English around the World

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Tipuri de modernitate in Spatiul Anglofon si Francofon, an 1

Secara Silviana

The English language is nobodys special property. It is the property of the imagination; it is the property of language itself. Derek Walcott

Content A brief history of English Old English Middle English Renaissance English Tudor English The 18th century English in the 19th century English world-wide in the 20th century Nato The British Council Into the 21st century Globalization Internet Economical and Social Changes

I have chosen the topic mostly because it was challenging for me to do some researching regarding the topic. My job is to convince you, the reader, that English is a global language, having a worldwide domination. I thought it would be better to start with a quote, The English language is nobodys special property. It is the property of the imagination; it is the property of language itself, which belongs to Derek Walcott, a Carribean poet, playwright and writer. He won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1992. My paper focuses on three main parts: A Brief History of English English World-Wide in the 20th Century Into the 21st Century English is a West-Germanic language that developed in England during the AngloSaxon era. As a result of the military, scientific, political, and cultural influences of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries, and of the United States since the mid 20th century, it has become lingua franca in many parts of the world. Old English denotes the form of the English language used in England for approximately seven centuries. It relies on inflections (or endings) to denote the words function in the sentence, becoming therefore a synthetic language. The next image represents lines 2677-2687 of the original manuscript of Beowulf:

Middle English was called by Barbara Strang par excellence, the dialectical phase of English. It is the period in which dialectical variations were represented in writing.

These dialectical variations derive from territorial divisions between the original AngloSaxon kingdoms. Renaissance English is a very important period, recording borrowings: cargo, from Spanish or coffee from Turkish. Also, in this period, do was used in sentences like: I do send a letter, but it was not required in questions or negatives: Send I a letter?, I send not a letter. Nowadays, we use the periphrastic do: I definitely do like it. Tudor English is remarkable because then, the (e)s ending began to be used. In the following chart, we can notice an increasing use of the ending. Between 1620-1659, almost 90% of people used it. As a curiosity, during the 16th century, women are shown to be more frequent users of the (e)s form than men. The 18th century was called the great age of the personal letter ((H. Anderson, I. Ehrenpreis, 1968: 269). People began to communicate through letters in vast numbers. Personal letters provided detailed pictures of the era and contained important material in terms of the language of the period. The 19th century was a period characterized by change and innovation. The developments of the age were reflected in language too. For example, in 1882, the verb industrialize first appeared. A newly extensive terminology offered the potential for selfdefinition and for the definition of others: upper, middle, lower, working classes. Also, in the 19th century, passive forms were used. By the 1830s, the structure The house was built was well established. David Crystal says that There has never been a language so widely spread or spoken by so many people as English. The quote says a great deal about English domination in the 20th century. In 1900, for most people, English was simply English or English language.

By the 90s, several labels had come into use, like English world. The closing years of he 20th century were therefore, a time of radical terminological innovation. Until about 1970, there was a lack of organized knowledge about what was happening and what was continuing to happen to English beyond England, Ireland, North America. When such interest did develop, it was mostly under the influence of Randolph Quirk in Grammar of contemporary English or later, Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. Quirk et alii were concerned mainly with standard English. Linguist Braj Kachru was already dealing with discussing and describing a fuller range of uses and styles. As a result, the term variety was preferred to the term dialect. In the first part of the century, factors like class, education and socio-economic confidence were invoked with regard to a good usage of English. In the second part of the century, after 1960s, a period also called the Golden Age of Beetles, language attitudes became more democratic and less judgmental. The most significant factor that affected English through the 20th century was the loss of competition. This was due to NATO, whose working language has been English from the very start. Among the many situations in which English was used, I must mention conferences, where participants preferred listening speeches and deliveries in English. In 1934, the British Council was founded, to promote a wider awareness of the UK, its culture and the English language. One of the most remarkable linguistic developments in the decades after 1945 was the expansion of the English language in Europe, due to the development of NATO and the export of US culture through movies and music. The British Council sustained a mainland European cultural presence, especially in countries like Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark. In the 21st century, the development of English was influenced by factors like: globalization internet socio-economical changes

The impact of globalization brought a widespread acknowledgement that English had achieved a world presence, receiving a special status in many countries educational systems. The fact that English had become a global language gave birth to immediate linguistic consequences. As new communities adopted English and gave it a central place in their lives, they also adapted it to their needs and circumstances. The impact of technology has been obvious at every stage in English history. There are considerable differences between the traditional forms of speech and writing. Abbreviations such as LOL (laugh out loud), or C U L8R (see you later) were inexpected in the 21st century. Nowadays, English is an official language in more than fifty countries, among which: Canada, USA, Jamaica, UK, Ireland, India, Australia, New Zealand, Madagascar, etc.

There are 375 million people who speak English as their first language and 1400 millions speak English as their second language:

1400 1200 1000 800 600 400 200 0 1st language 2nd language

In the top native English speaking countries I must mention:

U.S.- 215 million speakers U.K.- 61 million speakers Canada- 18.2 million speakers Australia- 15.5 million speakers Ireland- 3.8 million speakers South Africa- 3.7 million speakers New Zealand- 3.6 million speakers

Countries such as Jamaica or Nigeria also have millions of native speakers, ranging from an English-based creole, to a more standard version of English.

David Crystal claims that combining native and non-native speakers, India has more people who speak or understand English than any other country in the world. English is the language most often studied as a foreign language in the European Union, 89% of schoolchildren learn it. Among non-English speaking European Union countries, a large percentage of the population claimed to be able to carry a conversation in English in the Netherlands (87%), Sweden (85%), Denmark (83%). Being a global language, English was also influenced by other languages. English syntax remains extremely similar to that of the north Germanic languages. Also, the verb bring/brought/brought is very similar to the Dutch and Norwegian verbs. Many written French words are intelligible to an English speaker (fianc). As a conclusion, I must mention that the linguist David Crystal claims that Chinese will continue its predominance, with Hindi-Urdu of India and Arabic climbing past English, and Spanish nearly equal it.

Bibliography
Linda, Mugglestone, 2006, The Oxford History of English, Oxford University Press. David, Crystal, 2003, English as a Global Language, Cambridge University Press. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_language - the 20th of October, 2009. http://web.ku.edu/~idea/ - the 23rd of October, 2009.

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