The Language Revolution (15 page)

Notes

Chapter 1 The Future of Englishes

1
    Letter to the President of Congress (5 September 1780), in C.F. Adams (ed.),
The Works of John Adams
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1852), p. 250.

2
    Three books focused the debate: my own
English as a Global Language
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997, 2nd edn 2003), on which this chapter is based; David Graddol,
The Future of English
(London: The British Council, 1998); and Tom McArthur,
The English Languages
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).

3
    Reported in Geoffrey Nunberg, ‘Will the Internet always speak English?'
American Prospect
11(10), 27 March–10 April 2000.

4
    Reported in David Robinson, ‘The Hollywood conquest',
Encyclopedia Britannica Book of the Year
(1995), p. 245.

5
    Sridath Ramphal, ‘World language: opportunities, challenges, responsibilities', paper given at the World Members' Conference of the English-Speaking Union, Harrogate, UK, 1996.

6
    Jean and William Branford (eds),
A Dictionary of South African English
(Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1978); Joan Hughes (ed.),
The Concise Australian National Dictionary
(Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1989); F.G. Cassidy
and R.B. Le Page (eds),
Dictionary of Jamaican English
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967).

7
    Tom McArthur,
The English Languages
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), p. 13.

8
    Richard Mulcaster,
The First Part of the Elementarie
(1582, edited by E.T. Campagnac, Oxford, 1925), p. 256.

Chapter 2 The Future of Languages

1
    Manfred Görlach,
A Dictionary of European Anglicisms
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 1–2.

2
    See David Crystal,
Language Death
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), on which this chapter – apart from the first section – is based.

3
    See Dónall Ó Riagáin (ed.),
Vade-Mecum: A Guide to Legal, Political and Other Official International Documents Pertaining to the Lesser Used Languages of Europe
(Dublin: European Bureau for Lesser Used Languages).

4
    Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr,
The Professor at the Breakfast Table
(Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1860), p. 46.

5
    In James Boswell,
The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides
(London: Charles Dilly, 1785), recorded on 18 September 1773.

6
    Ezra Pound,
The ABC of Reading
(New York: Laughlin, 1960 [1934]), p. 1.

7
    George Steiner,
Language and Silence
(London: Faber and Faber, 1967), p. 264.

8
    Ralph Waldo Emerson,
The Conduct of Life
(London: Dent, Everyman's Library edn, 1963 [1860]), essay on ‘Culture', p. 221.

9
    Recommendations to UNESCO for Action Plans for the Safeguarding of Endangered Languages (Paris-Fontenoy: UNESCO, March 2003).

Chapter 3 The Role of the Internet

1
    In
Language and the Internet
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), on which this chapter is based.

2
    Respectively: Philip Elmer-Dewitt, ‘Bards of the Internet',
Time,
4 July 1994, pp. 66–7; Constance Hale and Jessie Scanlon,
Wired Style: Principles of English Usage in the Digital Age
(New York: Broadway Books, 1999), p. 3; John Naughton,
A Brief History of the Future: The Origins of the Internet
(London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1999), p. 143.

3
    
The Simpsons,
episode 12A6.

4
    Tim Berners-Lee,
Weaving the Web
(London: Orion Business Books, 1999), p. 132.

5
    John Naughton,
A Brief History of the Future: The Origins of the Internet
(London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1999), p. 150.

6
    Berners-Lee,
Weaving the Web
, p. 151.

7
    Michael Specter, ‘World, Wide, Web: 3 English words',
The New York Times,
14 April 1996, pp. 4–5.

8
    Ned Thomas, ‘How much IT can minority languages afford?'
Contact,
16(3), 2000, p. 2.

9
    Cited in Marie-France Lebert,
Le multilinguisme sur le Web
(1999)
<
http://www.ceveil.qc.ca/multi0.htm.
>

Chapter 4 After the Revolution

1
    In
Nothing – Except My Genius
(Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1997), p. 4.

2
    The following quotations are, respectively, from Macleish: ‘Riverside', in
Poetry and Experience
(New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1961), p. 10; Warren:
Saturday Review
(22 March 1958); Picasso: in Dore Ashton,
Picasso on Art
(Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 1972), p. 25; Pound:
The ABC of Reading
(New York: Laughlin, 1960 [1934]), p. 29.

3
    From, respectively, Longfellow:
Outre-Mer
(1833–5); Carlyle:
The Opera
(1852); Rogers:
Italy
(1822–8), in Derek Watson (ed.),
Chambers Music Quotations
(Edinburgh: Chambers, 1991), pp. 7, 4, 8, respectively.

4
    In
Antipodes
(London: Chatto & Windus, 1985), p. 70.

5
    In
Morning in the Burned House
(Houghton Mifflin, 1995), p. 19.

6
    In
The Rain in the Trees
(New York: Knopf, 1999), p. 67.

7
    In
Collected Poems 1945–90
(London: Phoenix Press, 2001), p. 464.

8
    
Living
On (1998: available from the author).

9
    See the diary account at
<
http://www.rez02.net
>
.

10
   In
Collected Poems 1945–90,
p. 262.

11
   Ibid., p. 194.

Chapter 5 Language Themes for the Twenty-First Century

1
    This mindset is the theme of my
The Stories of English
(London: Penguin, 2004).

Index

abbreviations
81
,
85

Aboriginal languages
50
–
1

acronyms
85

Adams, John
6

adjacency-pairs
73
–
4

Advanced Research Projects

Agency Network
20
–
1

Adventure of English, The
108
,
110

advertising
14
–
15
,
44

Aelfric, Bishop
33

Afrikaans
27
–
8

Airspeak
19

Akayev, Askaar
86

Aleut
51
–
2

Alis Technologies
87

AltaVista
87

ambiguity
72
,
82
,
129

American Dialect Society
86

Amerindian languages
53

appropriateness, sense of
81

Arabic
22
,
49
,
55
,
91
,
101

Aramaic
121

archiving
122

Arop
52

ARPANET
20
–
1

arts and language
103
–
22

ASCII characters
91

asynchronous interaction
67

Atwood, Margaret
114

Augustus, Emperor
33

Babel (Internet name)
87

Babel myth
60
,
106

Bangla
2

Barcelona Declaration
48
,
105

Basque
39

BBC
15
,
36

Beatles, The
18

Beowulf
3

Berners-Lee, Tim
66
,
78

Berwick, Rachel
113

Beyond Babel
108
,
110

Bible, The
60

bicapitalization
83

bilingualism
38
,
56
,
60
–
1
,
93
–
6

biodiversity
58
,
106

Bismarck, Otto von
11

Black Death
53

Bodon, Joan [Jean Boudou]
114

body posture
75

borrowing
see
loan words

Bragg, Melvyn
110

Breton
51
,
108

British Council
8
,
36
,
127

Brizuela, Leopoldo
114

broadcasting
15
–
16
,
83
,
107
–
10

Canute, King
46

capitalization
74
,
82
–
3

Caring for the Earth
104

Carlyle, Thomas
113

Catalan
48

cellphones
81

centrifugal and centripetal force
35
–
8

Chambers, Tyler
91

chatgroups
67
–
8
,
70
–
2
,
79
,
89

Chaucer, Geoffrey
3
,
33
–
4
,
43
,
59

child language acquisition
93
,
103
,
130

Chinese
9
,
22
,
42
,
49
,
91
,
101

Chomsky, Noam
93
,
109

Christmas cards
120

Cicero
32

CMC
see
computer-mediated communication

code-switching
28
–
31
,
101

Colloquy
of Aelfric
33

communications technology
20
–
1

community initiatives
103
–
4

compound words
84

computer-mediated communication
64
,
69
,
79

computer network
66

Concise Australian National Dictionary, The
26

Contact
91

control of language
45
–
6

conversational turn
73
–
4

Cornish
51

Council of Europe
105

creativity
101

cross-references
78

Crystal, Lucy
118

cultural assimilation
54
–
7

cyberspace
66

Daudet, Alphonse
114

deaf signing
65

delay in communication
72
–
3

descriptivism
100

dialects
38
–
9
,
124
,
128

Dickens, Charles
59

Dictionary of European Anglicisms, A
42

Dictionary of Jamaican English
27

Dictionary of South African English, A
26

digital story-telling
118

diglossia
101

disease affecting speech communities
53

Disraeli, Benjamin
112

diversity
58
,
92

documentation
49
,
57
–
9
,
89
–
90
,
106
,
125

Doran, Gregory
116

doublets
44

‘Drowning'
115
–
16

Eco, Umberto
95

ecology
4
,
48
,
58
,
104
,
106

economics and language
12
–
13
,
61
–
3
,
105
–
6

Edison, Thomas Alva
18

education, language and
19
–
20

Edwards, Huw
110

electronic communication
64

ELT
see
English Language Teaching

Elvish
88

e-mail
67
–
8
,
70
,
77
,
79

Emergencyspeak
19

Emerson, Ralph Waldo
61
,
129

emoticons
75
–
6

Endangered Language Fund
105

endangered languages
see
language death

English

compared with Latin
31
–
5

family of languages
45

future development
21
–
41

global status
4
,
6
–
41
,
55
,
123

Internet use
86
–
7

reasons for spread
10
–
21

statistics of use
8
–
9
,
23
–
4

Englishes, New
24
–
31
,
44
,
124

English Languages
,
The
29

English Language Teaching
20

error messages
84

Esperanto
60

Essential English for International Maritime Use
18

eternal vigilance/tolerance
128
–
9

Ethnologue
50
,
52

European Bureau of Lesser Used Languages
91

European Centre for Modern Languages
127

European Charter
48

European Union
96
–
8
,
123

European Year of Languages
1
–
2
,
92
–
3

evolution
58

facial expression
75

family dialects
57

fashion and language
23

feedback
69
–
70

film
see
motion pictures

first language
7
–
8
,
31
,
102

flaming
75

fluency
94
–
5

foreign language learning/teaching
7
–
8
,
23
,
31
,
40
,
98
–
9
,
102
,
124

formulae, language
103

Foundation for Endangered Languages
48
,
63
,
105

framing
77
–
8

French
3
,
7
,
11
–
12
,
42
,
46
,
87
,
114

loan words
27
–
8
,
43
–
4
,
46

Old
32

French Revolution
3
–
4

Friel, Brian
116

Frisian
109

Gaelic
33
,
48
,
108

generational differences
56
–
7
,
100
,
121

genocide
53
–
4
,
116

German
46
,
87
,
101
,
114

Gila
118

Glass, Philip
113

global language
4
,
6
–
41
,
124
–
5

Global Reach
87

Golden Age, The
116

Görlach, Manfred
42

graphology
74
–
5
,
83
,
124

Greek loan words
27
,
43

Greenpeace
104

Guthrie, Hammond
112

Haley, Bill
17

Hathaway, Anne
35

Havas, Michael
109

Henry of Huntingdon
46

Heureka Museum
127

Hindi
12
,
91

Hittite
50

Holmes, Oliver Wendell
59

home, language awareness in the
103
–
4
,
120

Hopi
113
,
118

Horace
33

hosts, computer
66

House of Languages, The
127

human rights
53
,
60
,
105

hypertext link
78

HyperText Transfer Protocol
66

identity and language
24
,
36
,
58
–
9
,
61
,
92
,
98
,
128
–
9

indeterminacy in bilingualism
95

Industrial Revolution
10
–
11

Infonation
108

information superhighway
66

Inglaterra, una fabula
114

initialisms
81

intelligibility, need for
9
,
36
,
92
,
129

International Civil Aviation Organization
19

International Mother Language Day
2
,
111

International Standard English
39

international travel
18
–
19

Internet
4
–
5
,
20
–
1
,
46
,
64
–
91
,
107

as a new medium
68
–
80
,
124

content
90

languages
86
–
91
,
87
,
120
,
125

Internet Society
87

Irish
see
Gaelic

Italian
39

‘It Hurts Him to Think'
121

Jackson, Silis-chi-tawn
111

Japanese
45
,
87

Japlish
45

Johnson, Samuel
59

Kiev Language Educational Museum
127

Klingon
88

Korean
91

Krenak
109

lag
71
–
2

language

as national treasure
131

awareness
125
–
31

change
22
–
3
,
40
–
7
,
64
,
100
–
1
,
123
,
130

complexity
109
–
10

conscience
47
,
111

death
5
,
47
–
63
,
89
,
92
,
100
,
103
–
22
,
125
,
128

diversity
48
,
58

endangerment
49

games
117
–
18

handicap
130

policy
102
–
3
,
122
,
123

portfolio
103

Language Acquisition Device
93

Language as Arts and Arts as Language
118

languages, future of
42
–
63

Lara, Cally
110

Last of the Departed
114

Latin
22
,
31
–
5
,
96

loan words
27
,
43
–
4

Vulgar
31
–
2

League of Nations
11

letters (alphabetical)
90
–
1