tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8377709913595182916.post4952544777320149729..comments2024-03-14T10:31:26.918+00:00Comments on DCblog: On languages uniting peopleDChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10192779827863835310noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8377709913595182916.post-65099791303802109752007-01-04T10:14:00.000+00:002007-01-04T10:14:00.000+00:00Some degree of fragmentation there is bound to be;...Some degree of fragmentation there is bound to be; whether you call it a 'danger' depends on your point of view. Think about Latin over a thousand years ago: as it spread, it (or, at least, a streetwise version of it) evolved different varieties, and the result is French, Spanish, Portuguese, and so on today - the Romance family of languages, with its associated characters and literatures. Classical Latin, of course, remained alongside these other developments.<br /><br />There is every likelihood that an analogous development will take place in English. Indeed, the prpocess has already begun, so much so that some writers (such as Tom McArthur) have talked about 'the English languages' and ''an English family of languages'. Already we have seen such developments as Tok Pisin in Papua New Guinea and 'Singlish' in Singapore, which derive from English but are now so different in form that they would be largely unintelligible to a monolingual English speaker. At the same time, standard English is used in these countries, alongside the local variant.<br /><br />My view is that English will become increasingly diglossic, as time goes by - that is, where two variants of the same language are used within a society (as we see in Arabic, for example, with Classical and Colloquial variants co-existing). Standard English (albeit with some regional variants, such as we already see between British and American English) will continue to act as a unifying force, permitting international communication. Local varieties will evolve and become increasingly differentiated, permitting the expression of national or regional identities. How far those local varieties will come to differ from the standard varieties is difficult to predict. The situation is unprecedented, for there has never been a genuinely global language before and we have yet to determine the influence of the Internet on such developments.<br /><br />Languages change as they spread. That is what they do. The consequences have to be managed, by individual countries. A widespread reaction has been to oppose the changes and to insist on the standard only; but if a country wishes to keep its identity strong, it needs to foster its local variety as it does the standard. People can easily cope with both. Indeed, in some parts of the world they handle three or more regional varieties with unselfconscious ease. At this point, of course, the notion of 'varieties of a language' begins to overlap with the notion of multilingualism.DChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10192779827863835310noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8377709913595182916.post-89074810813829587042007-01-02T17:24:00.000+00:002007-01-02T17:24:00.000+00:00Is there a danger of fragmentation of English in t...Is there a danger of fragmentation of English in the growing emergence of distinct national varieties of English around the world?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com