John in Williamsburg, Virginia, ponders whether English is the linguistic equivalent of the Borg, dominating and consuming all languages its path. There’s nothing inherent in English that makes it superior to or more likely to win out over other languages. It’s economic, military, social, and political power of the countries that use a language that makes a language successful, regardless of the merits of the language. English is itself the result of several conquering events that quashed or absorbed other languages in the British Isles, and then the worldwide success of the British Empire and the United States of America made the resulting language widespread. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Is English Widespread Because It’s a Better Language?”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hello, this is John Vaughn from Williamsburg, Virginia.
Hi, welcome to the show.
What can we do for you?
Hey, I had a question. I had some friends of mine, we were in Chicago, and they put out this idea that the English language is like what they call the Borg. It comes in and destroys, it consumes all languages. It takes their words and ideas, and it may cause other languages to collapse. I had never thought of it that way, and I just didn’t know if there was any, like, real research on that concept. And I just kind of wanted your opinion. Like, is English kind of the all-consuming amoeba of languages in the world right now?
Oh, that’s an interesting question. What was the conversation like leading up to the statement? What got you there?
We were talking about how different writers, like Kerouac, have unique styles. And then how English is a language that they didn’t really, some people didn’t really like writing in because they didn’t feel it was a real language and they wanted to write in other languages. And for me, I was just looking at this going, it made me worry because I know some ideas like, you know, in French they say je ne sais quoi, they don’t quite translate. And I thought, well, if we are kind of taking over other languages, are we misusing their words? And then does that idea around that word kind of disappear from history? You know what I mean?
John, the short answer to this is we need to be sure who the agent is here. Who is doing the action? And English isn’t doing the action here. English isn’t the verb in this story. It’s not the protagonist here or the antagonist. What we’re talking about here is by happenstance of history, English has been used by two powerful nations in a row. First, the British Empire, and then the United States. One right after the other with some overlap. And the British controlled large portions of the world, huge amounts of territory, lots of natural resources, many millions of people, and then the Americans did it and are still doing it. Lots of financial resources, lots of political power, lots of financial power. And this is the reason that English has permeated so many corners of the world. That’s the main reason that English is like it is today and why it just seems to be infiltrating French and Danish and a lot of languages that you didn’t mention.
Now, the reason that English has so much vocabulary is another whole different set of responsibilities. English itself is an agglomeration of different conquering forces that happened over many thousands of years from the proto-Indo-European, whatever culture it was that created that language, and the proto-Germanic, and the Norse when they came into the British Isles, and the Normans, and the different forces that came together to, each of them brought their language and put their stamp on what we speak now, the English that we have now. And so each of these had their own different version of a language that changed what we speak.
So the problem that I’m having with what you’re saying is who is the we? You know, what is the we here? What is the, who is the, who’s doing the work?
You’re absolutely right, because I was personifying it as it’s the language’s actual problem. It’s the structure of English that makes it dominate and terrorize the other language.
So let’s just talk for a second before the British became a world power. English was already kind of a mutt language. It had already had a lot of different features from French and the different Germanic varieties and some Celtic features in there. And it was already this really interesting hybrid that had kind of simplified and lost some of the features that the other Germanic languages had that made it easier to learn, but still didn’t mean that anybody was more likely to pick it up than any other languages.
The reason it was widely learned after a while is because the British and their sea power started taking over large portions of the world and started taking on a lot of natural resources and started becoming very wealthy. And that’s the reason that English spread. It could have just remained this tiny little language spoken in just these few aisles if it wasn’t for the power of the British Navy. That’s it. That’s really good where it could have just stayed.
So it’s politics rather than anything inherent in the language itself.
Absolutely, yeah. There’s nothing special about English that meant that it was going to be spoken by this many people and then start to have its words pop up in all these languages around the world.
Okay. Well, thank you for your perspective. I guess that makes sense, so I won’t feel so guilty when I speak it. Appreciate the call.
John, thanks so much for calling. Take care.
