The Language Revolution (15 page)

Read The Language Revolution Online

Authors: David Crystal

BOOK: The Language Revolution
7.17Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub

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

Other books

The Prettiest Woman by Lena Skye
In Bed with the Duke by Christina Dodd
Gone With the Witch by Heather Blake
No One Left to Tell by Karen Rose
A Royal Mess by Tyne O'Connell