Daniella Razzouk; 202201459

Reflective Essay 229

English has always been an intrinsic part of my life. I grew up surrounded by English speakers,

reading English books, studying at an English school, and finally, when I got to university, I decided to

study English Literature. When asked by others why I chose to study English, I had always said that it had

nothing to with the language but with storytelling. I did not care for English as a language, but it was the

one that came most naturally to me when it came to reading and writing, so it only made sense. Moreover,

it was the bridge that would connect me to those around me. When I was very young, I lived in Liberia, a

country in West Africa. Naturally, many of the people there did not speak Arabic, so English was how we

would communicate with each other. Despite leaving Liberia at 5 years old, I still remember speaking in

English with everyone around me. Thinking back, this taught me what the point of language was. The

priority of any language should be to make it simpler for individuals to communicate with each other.

This is especially true with languages such as English that have such widespread and global use.

Between individuals, clarity must be prioritized above all else. The lexicon of the language

should always be updated, ensuring that words are added when needed. I emphasize this because as a

native Arabic speaker, I can see how difficult it is to communicate in a language with a dated lexicon.

These “updates” should not only be for material changes, such as new technologies, but also social

changes. A prominent example is how in Arabic, there are no words for terms such as bisexual, asexual,

or non-binary. This makes discussions about this topic among Arabic speakers difficult and speakers will

often switch to another language to express themselves easier. To avoid this, we must always prioritize

clarity, modernity, and diversity in our language.

An important distinction to make is that a diverse vocabulary is not a convoluted

vocabulary. The distinction between the two is the options available to the speaker. A diverse language

allows the speaker to choose between a vague or simple word and a nuanced and specific word. A

convoluted language forces the speaker to use a complicated word, or words, to express themselves. On
the other end of the spectrum, however, an underdeveloped language would restrict the speaker to

exclusively simple words, constricting how much they can express.

Something else that should be valued in languages is how well they reflect the community that

speaks them. Languages should not be easy to translate directly, instead, I believe there should be a

reflection of the culture found in them. I saw examples of poor translation during Encounters with English

when the theme was “Translation and Mistranslation”. There were many wonderful posts that week but

one that stuck out to me was the translation of this was the Arabic phrase “‫ ”مشاوي مشكل‬being translated to

“grilled problems”. In the case of English, this means showing the internationality and diversity of the

community. English has become a global language of sorts, with people around the world speaking

English as a second or third language. English’s international aspect should be upheld as long as it keeps

its status as the “language of business” or the “language of the internet”.

Language, in general, is simply a tool for communication. There is nothing special about English,

in the same way, there is nothing special about Arabic, French, or even Latin. The beauty of a language is

not found in its technicalities, its tenses, or its terminologies. Beauty comes from what individuals do with

the language. The connections it can make and the art it can create. For this reason, the modernity of a

lexicon must be prioritized. We cannot create art if all who speak the language are struggling to express

even the most basic of concepts. The idea that having multiple words to express nuances or slight

variations is redundant is simply false. The broader a language’s lexicon, the easier it is for speakers to

create things with it.

I have not always held this opinion. When I was younger, I was much more pretentious when it

came to language and felt that we must prioritize speaking “correctly”. There is an unspoken opinion that

there are “correct” accents to have and “incorrect” ones. I learned English from two sources growing up,

the English classes at my British school and American cartoons. This instilled in me the idea that those

who use other accents are somehow worse at the language and do not know how to speak properly.
 As I said before, I lived for a brief amount of time in Liberia. I never developed a Liberian accent

when speaking, mostly because I left before I had a chance to and because the base of my English skills

had instilled in me an American accent. However, my grandfathers, both of whom had been in the country

for decades, had learned English while living there and so spoke in Liberian English. I had an odd sense

of pride in having an American accent. I had not done anything to develop it, it was simply how I spoke,

but I was always praised for it. Conversely, if words in the Liberian or Lebanese dialect would slip

through, I was corrected and told to speak “properly”.

I lost the superiority complex quickly enough. Even when others around me spoke in an accent

that was different from mine, I stopped seeing it as being a big deal. Even though it was no longer

conscious in me, I still maintained a sense of what was the “right” and “wrong” way to speak.

Unsurprisingly, these classifications were deeply racist and classist. I realized this when I first began

thinking deeply about my language and the language of others, in other words, when I started university.

I thought that language was a relatively static thing, changing rarely if ever. I did not know that

languages had a history, or that European languages had roots in languages other than Latin. This was

mostly due to an assumption I made and my refusal to give the topic much thought. You can imagine my

shock when I found out that English was not a romance language.

I have known that I wanted to study English Literature for a long time, but whenever I told

someone about my plans, I would get a lecture on how I should change my mind immediately because

they would make me read Shakespeare and learn about something called a “syntax” that was apparently

horrific. I would then have to calm them down and insist that I am studying English literature and not

linguistics. I will never forget the time I tried to discuss my plans with a family friend who was in her

second year of studying English Literature. Her reaction was to tell my mother to make me change my

mind and insist I “see sense”. If I studied Literturare I would be stuck in unending lectures about where

letters came from and letters that don’t exist anymore. In hindsight, this was ridiculous, but before taking

this class I was convinced that the day I stepped into a language course was the day my GPA would

plummet.
 Ever since I began studying the language and its history, my philosophy on it has changed. I’ve

come to new conclusions on English and its use. The biggest strength the English language has is its

popularity. Due to colonization by the British in the past and the domination of the United States on

cultural, financial, and military levels, English is one of the most popular languages in the world. So, due

to the language being so widespread, I believe that our priority should be ensuring accessibility and ease

of communication.

The biggest eye-opening I had was when we discussed AAVE in class, particularly the article by

Geoffry K. Pullem “AAVE is not Standard English with Mistakes”. It was the first time I realized these

subconscious, bigoted assumptions I had been making. The discussions of the difference between a

dialect, an accent, and grammatical mistakes made me realize that I had been making unfair assumptions

about people. This class helped shift my understanding of English from being a popular language that

many struggled to speak properly into knowing that there is no “wrong” accent or dialect.

My mother, for instance, was someone I had always considered to be weak in English. She

graduated from a French school and French university and still has an accent when speaking. Growing up,

I thought that my mother did not know how to pronounce the words correctly despite her essentially

perfect grasp of grammar and her impressive vocabulary. Her issue was simply with the phonology. To

my mother, English was closer to French than Arabic, so when speaking she would pronounce the letters

as she would while speaking French, giving her a slight accent. For this reason, she had no problem

communicating in writing, as her grasp of orthography and morphology was fine. This class helped me

see that her accent does not weaken her skills in English but was simply a sign of where and how she

learned the language.

Another realization I had was about the richness of the history of the English language. As

someone who grew up in a Middle Eastern country, it was very frustrating to see other cultures, especially

European and American ones, being praised and well-represented while mine never was. Many others

around me felt the same way and we began to resent the language and the culture that was being
represented. So, in order to feel better about ourselves, we began to undervalue the English language, and

Americans specifically. I would take pride in how rich Arabic culture was and how shallow I perceived

English to be. I had never learned about Old English before, or the shift from Old English to Middle

English to Modern. The more I learned, the more I began to see the richness to be found in English and its

history.

Particularly, I was interested in the language’s orthography and syntax. Before this class, “syntax”

was a word I would use without knowing was it meant. It quickly became a shorthand for “really hard

thing in a language class that you will hate”. Also, the idea of not having a standardized way of spelling

just seemed like an overcomplication that should have been dealt with. When I began to learn what these

terms meant, I developed an appreciation for them and was notably less scared of the word syntax. The

biggest shift happened when we began learning about and translating Old English. This had been the part

of the semester I was the most afraid of, but once we actually got going, I had fun. It felt like solving a

puzzle, I had to piece together a picture using the glossary, information about the culture, and other

translations. It showed me the language’s complexity without being convoluted. The Old English cover of

“Call Me Maybe” remains to be one of the best and funniest videos I have ever seen.

Also, it was this part of the course that showed me what it means for a translation to be

accessible. While translating The Wife’s Lament I decided that my goal was to make the “plot” of the

poem my priority and to ensure that anyone who read it would be able to understand it. For instance, I

believe that the narrator is a woman who was murdered by her husband and is now speaking from beyond

the grave to express her bitterness and malice towards him. To communicate this, I translated lines 21 and

22 into “happily we vowed that nothing could ever separate us, that only death may do us part”. By

quoting wedding vows that all modern readers are familiar with, I believe I got my interpretation of the

plot across easily, making my translation accessible.

Something else that changed was my view on code-switching. Growing up, mixing between two

or more languages while speaking is seen as a sign of weakness in the individual’s language skills. It was

appropriate for casual settings and nothing more. This was emphasized to me. While I was at home, my
parents wanted me to improve my Arabic and did not like it when I used English as a crutch. While I was

at school, my teachers told me to speak in English exclusively as we were a British school. However,

something that shifted my perspective was the Encounters with English on code-switching. Seeing

codeswitching studied and celebrated for the first time helped me realize that both languages are my first

languages, and mixing them only enriches both and hurts neither.

This course also introduced to me the idea that there are non-verbal aspects of language

that are worth studying. I knew that tone was difficult to convey while communicating in writing and was

interested to see how many of the behaviors I did subconsciously, like putting an emoji between each

word for emphasis or humor, were actual aspects of language that could be studied. This is heightened by

English’s role as the language of the internet. Most, if not all, of the media I consume online is in English.

So, seeing the non-verbal aspects of the language studied as part of English’s morphology shifted my

view of emojis. I think that inside each one of us there is a grumpy little man who does not like

technology and does not know what the internet is, and sometimes this can make studying these parts of a

language difficult since we tend to write off anything popular in online spaces and with younger people as

being frivolous and shallow.

Whenever we look at language as a whole, I think we have an unfair assumption that change is

bad. If we update the way we speak or look at new aspects of communications with any level of

seriousness, we’re desecrating the language. Our very first reading, “Textspeak is Modernizing the

English Language” by Lauren Collister, discussed this and articulated it perfectly “it turns out, people

have been complaining about language being “ruined” for as long as they’ve been reading and writing”.

At the same time, there is a double standard. If we try to use more complex words or study older forms of

English, even simply Early Modern English, we’re being horrifically boring and wasting our time just for

the sake of making our lives harder. This course helped me see that English, just like any other language

is dynamic. It changes with time, growing and diversifying as more and more people learn it and use it.

The idea that this is “bad” for the language or somehow stupifying was ingrained in me from a young age

by Arabic teachers who decided to blame an eight-year-old for the supposed unpopularity of one old the
oldest languages in the world. However, this class showed me that no language ever stays the same

forever, and the more popular a language is, the faster it changes.

I still do not believe that English is particularly special save for its popularity. There remains

nothing intrinsically unique about English that makes it more worthy of popularity than another language.

At the same time, that does not mean that English is not a rich language with a rich history. While it may

owe much of its popularity to colonization and classism, that does not mean that we should all stop using

English and refuse to communicate with each other.

As I said before, English is a tool. Like all tools, it can be used to reach incredible goals and help

many across the world, but can also cause extreme harm. This is the unfortunate truth of all tools, many

have blood on them but that does not mean we should stop using them. I think English is, for better or for

worse, one of the strongest tools we have nowadays. That is not to say that other languages are weaker or

that English is better, simply that it is a sort of connective tissue between individuals across the world

who otherwise would have no method of communication with each other.

Secondly, I think English is a great way to study culture. It gives us insight into an era of history

that might be difficult to learn about, showing us nuances in the culture we could never know otherwise.

We can also track how Anglo-Saxon culture changed through the changes made to the language. The shift

from Old to Middle English is the biggest example of this, as it lets us see the effect of the Norman

conquest on the lives of the people at the time on the level of administration, nobility, religion, etc.

It also gives us insight into modern-day cultures. Most countries that speak English, as well as

another language, tend to create fascinating dialects that sometimes seem like a new language entirely.

This can tell us much about a culture, from their relationship with other cultures to what they value in

their own culture.

In the future, I believe English will continue on its current track. The world is only growing in its

reliance on the internet and so people are more connected than ever. I do not believe that English’s

popularity will be going away anytime soon. I especially believe that we will see an increase in English’s
role as a second language for many. With English becoming a requirement in many schools across the

world, it only makes sense for English to become the “second first language” of the new generation. I

believe that we will see code-switching become more prevalent because of this, as more people grow up

surrounded by both languages.

In a perfect world, I would like to say that we would become aware that dialects of English such

as Spanglish or Arabizi would become accepted as genuine dialects instead of being looked at as English

with mistakes. However, I think that would be a bit too optimistic for the foreseeable future. While more

people will become familiar with the idea, any large-scale or mainstream shift is still a bit far in the

future, in my opinion.

That is not to say that these are not important conversations to be having. If English is going to

maintain its role as a connective and international language, there needs to be an acknowledgment of the

roots of its popularity, colonization and imperialism. People around the world are becoming far more

educated than ever before, this includes learning about the parts of their history that they would rather

ignore. This goes both ways, those living in countries such as England are discovering more and more

about the atrocities committed during the Age of Imperialism, and those living in countries that were

previously colonized are learning about why a language that is not their own is more familiar to them than

the language of their ancestors. If English is to keep its current role and be accepted around the world as

an effective tool of communication, this history must be acknowledged and resolved. While the past

cannot be rewritten, the racist connotations that have bled over from the past must be done away with.
 Works Cited

“Call Me Maybe (Old English Cover).” YouTube, 26 May 2014, https://youtu.be/Ptp_v7chhm4. Accessed

8 May 2022.

Collister, Lauren. “Textspeak Is Modernizing the Egnlish Language (*English).” The New Republic, 6

Apr. 2015,

https://newrepublic.com/article/121463/textspeak-streamlining-language-not-ruining-it.

Pullem, Geoffroy K. “African American Vernacular English Is Not Standard English with Mistakes.”

AAVE Is Not Standard English with Mistakes,

https://web.stanford.edu/~zwicky/aave-is-not-se-with-mistakes.pdf.