International English?

[ishtat]

I thought this article

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/100079666/

might interest a few people. I travel to and from the UK two or three times a year and notice the fashions and changes in English over the years. Personally, I think that TV is still a more potent language modifier than the Internet but maybe that will change. The author Daniel Hannan is the well known, Anti Eu conservative politician.

 

[Xelebes]

Internet changes spellings and orthography, but TV has importance on the spoken tongue.

 

[Weird Harold]

Internet changes spellings and orthography, but TV has importance on the spoken tongue.

And radio.

Radio started the homigenization of spoken English with "BBC English" as early as the 1920's. The internet is homogenizing idomatic usages and spellings to some extent, but it is nothing to get one's knickers in a twist over.

 

[sr71plt]

English has been the language of international business--and diplomacy, for that matter--since at least the end of WWII. In a thirty-year career spent living frequently overseas, France was the only place where everyone I encountered didn't want to speak in English--to hone up their abilities.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

And even in France ten percent of the national corporations have chosen English as their corporate language. You want to work for them? Speak English. It is also the language of international air travel and of the sea lanes. Italian is the language of musical notation and French of haute cuisine, but for every other use? Speak English.

 

[myrionomos]

English has been the language of international business--and diplomacy, for that matter--since at least the end of WWII. In a thirty-year career spent living frequently overseas, France was the only place where everyone I encountered didn't want to speak in English--to hone up their abilities.

I have always found that the Parisian French have been much more assertive about their Frenchness than their provincial counterparts.

 

[sr71plt]

I have always found that the Parisian French have been much more assertive about their Frenchness than their provincial counterparts.

That might be true. I didn't notice a difference between Nice and Paris, though. It might have changed, but when I was there they didn't even try to understand non-native attempts at French.

 

[vrosej10]

In certain situations the fact I speak Australian English in a disadvantage. I write poetry and rhyme is about pronounciation. The difference becomes so noticable in this regard we need our own rhyming dictionaries. On Lit I am quite often not understood by the Americans and I get the shits with myself when I find myself modifying my speech for them. US culture is so insular that I think English will move toward an American way of pronouncing and spelling words over time. They have little interest in engaging or incorporating anything from other culture.

 

[sr71plt]

US culture is so insular that I think English will move toward an American way of pronouncing and spelling words over time. They have little interest in engaging or incorporating anything from other culture.

Why are you thinking we must wait for this? During the business boom time in Japan, when I lived there, the businessman--and their wives and children--wanting to learn English insisted that it be American English. They wanted to have the best advantage in the international business world. (Probably should have studied their Mandarin harder, though.)

I don't disagree with U.S. culture being insular. But having been to both Australia and New Zealand, I didn't find them any less insular. (And the British don't have to be at home to be insular.)

 

[amicus]

Daniel Hannan

Daniel Hannan is a writer and journalist, and has been Conservative MEP for South East England since 1999. He speaks French and Spanish and loves Europe, but believes that the European Union is making its constituent nations poorer, less democratic and less free.

~~~

Pleasant piece to read, I find his reference to 'wanker', amusing, as I am sure so many find an erudite Conservative, a contradiction in terms.

Perhaps the last line of defense will be the 'metric' system, as I watch journalists from all over the world during the Japanese crisis, struggle to interpret centimeters to inches and such.

Amicus Veritas

 

[vrosej10]

Why are you thinking we must wait for this? During the business boom time in Japan, when I lived there, the businessman--and their wives and children--wanting to learn English insisted that it be American English. They wanted to have the best advantage in the international business world. (Probably should have studied their Mandarin harder, though.)

I don't disagree with U.S. culture being insular. But having been to both Australia and New Zealand, I didn't find them any less insular. (And the British don't have to be at home to be insular.)

The big problem is the amount of American culture we are bombarded with. It can be overwhelming to such small cultures and there is an expectation by Americans that we should understand you culture and that they should not have to understand ours. It is very one sided.

 

[amicus]

The big problem is the amount of American culture we are bombarded with. It can be overwhelming to such small cultures and there is an expectation by Americans that we should understand you culture and that they should not have to understand ours. It is very one sided.[/QUOTE]

~~~

There are two novels by Neville Shute Norway, one, "A Town Called Alice", and the other, I have forgotten the name, but they both deal with American's trying to understand Australian culture and more's...ah, yet another is, "Beyond the Black Stump", I should search and confirm....but it is what it is, my memory, that is....

I doubt the Romans or the Brits offered apologies or condolences as they swept the world...nor do we.

Amicus....the American...

 

[sr71plt]

The big problem is the amount of American culture we are bombarded with. It can be overwhelming to such small cultures and there is an expectation by Americans that we should understand you culture and that they should not have to understand ours. It is very one sided.

I think it's worse than that. I don't think Americans expect you to understand their (our) culture. I don't think they think of you much at all--or care what culture you do/don't understand. They (we) are that insular.

 

[lloyd_5]

That might be true. I didn't notice a difference between Nice and Paris, though. It might have changed, but when I was there they didn't even try to understand non-native attempts at French.

Since the war they have hated any US or UK attempts to treat them as 'rescued'. You may have suffered from the 'anti-anglophone' syndrome

 

[sr71plt]

Since the war they have hated any US or UK attempts to treat them as 'rescued'. You may have suffered from the 'anti-anglophone' syndrome

True, the war was just a bit over a decade past when I lived there.

 

[lloyd_5]

Daniel Hannan



~~~

Pleasant piece to read, I find his reference to 'wanker', amusing, as I am sure so many find an erudite Conservative, a contradiction in terms.

Perhaps the last line of defense will be the 'metric' system, as I watch journalists from all over the world during the Japanese crisis, struggle to interpret centimeters to inches and such.

Amicus Veritas

ami, much though I love you, your finger in the dyke defense of the imperial measurement system is antideluvian.

Only anglophone ,(mainly US) ,reporters even try to convert metric measures to imperial - and that is for the gray-haired. Working in Boston, our printers and photocopiers are set to A4, we have problems sending snail-mail in US fomat, and the idea of a quart is considered neanderthal.

If we are going to face the new millenium as a world power we have to embrace metric standards that are now global - except in our third world country.

 

[lloyd_5]

True, the war was just a bit over a decade past when I lived there.

I think the resentment of being saved by anglophones still festers as an unscratched sore chez les français

 

[lloyd_5]

The big problem is the amount of American culture we are bombarded with. It can be overwhelming to such small cultures and there is an expectation by Americans that we should understand you culture and that they should not have to understand ours. It is very one sided.[/QUOTE]

~~~

There are two novels by Neville Shute Norway, one, "A Town Called Alice", and the other, I have forgotten the name, but they both deal with American's trying to understand Australian culture and more's...ah, yet another is, "Beyond the Black Stump", I should search and confirm....but it is what it is, my memory, that is....

I doubt the Romans or the Brits offered apologies or condolences as they swept the world...nor do we.

Amicus....the American...

Both the Romans and the Brits (and French) issued Mea Culpas for the worst geopolitical excesses of colonialism. We still don't understand the change in the world as is it now is and now look like the fall and decline of Ancient Rome.

We are no longer sweeping the world. The economic tsunami is sweeping back.

 

[trysail]

When skiing in the Alps or sailing in French waters, it's simply common sense ( as well as good manners ) to anticipate that it may be necessary and advisable to have the ability to communicate in French for health or safety reasons. N'est-ce pas?

 

[stephen55]

I think the resentment of being saved by anglophones still festers as an unscratched sore avec les Français

There, I cleaned it up for you.

 

[JackLuis]

A lot of people in America want to speak International English, and some actually think they do, erroneously.

 

[Xelebes]

And even in France ten percent of the national corporations have chosen English as their corporate language. You want to work for them? Speak English. It is also the language of international air travel and of the sea lanes. Italian is the language of musical notation and French of haute cuisine, but for every other use? Speak English.

Science is mostly still Latin and Greek, however English is slowly crawling in: Spin, Charmness, Earth and so on.

 

[Xelebes]

As for Imperial measure of units, there could be a Popular Metric.

40 inches = 1 metre (1.57 % shorter than the current inch)
10 feet = 3 metres
10 yards = 9 metres
1 mile = 1600 metres (0.56% shorter than the current mile)
1 quart = 1 Litre (12.01% smaller than the current quart)
1 gallon = 4 Litres
1 pint = 1/2 Litre
1 cup = 1/4 Litre (already used in cooking)
1 ounce = 40 grams
1 acre = 4000 m² or 5 acres = 2 hectares
50 pounds = 9 kilograms (0.79% smaller than the current pound)

 

[stephen55]

Science is mostly still Latin and Greek, however English is slowly crawling in: Spin, Charmness, Earth and so on.

No and no...

A lot of words in many western languages have Greek and Latin roots. That said, Latin hasn't been the language of science for centuries. It was back in the days of Isaac Newton as all learned gentlemen could read and write in Latin.

In the west, it was superseded by German. Einstein wrote and published his early papers in German.

Starting about a century ago, English began to take hold as the international language of science. Various county's internal programs are conducted in their own language and many non-English journals are published, but all of the big international journals of science are now published in English.

BTW, it's "charm", not charmness.

Apart from a few dons at Oxford and Cambridge, I doubt there's anyone who still speaks Latin.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

In Normandy, gratitude to the Americans, British and Canadians is still alive and well. Been there, experienced it. It was so heartfelt it was almost embarrassing.

I rather enjoyed Normandy . . .