How
an Unknown Dialect Became the World’s Most-Spoken Language
(The
story of English)
The Language of Industry
The
Industrial Revolution in Britain during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
led in an age of advancement in technology and science. As Britain moved
towards and industrialized society, there became a need to find new ways to
name and describe these developments.
Many
neologisms had entered the English language through inventors, entrepreneurs,
and scientists writing books, pamphlets and scientific papers describing and exploring
the industrial age.
Some
of these new words were adaptations of old Saxon terms, others were borrowed
from other languages such as French, Latin and Greek. ‘Lingerie’, for example,
is taken from French word meaning ‘things made of linen’, which comes from old French
word ‘linge’ which translates as ‘washable’.
Other
products were named after notable people associated with them. A ‘raglan’ was a
popular type of overcoat and is believed to have been named after Lord Raglan,
a nineteenth-century army general and diplomat. Similarly, the mackintosh is
named after Charles Mackintosh, the inventor of waterproof fabrics.
During
the nineteenth century, over half of scientific papers, journals and books
produced in the world were written in English.
By
creating a language of industry and science, English became the language of age
the world over.
The Language of Empire
At
its peak towards the end of the nineteenth century, the British Empire covered
a quarter of surface of the earth. Britain’s loss of the thirteen colonies of
British America during the American War of Independence (1775–83) had forced
Britain turned its attention towards Asia and the south Pacific.
Captain
James Cook claimed the eastern coast of Australia and the islands of New Zealand
during the 1770 and these outposts along with the Cape Colony in South Africa,
laid the grounds for the British Empire’s dominance during the nineteenth
century.
In
1813, one of the acts of the Royal Charter was to provide funds for educating
the Indian population. The English Education Act led to the funding of schools
and educational establishments that taught an English curriculum with English
as the language of instruction. As more and more of India’s population became
versed in the language, English became the language of the law and
administration in the subcontinent.
It
is interesting to note that in Gandhi’s political pamphlet ‘Hind Swaraj’ (1909)
he highlights the spread of English as the major block to Indian
self-determination: ‘To give millions a knowledge of English is to enslave
them. The foundation that was laid for education has enslaved us… Is it not a
sad commentary that we should have to speak of Home Rule in a foreign language?’
Today, English is one of Indian’s eighteen official languages.
Singlish and Spanglish
In
the twenty-first century, English continues to influence other languages. Two
key examples of this process can be found in the hybridized forms Singlish and
Spanglish.
Singlish
Singapore
was a key outpost of the British Empire and was under colonial rule for 146
years between 1819 and 1965.
When
Singapore was granted independence, the newly elected government chose to make English
the official language of the state, principally to maintain its status in world
commerce. As for Singlish, it is very much the language of the streets and is
far from the official English. Words and phrases from Malay, Bengaly and
Chinese have been absorbed into Singlish and English-based sentences
structures.
Spanglish
In
contrast to Singlish, linguist dispute the status of Spanglish as creole or
pidgin form of English and Spanish. Spanglish differs from region to region. It
is totally informal language without any clear rules or structures. It is the
practice shifting between the two languages during a sentence, for example:
‘Que is that?’ (What is that?) and ‘Me voy de shopping para the mall’ (I’m
going shopping in the mall).
In
1933, H.G. Wells wrote a science-fiction novel ‘The Shape of Things to Come’.
The
book was Well’s attempt to write future history from 1933 up to the early
decades of the twenty-second century. He made several accurate predictions,
including the outbreak of the Second World War and the creation of nuclear
submarines. Wells also predicted that English and Spanish would become the
dominant world languages and would eventually merge to become interchangeable –
in other words, Spanglish.
Selective
Bibliography
The
following books provided invaluable resources of information in the writing of this
article, and are recommended for further reading.
Ball, Martin J., The Celtic
Language, Routledge, 2002.
Baugh, Alfred C. and
Cable, Thomas,
A History of the English Language, Routledge, 2005.
Piercy, Joseph, The Story of English,
Michael O’Mara Books, 2012.
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