English: Who Owns the Language?
@Chiang_Mai_boy (3882)
Thailand
October 4, 2008 11:01pm CST
English is a relative newcomer among the world's languages. It is a far cry from the ancestral tongue that our early ancestors carried out of Africa. It has come to dominate the arts, science, religion and the world of commerce.
If it is to have such great significance in this world who owns it and controls it? Must we look back to the little island kingdom were it first developed and all bow down to the grammar police there? Just because they were the first to take a rough Germanic tongue and refine it into something that vaguely resembled the English spoken today do they now have the right to tell us how it should be spoken?
English's strength is in its flexibility. It has never been shy in its willingness to adopt words from other languages. It has resisted all attempts to close it off and fix it in place.
English has left its little island home and in doing so has left behind the definition of what is proper English. English is now not one tongue but many. The English spoken in Singapore and India is vastly different from the English spoken in Great Britain.
Who owns the English language? We all do! None of us should feel ashamed about how we speak or write. English is now and always has been a way of communicating ideas. If the way you speak or write can be understood by others then the grammar police have absolutely no right to tell you that you are wrong. It is our language now. Let us do with what we will.
2 responses
@urbandekay (18278)
•
17 Oct 08
As you say English is the 'Lingua Franca' of the modern world, much to the chagrin of the French. You seem, however, to labouring under the misapprehension that the English are rigid and inflexible about the language. This is untrue, the English, so unlike the French who do attempt to control their language, have always adopted a pragmatic attitude to it., with the possible exception of a few Latin scholars who mistakenly thought it should conform to such standards of grammar.
There are over a million words in English, half a million catalogued, and, as you say, many are loan words from foreign tongues; approximately one third from German, one third form old French. Indeed it is possible to express similar ideas using German or French based words and interesting to note the difference in impression such a choice gives.
A graduate from a UK university may have a personal vocabulary in excess of the total vocabulary of many languages. These observations lend English an unsurpassed flexibility and accuracy of expression. Thus, whilst we may shun rigidity in English usage of course there is also virtue and vice in its use and virtues that include the aesthetic as well as pragmatic qualities, elegance, poetry are as important as accuracy and brevity.
Let us, therefore, not do as we will, let us pursue excellence in the diversity of our usage, whilst paying just some small regard to conventions that are necessary to prevent the language fracturing in to different tongues.
all the best urban
@gary_law (84)
• Hong Kong
7 Oct 08
I believe that every English speakers own their language.
English has been localised in many places, and shall not be confined to those countries in the inner circle (coined by Prof. Kachru as those countries who speak English as their mother tongue). Singapore English, Hong Kong English, Philipines English are the new varieties and shall be considered as one of the member in World Englishes.
As long as there is a group of people (A speech community) recognise such use, it should not be considered as "incorrect" within such community. Everyone should have their say of how they use the language for communication or other purposes, but not just the linguists or the government.
