external factors such as other languages, changes in society,
politics, technology, etc.
English as a Germanic language
Prior to and during the Middle Ages, changes occurred in the way Germanic words were pronounced.
However, the changes never reached as far as England. Germanic words taken to England by tribes
such as the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes represent even older language forms than do their
counterparts in today’s standard German. This is also why North German dialects, as well as Dutch
and Frisian, contain many words that closely resemble English.
The sound shifts provide predictable consonant variables between modern English and modern
German:
• An initial p became pf as did p at the end of a syllable. Since this change never extended as
far as England, German today has the words Pfund and Apfel while English has pound and
apple.
• The p sound located between two vowels or at the end of a word became an f sound. Thus,
German has Schiff and Pfeffer while English has ship and pepper.
• The d sound became t. Since the change never reached England, German has tot while
English has dead.
• An initial or final th became d. German contains the words Dorn and Herd while English has
thorn and hearth. The v sound shifted to a b sound, but again, this change did not affect
English. Therefore, German has the word eben while English has even.
• Similarly, the y became a g. Today German contains the word sagen, while the English
cognate is say.
• Initial or final z shifted to a t. This explains German zu and Herz vs. English to and heart.
English as a Romance language
In 1066 the Normans conquered Britain. French became the language of the Norman aristocracy and
added more vocabulary to English. More pairs of similar words arose.
French
close
reply
odour
annual
demand
chamber
desire
power
ire
English
shut
answer
smell
yearly
ask
room
wish
might
wrath / anger
Because the English underclass cooked for the Norman upper class, the words for most domestic
animals are English (ox, cow, calf, sheep, swine, deer) while the words for the meats derived from
them are French (beef, veal, mutton, pork, bacon, venison).
The Germanic form of plurals (house, housen; shoe, shoen) was eventually displaced by the French
method of making plurals: adding an s (house, houses; shoe, shoes). Only a few words have retained
their Germanic plurals: men, oxen, feet, teeth, children.
French also affected spelling so that the cw sound came to be written as qu (eg. cween became
queen).
It wasn't till the 14th Century that English became dominant in Britain again. In 1399, King Henry IV
became the first king of England since the Norman Conquest whose mother tongue was English. By
the end of the 14th Century, the dialect of London had emerged as the standard dialect of what we
now call Middle English. Chaucer wrote in this language.
Although it is possible to overestimate the degree of culture shock which the transfer of power in 1066
represented, the removal from the top levels of an English-speaking political and ecclesiastical
hierarchy, and their replacement with a Norman-speaking one, both opened the way for the
introduction of French as a language of polite discourse and literature and fundamentally altered the
role of Old English in education and administration. Although Old English was by no means as
standardised as modern English, its written forms were less subject to broad dialect variations than
post-Conquest English.
Even now, after a thousand years, the Norman influence on the English language is still visible.
Consider these Modern English words derived from Old English:
* pig
* cow
* wood
* sheep
* house
* worthy
* bold
Contrast these with this set of related but overlapping Modern English words (in Modern English), all
derived from Anglo-Norman French:
* pork
* beef
* forest
* mutton
* mansion
* honourable
* courageous
Old English
The history of the language can be traced back to the arrival of three Germanic tribes to the British
Isles during the 5th Century AD. Angles, Saxons and Jutes crossed the North Sea from what is the
present day Denmark and northern Germany. The inhabitants of Britain previously spoke a Celtic
language. This was quickly displaced. Most of the Celtic speakers were pushed into Wales, Cornwall
and Scotland. One group migrated to the Brittany Coast of France where their descendants still speak
the Celtic Language of Breton today. The Angles were named from Engle, their land of origin. Their
language was called Englisc from which the word, English derives.
An Anglo-Saxon inscription dated between 450 and 480AD is the oldest sample of the English
language.
During the next few centuries four dialects of English developed:
* Northumbrian in Northumbria, north of the Humber
* Mercian in the Kingdom of Mercia
* West Saxon in the Kingdom of Wessex
* Kentish in Kent
During the 7th and 8th Centuries, Northumbria's culture and language dominated Britain. The Viking
invasions of the 9th Century brought this domination to an end (along with the destruction of Mercia).
Only Wessex remained as an independent kingdom. By the 10th Century, the West Saxon dialect
became the official language of Britain. Written Old English is mainly known from this period. It was
written in an alphabet called Runic, derived from the Scandinavian languages. The Latin Alphabet was
brought over from Ireland by Christian missionaries. This has remained the writing system of English.
At this time, the vocabulary of Old English consisted of an Anglo Saxon base with borrowed words
from the Scandinavian languages (Danish and Norse) and Latin. Latin gave English words like street,
kitchen, kettle, cup, cheese, wine, angel, bishop, martyr, candle. The Vikings added many Norse
words: sky, egg, cake, skin, leg, window (wind eye), husband, fellow, skill, anger, flat, odd, ugly, get,
give, take, raise, call, die, they, their, them. Celtic words also survived mainly in place and river names
(Devon, Dover, Kent, Trent, Severn, Avon, Thames).
Many pairs of English and Norse words coexisted giving us two words with the same or slightly
differing meanings. Examples below.
Norse English
anger wrath
nay
no
fro
from
raise rear
ill
sick
bask bathe
skill
craft
skin
hide
dike
ditch
skirt
shirt
scatter shatter
skip
shift
Standardised orthography
Old English was at first written in runes (futhorc), but shifted to the Latin alphabet, with some additions,
after the Anglo-Saxons' conversion to Christianity. The letter yogh, for example, was adopted from
Irish; the letter eth and the runic letters thorn and wynn are borrowings from futhorc.
Syntax
As a West Germanic language, Old English syntax has a great deal in common with Dutch and
German. Old English is not dependent upon S (subject), V (verb), O (object) or "SVO" word order in
the way that Modern English is. The syntax of an Old English sentence can be in any of these shapes:
SVO order, VSO order, and OVS order. word order became less flexible as time went on: the older a
text is, the less likely it is to have a fixed word order.
The settlement of Anglo-Saxons: Old English (500-1100 AD)
West Germanic invaders from Jutland and southern Denmark: the Angles (whose name is the source
of the words England and English), Saxons, and Jutes, began populating the British Isles in the fifth
and sixth centuries AD. They spoke a mutually intelligible language, similar to modern Frisian--the
language of northeastern region of the Netherlands--that is called Old English.
These invaders pushed the original, Celtic-speaking inhabitants out of what is now England into
Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, and Ireland, leaving behind a few Celtic words. Also influencing English at
this time were the Vikings. Norse invasions, beginning around 850, brought many North Germanic
words into the language, particularly in the north of England.
The majority of words in modern English come from foreign, not Old English roots. In fact, only about
one sixth of the known Old English words have descendants surviving today. But this is deceptive; Old
English is much more important than these statistics would indicate. About half of the most commonly
used words in modern English have Old English roots. Words like be, water, and strong, for example,
derive from Old English roots.
Old English, whose best known surviving example is the poem Beowulf, lasted until about 1100. This
last date is rather arbitrary, but most scholars choose it because it is shortly after the most important
event in the development of the English language, the Norman Conquest.
Middle English
The Norman Conquest and Middle English (1100-1500)
William the Conqueror, the Duke of Normandy, invaded and conquered England and the AngloSaxons in 1066 AD. (The Bayeux Tapestry, details of which form the navigation buttons on this site, is
perhaps the most famous graphical depiction of the Norman Conquest.) The new overlords spoke a
dialect of Old French known as Anglo-Norman.
Prior to the Norman Conquest, Latin had been only a minor influence on the English language, mainly
through vestiges of the Roman occupation and from the conversion of Britain to Christianity in the
seventh century (ecclesiastical terms such as priest, vicar, and mass came into the language this way)
Deeper changes occurred in the grammar. Old English had a complex system of inflectional endings,
but these were gradually lost and simplified in the dialects of spoken English. Gradually the change
spread to be reflected in its increasingly diverse written forms. This loss of case-endings was part of a
general trend from inflectional to fixed-order words which occurred in other Germanic languages, and
cannot be attributed simply to the influence of French-speaking layers of the population. English
remained, after all, the language of the majority. It certainly was a literary language in England,
alongside Anglo-Norman and Latin from the 12th to the 14th centuries. In the later 14th century,
Chancery Standard (or London English) introduced a greater deal of conformity in English spelling.
While the fame of Middle English literary productions tends to begin in the later fourteenth century,
with the works of Chaucer and Gower, an immense corpus of literature survives from throughout the
Middle English period.
Changes in vocabulary
The influence of the Normans can be illustrated by looking at two words, beef and cow. Beef,
commonly eaten by the aristocracy, derives from the Anglo-Norman, while the Anglo-Saxon
commoners, who tended the cattle, retained the Germanic cow. Many legal terms, such as indict, jury,
and verdict have Anglo-Norman roots because the Normans ran the courts. This split, where words
commonly used by the aristocracy have Romantic roots and words frequently used by the AngloSaxon commoners have Germanic roots, can be seen in many instances.
Sometimes French words replaced Old English words; crime replaced firen and uncle replaced eam.
Other times, French and Old English components combined to form a new word, as the French gentle
and the Germanic man formed gentleman. Other times, two different words with roughly the same
meaning survive into modern English. Thus we have the Germanic doom and the French judgment, or
wish and desire.
Influence of Scandinavian
Not only did French have a profound impact on English, but also the Scandinavian languages. In the
north where Scandinavians had settled, Anglo-Saxons and Vikings (Danes and Norwegians) coexisted together. As their languages came into contact, inflections dropped off because they had
different inflections in their languages. The contact situation brought about a process of simplification
in the morphological structure.
Vikings also contributed lexical items to the language such as the present-day pronoun “she”, which
replaced the Anglo-Saxon form “heo”
The End of the Middle English period
This mixture of the two languages came to be known as Middle English. The most famous example of
Middle English is Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Unlike Old English, Middle English can be read, albeit
with difficulty, by modern English-speaking people.
By 1362, the linguistic division between the nobility and the commoners was largely over. In that year,
the Statute of Pleading was adopted, which made English the language of the courts and it began to
be used in Parliament.
The Middle English period came to a close around 1500 AD with the rise of Modern English.
Tudor English / Shakespearian English / Early Modern Englishz
Grammar
• Adjectives: different rules and less strict, prescriptive than ModE: e.g. “most tall”, “most
unkindest”
• Netation: Double negation was common. In ModE it’s considered non-standard and
stigmatised. e.g. “Nor this is not my nose neither”
• Pronouns: thou (informal form of address), you (polite form of address, showing respect)
The Puritans eleveted everybody to an equal status  levelling towards “you”
nd
• Verbs: 2 person singular had an inflectional ending, e.g. “thou didst”.
rd
3 person singular, e.g. “consisteth”
• Syntax/Word order: in questions: the auxiliary “do” was not yet used regularly: the verb
preceded the subject, e.g. “Why weepest thou?”
Negativ: do was used partially, though not compulsary. e.g. “I do not know” / “I know not”
could be used interchangibly
New vocabulary
Between 1500-1700, over 30’000 new words were added to the vocabulary of English.
Standards and Standardization
The Process of Standardisation
• Selection: an existing variety is chosen as the basis. It’s usually the variety used by the most
powerful social or ethnic group
• Codification: reduction of internal variability in the selected variety, and the estabilshment of
grammatical norms and vocabulary. This often involves also a standard spelling for words.
• Elaboration: ensuring that the language can be used in a wide range of functions. The
linguistic resources are expanded, for example by borrowing of words or new grammatical
structures. There are three means of creating new vocabulary: a) words could be invented, b)
words could be adopted from other languages such as Latin and Greek and c) obsolete
English words could be brought back into use.
• Implementation: the standard language must be promoted in written language. Alternative
varieties are deemed ungrammatical and inferior and people are thus discouraged to use
them. The standard is associated with loyalty and pride.
King Alfred
The first tendency towards standardisation already took place in OE. King Alfred promoted one single
dialect of English in order to unite the English and be able to withstand foreign influence which mainly
concerned the northern part of England where Scandinavians settled and dispersed their native
tongue.
Alfred saw a common language as a means for unification of his realm.
Written English
Two major developments have contributed to the evolution of English as a standard language: the
invention of the printing press and the rise of the nation state. The standard language solidarised the
nation and gave an identity to its citizens.
English was transformed from a vernacular into a standardised veriety that could be identified with
England as a nation state. A standard language is one that provides agreed norms of usage, usually
codified in dictionaries and grammars, for a wide range of institutional purposes such as education,
government and science. The term “Standard English” refers to the dominant written form of English.
The dialect of the south-east Midlands assumed the position of the standard form as it was
predominantly used in printion. Effects of printing were:
• Introduction of punctuation
• New spelling
• More conformity
• New words
As a result written English, apart from a few minor spelling variants, formed a fairly monolithic whole
across the English-speaking world.
Spoken English
There is, as a matter of fact, no such thing as a standard in spoken English. However, there are
certain dominant varieties that are perceived as the norm. In Britain, Received Pronunciation is
considered to be the “standard” showing no specific dialectual feature. It is used in the media, in
education and in institutions.
Will English finally become unintellibible among native speakers?
There are too many centralizing factors keeping Standard English in the forefront of world attention for
the old Latin scenario to obtain. And its position is being reinforced by new technologies. Satellite
television is beam-ing Standard English down into pre-viously unreachable parts of the world, thereby
fosterng greater levels of mutual intelligibility. And the Internet currently has a predominantly (70%)
Enghlish voice &endash; though this figure is rapidly falling, as other languages come on-line. The
vast majority of the World Wide Web is in Standard English, albeit in many specialized varieties.
Colonial English and Language Imperialism
English in Kenya
• Co-official language together with Swahili
• English is taught through education system  not everyone has access to education and thus
to English
• Function: lingua franca. English is neutral because it’s no ones native language
Dilemma of French speakers in Quebec
• French speakers are proud of their language and want to maintain it
• They are afraid that English will infiltrate their language
• The economy, however, is mainly run in English because the rest of North America is Englishspeaking
 people need to speak English for business matters
The spread of English
2. 1. THE NEW ENGLISHES
He has visualized the spread of English around the world as three concentric circles representing
different ways in which the language has been acquired and is currently used.
The Inner Circle refers to the traditional historical and sociolinguistic bases of English in the areas
where it is the primary language (native or first language; UK, Ireland, Canada, the USA, Australia,
New Zealand). The Outer Circle comprises regions colonized by Britain; the spread of English in nonnative settings, where the language has become part of the country's chief institutions, and plays an
important "second language" role in a multilingual setting (India, Singapore, Malawi). The Expanding
Circle involves nations which recognize the importance of English as an international language, but
they do not have the history of colonization, nor does English have any special status in their language
policy. In these areas, English is primarily a foreign language.
The term "new Englishes" is used for the varieties which have developed in the Outer Circle, have
been transplanted and, therefore, can also be called "diaspora varieties". In a historical and linguistic
sense, these varieties are not new. They are called "new" because it is only recently that they have
been linguistically, and literaturewise, recognized and institutionalized, although they have a long
history of acculturation in geographical, cultural and linguistic contexts different from the English of the
Inner Circle. There is a decline of competence from educated English to "broken" English (which is
considerably mixed with local languages).
2. 2. THE POWER OF ENGLISH
The power of language is intimately connected with societal power. It can be manifested by using
persuasion, regulation, inducement or force to add a code to a speech community or by the
suppression of a particular language variety and the elevation of another.
This is a fact that English has spread as a result of exploitation and colonisation. It is notable that,
especially in many ex-colonies of Britain, English is still the language of an exclusive social elite.
Kachru (1986c: 128-129) has given various reasons for which languages are used in a society. They
can be used to expand the speech community, as a vehicle of cultural or religious enlightenment to
deculturize people from their own tradition (to the "civilizing process" also belonged distancing from
native cultures: the colonizers wanted to introduce European literature to the natives, at the same time
remaining ignorant of their indigenous literatures), to gain economic advantage, to control domains of
knowledge and information, and for deception. The following statement by Charles Grant clearly
demonstrates the attitudes of the British Raj in India (1831-1832; quoted in Kachru 1986c: 128):
The Hindoos err, because they are ignorant and their errors have never fairly been laid before them.
The communication of our light and knowledge to them would prove the best remedy for their
disorders.
The most important reason for the success of English is, according to Kachru (1986c:129-132),
naturally the historical role of England as a colonial power. In India, for example, the political power
naturally attributed a power to the language of the Raj (called the linguistic elitism strategy), and it also
became a symbol of political power. English came to be the language of the legal system, higher
education, pan-regional administrative network, science and technology, trade and commerce - either
because the indigenous languages were not equipped for these roles and English provided for a
convenient vocabulary, or because the use of English was considered prestigious and powerful.
English became gradually a major tool for acquiring knowledge in the sciences and the humanities. It
has come to represent modernization and development, and, as a link language, it has acquired
intranational roles over the years.
Kachru (1987:222) lists also some other reasons for the dominance of English around the world: its
propensity for acquiring new identities, its power of assimilation, its adaptability to "decolonization" as
a language, its manifestation in a range of lects, and its provision of a flexible medium for literary and
other types of creativity across languages and cultures.
2. 3. THE PARAMETERS AND DIMENSIONS OF THE POWER OF ENGLISH
At present, English dominates functional domains in the widest possible register range. Kachru
(1986c: 130) has presented some parameters of the power of English (which can also be understood
as individual motivations for learning the language): Demographic and numerical spread across
cultures and languages; on practically every continent English provides access to most important
scientific, technological, and cross-cultural domains of knowledge and interaction Attitudinal
Symbolizes - certainly to a large group across cultures - one or more of the following: neutrality,
liberalism, status and progressivism Accessibility Provides intranational accessibility in the Outer
Circle and international mobility across regions (cf. "link language" and "complementary language")
Pluricentricity has resulted in the nativization and acculturation of the language. These two are, then,
responsible for the "assimilation" of English across cultures as a tool for mobility, economic gains, and
social status
Table 1: Parameters for the power of English/individual motivations for learning English.
In the same country the English language can be characterized by different terms representing the
power of the language: Positive/Negative, National identity, Anti-nationalism, Literary renaissance,
Anti-native culture, Cultural mirror (for native cultures), Materialism, Modernization, Westernization,
Liberalism, Rootlesness, Universalism, Ethnocentrism, Technology, Permissiveness, Science,
Divisiveness, Mobility, Alienation, etc.
Often the same term may be used both in a positive and in a negative sense, depending on who uses
it. The bad effects of the increasing power of English have been conscious and unconscious lingocide
and dislocation of native cultural traditions by introducing Westernization. English is often seen as a
tool of economic exploitation and domination. On the other hand, the Outer Circle sees English also as
a tool of national identity and political awakening (as in the independence struggle in India), a window
on the world, and a link language (Kachru 1986c: 136).
English involves both positive and negative cultural values: economic development yet exploitation,
political and cultural ideas and institutions, enrichment of English but possibly this at the cost of
indigenous languages, opportunities to communicate with readers around the world yet at the expense
of one's own language (Bailey 1991: 165).
Cheshire (1991:6) points out that although the spread of English has often been associated with the
death of indigenous languages in those countries to which it has been transplanted, in India this was
not the case. In Saghal's (1991:300) view, too, the role of English in India has not been replacive: it
has not driven out any of the indigenous languages. Rather, she claims, English has enriched Indian
languages (as well as it has been enriched by them).
Kachru (see e.g. Kachru 1986a:9) stresses the neutrality of English as one clear advantage of using it:
English is free from any undesirable (e.g. ethnic or religious) connotations native languages may have.
The pros of using English have wiped away the fact that it originally was the colonizer's language.
British English and American English
American English
Also significant beginning around 1600 AD was the English colonization of North America and the
subsequent creation of a distinct American dialect. Some pronunciations and usages "froze" when
they reached the American shore. In certain respects, American English is closer to the English of
Shakespeare than modern British English is. Some "Americanisms" that the British decry are actually
originally British expressions that were preserved in the colonies while lost at home (e.g., fall as a
synonym for autumn, trash for rubbish, frame-up which was reintroduced to Britain through Hollywood
gangster movies, and loan as a verb instead of lend).
The American dialect also served as the route of introduction for many Native American words into the
English language. Most often, these were place names like Mississippi, Roanoke, and Iowa. But,
names for other things besides places were also common. Raccoon, tomato, canoe, barbecue,
savanna, and hickory have Native American roots.
Spanish has also been great influence on American English. Armadillo, mustang, canyon, ranch,
stampede, and vigilante are all examples of Spanish words that made their way into English through
the settlement of the American West.
To a lesser extent French, mainly via Louisiana, and West African, through the importation of slaves,
words have influenced American English. Armoire, bayou, and jambalaya came into the language via
New Orleans. Goober, gumbo, and tote are West African borrowings first used in America by slaves.
American Spelling
American English has many spelling differences from English as used elsewhere (especially British
English), some of which were made as part of an attempt to rationalize the spelling used in Britain at
the time. The American spelling changes were not driven by government, but by textbook writers and
dictionary makers.
The first American dictionary was written by Noah Webster in 1828.
Some words with simplified spellings in American English are words such as center, color, and
maneuver, which are spelled centre, colour, and manoeuvre in other forms of English.
American vocabulary
A number of words that arose in the United States have become common, to varying degrees, in
English as it is spoken internationally. Although its origin is disputed, most etymologies of OK place its
widespread usage in America of the early 19th century. Other American introductions are found, for
instance, among:
* items of political terminology: caucus, gerrymander, filibuster, exit poll, landslide, run for office;
* business terms: employee, breakeven, human resources, CEO, downsize, disintermediation;
* automotive terms: hatchback, compact car, SUV, station wagon, tailgate, motorhome, truck;
* nouns of the form verb plus preposition: backup, layover, lineup, shakedown, tryout, spinoff,
rundown "summary," shootout;
* idioms: get the hang of, make the grade, bark up the wrong tree, keep tabs, run scared, take a
backseat, have an edge over, as of;
* other: belittle, blizzard, teenager, motel, waterfront, gridlock, fix "repair," overview, backdrop,
about-face, cash register, automated teller machine, etc.
American phonology
• The replacement of [Θ] with [ς] in most utterances of the words not, hot, got, phonology
• Dropping of [j] after alveolar consonants so that new, duke, Tuesday, suit, resume, lute are
pronounced /nu:/, /du:k/, /tu:zdeΙ/, /su:t/
•
•
•
The shift of [æ] to [a] (the so-called "broad A") before [f], [s], [θ], [ð], [z], [v] alone or preceded
by [n]. This is the difference between the British Received Pronunciation and American
pronunciation of bath and dance.
The flapping of intervocalic /t/ and /d/ to alveolar tap [4] before reduced vowels. The words
ladder and latter are mostly or entirely homophonous, possibly distinguished only by the
length of preceding vowel.
pronunciation of postvocalic and final [≤]
English as a world language / First and Second Language English
The Dominance of English
Mandarin may have the largest number of native speakers (about 800 million), but English, with 1.9
billion speakers — including some 350 million native speakers — is far and away the largest global
lingua franca. The next largest, Spanish, claims 450 million competent speakers worldwide, while
French is spoken by a mere 130 million.
It is used as a first language by some 400 million people, mainly in the USA, Canada, Britain, Ireland,
Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. It has achieved special status as a 'second' language in
over 70 countries, such as Ghana, Nigeria, India, Singapore, and Vanuatu, spoken by at least another
400 million. And in most - perhaps now all? - of the remaining countries, it has become the foreign
language which children are most likely to learn in school. The number of foreign learn-ers may now
exceed a billion.
The role of non-native speakers (L2)
Although estimates vary greatly, 1,500 million or more people are today thought to be competent
communicators in English. That is a quarter of the world's population. So, is English a global language,
when three out of four people do not yet use it? Given the areas of world influence where it has come
to have a pivotal role, the answer has to be yes. The evidence suggests that English is now the dominant voice in international politics, banking, the press, the news agencies, advertising, broadcasting,
the record-ing industry, motion pictures, travel, science and technology, knowledge management, and
communications. No other language has achieved such a widespread profile - or is likely to, in the
foreseeable future.
But the reason for the global status of English is nothing to do with the number of first-language
speakers it has. There are some three times as many people who speak it as a second or foreign
language, and this ratio is increasing, given the differentials be-tween such low population-growth
countries as the UK and USA, on the one hand, and such high ones as India and Nigeria, on the
other. The future of the language is evidently out there in the ELT (English-language teaching) world.
New Englishes
As a consequence, nobody owns Eng-lish now. That is the message we have to take on board as we
begin the new millennium. The language may have begun in Britain, and achieved its current world
presence chiefly because of the USA, but the combined total of 300 million or so first-language
speakers of those two countries is still only a fifth of the world total. Once a language comes to be so
widespread, it ceases to have a single centre of influence. The changes taking place in the way
English is used in such areas as South Africa, India, Ghana, and Singapore are outside of anyone's
control. The most immediate result will be the development of new vari-eties of English, spoken by
grass-roots populations all over the world. Some of these 'New Englishes' already exist, going under
such names as 'Singlish' (short for Singaporean cause people want them to - that is, they want a
distinctive form of lan-guage to express their local or ethnic identity. They therefore develop very
different vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation from that found in Standard English; and these
differences will only increase over the next generation.
English has become so large, now, given the momentum of its history, that it is unstoppable. Too
many people around the world have found it a useful tool for there to be any serious likelihood of a
reversal - at least, not in the near future.
Many triggers of change
• Use in many places: language contact with other languages: borrowing
• Immigration/bilingualsim: imperfect learning of immigrants
•
•
•
•
•
Slang: new words and new meanings for existing words are added by certain groups. E.g.
Cockney Rhyming Slang has partially come to be intelligible to other speakers of English
Sloppiness: new grammatical structures, simplification, assimilation. E.g. gonna
Cultural and social change: e.g. political correctness: new words to replace other words
Technological avancement: new objects, old objects get out of use
Social prestige: concious adaption to a more prestigeous form
Franglais, singlish and the like
Singlish
Singlish is simply Singaporean slang, whereby English follows Chinese grammar and is liberally
sprinkled with words from the local Chinese, Malay and Indian dialects. Take jiat gentang, which
combines the Hokkien word for "eat" (jiat), with the Malay word for "potato" (gentang). Jiat gentang
describes someone who speaks with a pretentious Western accent (since potatoes are considered a
European food), as in "He went to Oxford to study, now he come back to Singapore, only know how to
jiat gentang." As for "talking cock," the phrase means to spout nonsense.
But the government is not amused. It doesn't like Singlish because it thinks it is bad language and bad
for Singapore's sober image as a commercial and financial center. For more than two years now, it
has been waging a war of words spearheaded by the Speak Good English Movement (SGEM), "Poor
English reflects badly on us," said Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong at SGEM'S launch, "and makes us
seem less intelligent or competent."
In the past, the government would impose strict rules and hefty fines to shape social behavior - don't
spit, don't litter, don't sell gum. But this time, because it knows Singlish is trendy, it's using the soft sell.
"SGEM is not a campaign, it's a movement. We want to adopt a more light-hearted approach."
Singlish is crude precisely because it's rooted in Singapore's unglamorous past. This is a nation built
from the sweat of uncultured immigrants who arrived 100 years ago to bust their asses in the
boisterous port. Our language grew out of the hardships of these ancestors. And Singlish is a key
ingredient in the unique melting pot that is Singapore.
Franglais
Franglais is a contact form of French and English. It’s still French, but English words have been
incorporated in its lexicon.
Franglais is used by the media, advertising and mainly young people. It’s considered to be trendy and
fashionable, though many conservative French try to stem the tide and want to prevent Anglicisms
from entering the language. They regard English as being intrusive and spoiling the purity of French.
The Beginning of Franglais
After World War II, a backlash began in France over the increasing use of Franglais there. Corruption
of the national language was perceived by some to be tantamount to an attack on the identity of the
country itself.
During this period import of large amounts of United States products led to increasingly widespread
use of some English phrases throughout French culture. Measures taken to slow this trend included
government censorship of comic strips and financial support for the French film and French language
dubbing industries.
Despite public policies against the spread of English, the use of Franglais is increasing in both written
and oral expression.
In recent years English expression are increasingly present in French mass media: TV reality shows
generally use English titles such as Loft Story (Big Brother), Star Academy (or Star Ac'), Popstars, and
Le Bachelor. The leading national newspaper Le Monde publishes a weekly article selection of The
New York Times entirely in English and uses anglicisms such as newsletter (instead of lettre de
diffusion), chat (instead of clavardage), and e-mail (instead of courriel). NRJ (pronounced énergie), the
leading broadcast station, which targets a young audience, is known for a massive use of Franglais
expressions. In James Huth's blockbuster movie Brice de Nice (to be pronounced like if it was
English), Franglais is used in an abusive way in order to increase its appeal among the teenage
audience.
Almost all telecommunication and Internet service providers generally use English and Franglais
expressions in their product names and advertising campaigns. The leading operator France Télécom
has dropped the accents in its corporate logo. In recent years it has changed its product names with
smart sounding expressions such as "Business Talk", "Live-Zoom", "Family Talk".
The French Academy (Académie française) and public authorities such as the High Council for the
French Language (Conseil supérieur de la langue française) generally propose alternative words for
anglicisms. The acceptance of these proposals varies a lot : "ordinateur" and "logiciel" have definitely
replaced the English words "computer" and "software", whereas "vacancelle" failed to replace
"weekend". The word "courriel", a translation of "e-mail" initially proposed by the Quebec Office of the
French Language, is slowly coming into use in written French. However, most of French Internet users
generally speak about "mail" without the prefix "e-".
The use of English expressions is very common in the youth language, which combines them with
verlan and expression of Arabic origins.
English in Switzerland
Historical Presence of English in Switzerland:
English-speaking soldiers and politicians who would meet Swiss citizens for political reasons during
WWI and WWII also introduced English into Switzerland. The growing population of English speakers,
as well as the increasing use of English in areas such as technology (especially in the pharmaceutical
industry), as well as culture (theater and music), and the media, caused a demand for a better
knowledge of English, and the English Teachers Association of Switzerland (ETAS) was created in
Zurich (ETAS, 2003).
While most Swiss citizens were quickly exposed to the English language, for the above reasons but
also through the tourism industry, many did not have any fluency in English, and the idea that English
might be used “for intra-Swiss purposes” was still unheard of (Dürmüller, 2002). Similarly, no federal
regulations were taken at any level regarding the teaching and use of English, (Forster, 1998; Grin,
2002) and English was not yet considered by many as an optional L2 or L3, since learning national
languages was still seen as more valuable and useful.
After World War II, the place of English dramatically changed, not only in Switzerland but also in the
world, as it became a language that symbolized progress and a better material future.
Apart from the demographic parameter (400 million native speakers and more than a billion nonnative
speakers of English in the world, according to Chrystal), these parameters are
• - functional (on practically every continent English provides access to the most important
scientific, technological, and cross-cultural domains of knowledge and interaction);
• - attitudinal (it symbolizes neutrality, liberalism, status and progressivism);
• - accessibility (it provides intra- and international accessibility and mobility);
• - pluricentricity (which has resulted in the nativization and acculturation of English in countries
such as India but also Switzerland, as discussed later);
• - and material (it is a tool for mobility, economic gains, and social status) (Kachru).
English was quickly accepted in Switzerland “for [these] three functions: wider communication, specific
purposes, [and] expressing oneʼs identity.” For the above reasons, the English-speaking presence was
very quickly to be found to influence areas such as education and culture but also medical, industrial,
and financial areas of the Swiss market. At the same time, the perception of the general public
regarding what should be done about this “intrusion” of the English language started to change. In
1986, a survey done by the Swiss government reported that, “the linguistic behavior of a large part of
the population was changing.... There was, the report regretted, a tendency away from ʻlanguages of
cultureʼ towards a language which is ʻmerely functional and communicativeʼ” (Dürmüller, 2002, p.57).
Uses of national languages and of English:
It is interesting to see how the inhabitants of Switzerland see English as an increasingly important
language while at the same time they seem to regret its “intrusion” into their culture. surprised to see
that everything is explained in English, German, and French. Italian is missing, and of course,
Romansh is too.
both the German and the French speakers will learn each otherʼs language as their second language
(L2) and then English as their third language (L3). Italian comes far behind, as the fourth or fifth
language. On the other hand, 95% of the Italian speakers will learn and be able to communicate in
French as their L2 and 67% of the same Italian speakers will learn and be able to communicate in
German as their L3, while English is only learned eventually as their L4. In most recent poles,
however, these trends are changing dramatically, as will be discussed later.
Table 1: What language do you use in communication with people whose L1 is a language other than
your L1 (but who do speak your mother tongue as their L2 or L3)?
It is interesting to notice that the French speakers seem to be the most unwilling to speak another
language, and Forster (1998) says that indeed, the Germans learn French much better (and also start
earlier) than the French learn German. Dürmüller (1989) explains that this unbalanced situation is the
perfect one for a lingua franca to emerge as a “neutral tool, available to all the linguistic groups in the
same way, not putting any one group at an advantage or at a disadvantage” (p.14).
English appears as the next language chosen to communicate between Swiss people and who donʼt
speak the same native language and who meet someone whose native language they donʼt know as
shown in Table 2.
It also already appears that English (italicized) is more often used as a means of communication
(except with the Italian speakers) than a third Swiss language, which corroborates the idea that none
of the Swiss
national languages is known by everyone well enough to become a lingua franca.
As Table 3 shows,
the adoption of English as a language more important than any other official languages is particularly
strong in German-speaking Switzerland.
English in India
The History of English in India
According to Kachru, there have been three phases in the introduction of bilingualism in English in
India.
st
1 Phase
The first one of them, the missionary phase, was initiated around 1614 by Christian missionaries.
nd
2 Phase
the demand from the South Asian public (in the eighteenth century) was considered to come about
through local demand, as some scholars were of the opinion that the spread of English was the result
of the demand and willingness of local people to learn the language. Roy and Navalkar, among others,
were persuading the officials of the East India Company to give instruction in English, rather than in
Sanskrit or Arabic. They thought that English would open the way for people to find out about scientific
developments of the West. Knowledge of Sanskrit, Persian, Arabic or of Indian vernaculars would not
contribute to this goal (Kachru 1983: 67-68).
rd
3 phase
The Government policy, begun in 1765, when the East India Company's authority was stabilized
(Kachru 1983: 21-22). English was established firmly as the medium of instruction and administration.
The English language became popular, because it opened paths to employment and influence (NEB
1974: 406). English of the subject Indians became gradually a widespread means of communication.
In the following years, English was established firmly as the medium of instruction and administration
by the British Raj (1765-1947). Indian education was ever greater anglicized as the English language
became rooted in an alien linguistic, cultural, administrative and educational setting. The first
universities were established in India in 1857 (in Bombay, Calcutta and Madras). English became
accepted as the language of the élite, of the administration, and of the pan-Indian press. English
newspapers had an influential reading public. Indian literature in English was also developing (Kachru
1983: 69).
In India, English gradually acquired socially and administratively the most dominant roles: the power
and prestige of language was defined by the domains of language use. Ultimately the legal system,
the national media and important professions were conducted in English (Kachru 1986a: 7). In the
words of Kachru, skilled professional Indian became the symbol of Westernization and modernization.
By the 1920s English had become the language of political discourse, intra-national administration,
and law, a language associated with liberal thinking. Even after the colonial period ended, English
maintained its power over local languages.
India, after becoming independent in 1947, was left with a colonial language, in this case English, as
the language of government. It was thought that the end of the British Raj would mean the slow but
sure demise of the English language in South Asia. This, of course, has not happened. The
penetration of English in these societies is greater that it has ever been.
In spite of these problems among the various ethnic groups in India, Hindi was chosen as the national
language in the constitution, and English was to be replaced by Hindi in fifteen years' time. However,
due to the continuous opposition in the south, where people speak other native languages than Hindi,
this replacement was not politically possible. In 1967 a law was passed which allowed the use of both
Hindi and English for all official purposes - and that situation still exists
English in present-day India
There are over 900 million people and more than one thousand languages in India; the area is thus
one of the most diverse linguistic and cultural areas in the world.
In 1971, it was estimated that the rate of bilingualism in India was 13%. 99% of English speakers are
second-language speakers, whereas in many other languages there are no non-native speakers at all
(although there are large numbers of native speakers)
Spolsky points out that although there are so many languages in India, most of the people do not
know any other Indian language than their own. English is most widely spoken second language ,
followed by Hindi. English is more useful as a "lingua franca"; the usefulness of Hindi as a lingua
franca is regionally limited.
In terms of numbers of English speakers, the Indian subcontinent ranks third in the world, after the
USA and UK. An estimated 4% of the Indian population use English; although the number might seem
small, out of the total population that is about 35 million people (in 1994)
English is virtually the first language for many educated Indians, and for many, who speak more than
one language, English is the second one. Indian speakers of English are primarily bi- or multilingual
Indians who use English as a second language in contexts in which English is used among Indians as
a "link" or an "official" language.
English serves two purposes. First, it provides a linguistic tool for the administrative cohesiveness of a
country, and, secondly, it serves as a language of wider communication. (Kachru 1986a: 8). English
functions in the Indian socio-cultural context to perform roles relevant and appropriate to the social,
educational and administrative network of India
Originally, 15 national languages were recognized by the Indian government. At present 18 languages
are included in the Constitution of India. English is now recognized as an associate official language,
with Hindi the official language. It is recognized as the official language in four states (Manipur,
Meghalaya, Nagaland, Tripura) and in eight Union territories.
Various political and nationalistic pressures continue to push for the choice of Hindi as a national
language. However, it is hard to remove English from its place as a language of wider communication,
lingua franca, especially among the educated elite, or to replace the regional languages in mass
communication by Hindi.
Nativisation
Scholars (such as Kachru, Halverson, Verma, Mehrotra and Sridhar) have all concluded that the South
Asian varieties of English are being nativized by acquiring new identities in new socio-cultural
contexts. They have emerged as autonomous local varieties with their own set of rules that make it
impossible to treat them simply as mistakes of deficient Englishes (Kandiah 1991: 275).
South Asian English has developed to a more distinctive level than in other countries where English is
used as a second language (Crystal 1988: 258). English in India has evolved characteristic features at
the phonological, lexical, syntactic and even at discourse level. Initially, these innovations were
rejected by purists, but they are becoming increasingly accepted: English is not anymore treated as a
foreign language; it is part of the cultural identity of India.
English writing and spelling
History of the English spelling system
The regular spelling system of Old English was swept away by the Norman Conquest, and English
itself was eclipsed by French for three centuries, eventually emerging with its spelling much influenced
by French. English had also borrowed large numbers of words from French, which for reasons of
prestige and familiarity kept their French spellings. The spelling of Middle English, such as in the
writings of Geoffrey Chaucer, is very irregular and inconsistent, with the same word being spelled
differently, sometimes even in the same sentence.
There was also a series of linguistic sound changes towards the end of this period, including the Great
Vowel Shift, which resulted in "igh" in "night" changing from a pure vowel followed by a palatal/velar
fricative to a diphthong. These changes for the most part did not detract from the rule-governed nature
of the spelling system; but in some cases they introduced confusing inconsistencies, like the wellknown example of the many pronunciations of "ough" (rough, through, though, trough, plough, etc.).
Most of these changes happened before the arrival of printing in England. However, the arrival of the
printing press merely froze the current system, rather than providing the impetus for a realignment of
spelling with pronunciation.
By the time dictionaries were introduced in the mid 1600s, the spelling system of English started to
stabilise, and by the 1800s, most words had set spellings.
Irregularities in the English spelling system
The English spelling system is one of the most irregular spelling systems in current use. Although
French presents a similar degree of difficulty when encoding (writing), English is more difficult when
decoding (reading). English has never had any formal regulating authority, like the Spanish Real
Academia Española, Italian Accademia della Crusca or the French Académie française, so attempts to
regularize or reform the language, including spelling reform, have usually met with failure.
The only significant exceptions were the reforms of Noah Webster which resulted in many of the
differences between British and American spelling, such as center/centre, and dialog/dialogue. (Other
differences, such as -ize/-ise in realize/realise etc, came about separately.)
No grapheme-phoneme correspondance
Besides the quirks the English spelling system has inherited from its past, there are other
idiosyncrasies in spelling that make it tricky to learn. English contains 24 separate consonant
phonemes and, depending on dialect, anywhere from fourteen to twenty vowels. However, there are
only 26 letters in the modern English alphabet, so there cannot be a one-to-one correspondence
between letters and sounds. Many sounds are spelled using different letters or multiple letters, and for
those words whose pronunciation is predictable from the spelling, the sounds denoted by the letters
depend on the surrounding letters. For example, the digraph "th" represents two different sounds (the
voiced interdental fricative and the voiceless interdental fricative) (see Pronunciation of English th),
and the voiceless alveolar fricative can be represented by the letters "s" and "c".
Correction according to the etymological origin
There was also a period when the spellings of words were altered in what is now regarded as a
misguided attempt to make them conform to what were perceived to be the etymological origins of the
words. For example, the letter "b" was added to "debt" in an attempt to link it to the Latin debitum, and
the letter "s" in "island" is a misplaced attempt to link it to Latin insula instead of the Norse word igland,
which is the true origin of the English word.
Furthermore, in most recent loanwords, English makes no attempt to Anglicise the spellings of these
words, and preserves the foreign spellings, even when they employ exotic conventions, like the Polish
"cz" in "Czech" or the Old Norse "fj" in "fjord". In fact, instead of loans being respelled to conform to
English spelling standards, sometimes the pronunciation changes as a result of pressure from the
spelling. One example of this is the word "ski", which was adopted from Norwegian in the mid-18th
century, although it didn't become common until 1900. It used to be pronounced "shee", which is
similar to the Norwegian pronunciation, but the increasing popularity of the sport after the middle of the
20th century helped the "sk" pronunciation replace it.
Many simplifications and abbreviations are made in Instant Messaging or Chatting, for the sake of
speed of messaging - e.g. "night" can be spelled as "nite" and "later" as "l8r".
As examples of the idiosyncratic nature of English spelling, the combination "ou" can be pronounced in
at least eleven different ways: "famous", "journey", "cough", "dough", "bought", "loud", "tough",
"should", "you", "flour", "tour".
Spelling reform of English:
advantages
- faciliate language learning
- eliminate irregular and inconsistent forms and make the spelling rules more consistent and
transparent: one grapheme should correspond with one phoneme
Ideas for a spelling reform:
delete superfluous or silent letters: e.g. realm, friend build  relm, frend, bilt
one character or grapheme corresponds with one sound. e.g. mean, seize  meen, seeze
introduce new letters to distinguish sounds. e.g. “th” can mean [Δ] or [Τ]
Runes
the runic letters had the shape that was suited for inscriptions that were carved into stone or wood.
The shapes are linear and angular.
runic script was logographic: one sign = one sound
In England, the Futhorc was further extended to 28 and finally to 33 runes, and runic writing in
England became closely associated with the Latin scriptoria from the time of Anglo-Saxon
Christianization in the 7th century. The futhorc started to be replaced by the Latin alphabet from
around the 9th century. In some cases, texts would be written in the Latin alphabet but runes would be
used in place of the word it represented, and the þorn [Τ] and wynn [w] came to be used as extensions
of the Latin alphabet. The Latin alphabet didn’t provide the capacity as a script to represent every
sound occuring in English.
Runes were not taken over because the only literate people were mainly members of the clergy, and
the clergy favoured Latin for their writings. Latin also came to be used for legal documents and
science.
By the Norman Conquest of 1066 it was very rare and disappeared altogether shortly thereafter. From
at least five centuries of use, less than 200 artifacts bearing futhorc inscriptions have survived.
writing before printing:
• texts were produced by scribes, members of the clergy, that copied books by hand. Books
were either copied letter-by-letter or they were adapted to the scribe’s own idiolect.
• the spelling continuously changed. texts were changed according to new spelling and old
forms were abandonned. e.g. þ  Δ
• The copysts altered and corrected the texts  amendation  texts underwent contant
change.
• editors were also critics: they imposed their view on the texts which is ultimately reflected in
the copied text.  The texts were thus socially filtered.
•  was has come down to us in manuscripts only provides an incomplete idea of what the
original text might have looked like