Ruminations on one language and one speech

The global market for teaching English as a second or foreign language is huge and still growing, particularly in rapidly emerging economies like China. Although Chinese may be the first language spoken by the most people on earth merely because of the country's huge population (1.5 billion and counting), the Global Village increasingly speaks English. Advances in technology, particularly in computer engineering and programming, have contributed to the unassailable hegemony of English as the world's most commonly used language and the exponential demand for its acquisition. Even the French, so jealously proud and protective of their language that they have their own language police in the form of the Academie Française, have had to bite their collective tongue and get with the English-learning program.

There is no doubt that in Turkey young people predominantly but also an increasing number of their elders are eager to learn English, and the main motivation seems to be the demand by employers for a significant competence in English either to secure a good position or to obtain promotion or preferment in career choices. This seems an obvious requirement in import/export, for example, and in banking and finance, manufacturing and tourism as well as the increasingly popular international relations sector. Most of the students I have had the privilege of teaching over the years have been eager and motivated and many have actually liked English as a language; some have even come to love its literature as well. Others, however, resented having to learn the language either for nationalistic reasons or simply because they felt (often justifiably) forced into lessons by parental or peer pressure. I hope I managed to persuade some of these reluctant learners that language and literature are an integral part of a people's cultural identity and that to be able to add another's to our own is an expansion of ourselves rather than a dilution.

So what is English? Knowing the etymology of my mother tongue has always fascinated me and, I believe, enriched the language learning experience of my students. To know the origin of a word is to better understand its usage and specific relevance in any given sentence and informs our decision where a choice is available. This is one reason why English has so many synonyms. Moreover, it is an incredibly rich language and this is because its vocabulary has been constantly expanded and enlarged through contact with other peoples. Modern Turkish contains a daily working lexicon of some 50,000 words. In England, when Samuel Johnson finally published his famous dictionary in 1746 he was rightly proud to have managed to painstakingly assemble 42,773 words. Today, it is widely believed that there are in excess of 600,000 words in the English language; some lexicographers hint at a cool million! (Students need not panic. Although the highly intelligent actor, writer and broadcaster Stephen Fry has a working vocabulary of “only” 100,000 words or so, most educated people have far less).

Where did all these words come from? Shakespeare may have invented some 2,000 new ones, but what about the rest? “How,” asks Melvyn Bragg, “did the billion-tongue language of Modern English first find its voice? When and where did it stir itself, begin to assume the form we know, begin to sound like an English we can recognize? How did it set out from such a remote and unlikely small place on the map of the world to forge the way to its spectacular success?” (“The Adventure of English,” Hodder & Stoughton, 2003.) The answer is simple: According to Edward Allhusen, “Before the fifth century the language spoken in Britain was mainly Celtic, but this was largely swept aside, as the Celts were pushed westwards and northwards into the mountainous regions of Wales and Scotland by the invading Angles who brought with them their Germanic language which became the foundation of the English we speak today.” (“Codswallop, Crumpet and Caper -- Words and Where They Came From,” Old House Books, 2009.) Viking raiders also introduced Scandinavian words to the language, which explains some strange spelling as seen in still-used words like “acre,” “awkward” and “ski.”

It is therefore ironic in the light of subsequent history that the roots of the English we know and speak today were put down through conquest and colonization. The relentless expansion of the British Empire through the same methods saw the imposition of English upon nation after nation, tribe after tribe from Canada in the West via Africa and on to India in the East. Conversely, Bragg talks of another story in which many people came to Britain's shores as peaceful immigrants, farmers seeking profitable toil and finding a relatively peaceful home as they transplanted their way of life from bleak flatlands to rich pastures. Much later, as trade and technology developed, English was happy to lift words from other languages as well and incorporate them into daily use. The discovery of new objects and ideas necessitated the use of their own vocabulary to describe them as translation was either impossible or pointless. What could be done with words like “bungalow” or “yoghurt”?

The movements of peoples, whether for the purposes of war, immigration or trade, contributed to the expansion of the English language and its use and influence in the world. The evolution of communication methods -- from the printed word via radio, cinema and television and on to today's rapid, computer-based systems -- is extraordinary in both its reach and potential. Indeed, according to the British Council, about half the world's population -- or 3.5 billion people -- have knowledge of, or acquaintance with, “some kind of English.” What is more, for the first time in human history it has become possible for one language to be transmitted and received virtually anywhere on the planet. Linguist and philosopher Noam Chomsky posited that, notwithstanding mutually unintelligible vocabularies, “Earthlings speak a common language,” and that this would be apparent to visiting aliens.

According to chapter 11 of Genesis (the first book of the Bible) at one time “the whole earth was of one language and of one speech.” That changed over time; however, thousands of years later, and we seem to be recovering something of that unilingual desire and ability, and the medium of choice, it would appear, is English. It is incumbent upon all of us who teach it, therefore, to familiarize ourselves with the multiple origins of this luxurious language and impart that knowledge with passion and enthusiasm to an eager and expectant, if sometimes resigned and reluctant, world.