came some time ago strange news from America: The small town of Jackson in the State of New York had issued a regulation which stipulated that all future political meetings, all the shops and all administrative procedures, only the English language should be used. Jackson is located 2500 kilometers from the Mexican Border. Except for a couple of Hispanic farm workers here no one speaks anything but English. And still had the saw dealers and Councilman Roger Meyer felt it was time, the seemingly self-evident to require by law. "For too long the federal government has neglected its duty by not English the official language of the United States stipulated," Mr. Meyer is in the New York Times cited. He hoped, so start to Meyer, his application on the city council a kind of grass roots movement for the protection of the English language.
But even if two nearby nests soon after Jackson enacted similar provisions, is of an uprising in defense of the beloved native idiom in the United States to feel little. Why should they? "The English language is nowhere in the State of New York or anywhere else in the country at risk," says Melanie Trimble, the representative of a civil rights organization, criticized the regulation, firm.
On the contrary, English dominates the world perhaps more than ever. The real or perceived decline of the USA as the only remaining world power has nothing to harm his position. Even the Chinese will soon become a competitor. In a 2010 book published with the subtitle "How English became the language of the world" describes the Briton Robert McCrum, as students of the Renmin University in Beijing to learn in English composition courses and the enthusiasm with which they pounce on him, the native speakers to test their newly acquired knowledge.
wins most, English himself to death. For the many billions of people around the world that communicate today, "English" to entertain, this is by no means in the language of the King James Bible and the Oxford dictionary. Microsoft offers 18 different spell checkers for the world's various English versions. The Handbook of World Englishes "the linguist Braj B. Kachru and Yamuna knew back in 1996 as many local forms that they treat differentiated by region had to be: Eastern, Western, South African English, Caribbean English, Eastern, Southern, Southeast Asian British, etc. And those are just the more or less official languages and dialects. The New York Times, its readers amused a few months ago with a series of pictures, the signs in "Chinglish" was - a grotesque version of English for Americans, which does in China, but good service. had
In view of such developments, the then director of the Oxford English Dictionnary, Robert Burchfield, already in the seventies predicts English will eventually be divided into several distinct languages - as the former from the Latin English, Italian, French and other idioms that were formed. Even now, it turned Burchfield established at that time, there could be a Jamaican, a Scot from Glasgow and a Nigerian not talk to each other.
Proven seems this theory about the development in Singapore over the past decades. There is - all previous attempts to enforce as Mandarin Governing Language defiance - created a local version of English for everyday use, the locals call Singlish and has since been codified as proud as ironic in an unofficial "Coxford Singlish Dictionary.
But against Burchfield thesis from the decomposition of English in real daughter languages is the fact that the world is connected today much better than the times in which were French, English and Italian. If people could communicate with computers already in the Middle Ages, the Latin countries today would probably still speak Latin. Who wants to be understood on the World Wide Web, which should better not be expressed in the patois of Jamaica and an African metropolis.
In his book "Prodigal Tongue" called the Canadian Mark Abley 2008 as example, the official online forum of the band Coldplay. Anyone there want to exchange as an Egyptian, Latvian, Peruvians or Macedonians with other fans, is held a globally understood English Release use. be
It must then, however, not the Oxford English out of school. But more often it is Globish. This term describes a world understand basic English spoken by most people when they think they speak English. been discovered and named Globish is calculated from a Frenchman. The former IBM executive and amateur linguist Jean-Paul Nerrière recognized in 1995 that Globish global dialect of the third millennium would be. This "decaffeinated" English is loud Nerrière with 1500 words, and almost without grammar and is especially Non-native speakers used. McCrum In his book, which he proudly announced the title "Globish" that Japanese and Korean businessmen on Globish maintain much better together than they could in each case with a British or American native speakers.
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| Globish use the "march of the million" in Egypt |
Globish currently the demonstrators in Egypt, to do the world's known, what the regime of their President Hosni Mubarak met. Many of the posters that are now looked at the "March of the million" in Cairo, were on Globish. "Mubarak must go" and "We want a democratic constitution, "etc. If you want Resonnanz in the global media, must formulate their protest not only in Arabic. Even if an inveterate anti-Americans as the Iranian President Ahmadinejad's ordered mourners again against the" can demonstrate great Satan, "U.S. to keep the veiled women posters with slogans in the language of the arch enemy high.
The success of Globish is based on many factors. McCrum, who works indeed as a journalist for the liberal-left Observer, but a very old-fashioned patriot is believed apparent that certain , the English inherent qualities are partly responsible: it was because of his history of language contagious, adaptable, popular and subversive. In other words, English was a Democratic DNA.
We prefer to keep fixed the facts that it has successively been two English-speaking world empire - the Empire and the United States. The first language has exported along with the people in its colonies, the second it has spread mainly because of its cultural model function by using pop culture, science and business. And then also the digital revolution was instigated calculated in an English speaking country. What effect did the shows, including the decades-long ban on the recently completed German umlauts ü, ö and ä in web addresses.
McCrum mentions another example: the communication via SMS. English words have an average of five letters, they are hardly flexed and have no accents or other special characters for SMS is the ideal. The British linguist David Crystal writes that probably all the young people around the world that send text messages, abbreviations like "lol", "gr8" and use "u" - no matter what their mother tongue. The French prefer to write in SMS messages "now" than "maintenant" and write the Dutch "2m" (as tomorrow ") instead of" tomorrow. "And in Germany is just" n1 ", short for" nice one "(meaning" well done ") in fifth place in the elections to the Youth Word of the Year" landed.
can such trends complain or fight, as do the linguistic purists. The is the story of the author read Peter Carey about a Japanese teenager in horror. He works at Starbucks and ask the customer whether his coffee yet "Miruku" wants. "Miruku" is "milk", outspoken Japanese only, the U indicates the end that . the word was borrowed recently from English Asked why he did not he did not use the original Japanese word "gyuunyuu" answers Takashi, the word is not "hygienic", "It means , Fluid from the udder. " 'Miruku' is better. "
Ridiculous? Certainly. But not scary. Neither Japan nor any of the other major languages is even remotely threatened in their existence by Globish. Disappearances are still only the little idioms. But for whose fate it is immaterial whether they are displaced from English or other Indo-European language.
In fact, the triumph of English over the millennia considered only a sub-theater of war in the world conquest of Indo-European languages. The German linguist Harald Haarmann recalls in his new book "The Indo-Europeans" fact that Indo-European languages has long been exercising pressure to conform to the non-Indo-European language speakers. Thus already the Latin example, Etruscan or Celtiberian has displaced. Associated reduction in English, English and Portuguese languages, the number of Indians in America. An increasing number of Asian members of minority peoples in Russia to take the official language as their first language.
But because this fate awaits any of the large or even medium-sized languages of the world, it still pays to learn several foreign languages, and not hope that English is enough. An example of the fatal Consequences of this delusion is called McCrum in his book: As of 2008, the Georgian-Russian war broke out, was educated in America, the President of Georgia, Mikhail Saakashvili, nearly every day an interview on CNN. threatened with the result that he left his country appear before the eyes of the Anglo-speaking world as the innocent Bambi, that the evil Russian bear to be torn unprovoked. It took a while until it became clear that the story had another side, and Saakashvili was just a typical Caucasian political old-school gambler, perhaps. Saakashvili had understood what the majority of advertisers believe: In English, people can more easily sell nonsense.
could have
A recent example of the fatal consequences of the lack of multilingualism: in early November revealed in Le Figaro, the Frenchman Christophe Naudin, have an expert on aviation safety, that al-Qaida in Iraq, tried to abuse dogs as human bombs would . The terrorists would have sewn the explosives in unclaimed stray dog, which should be among animal lovers in America a new home. To date, such attacks were always failed because the dogs died before they arrived on board an aircraft or even to America. Only after a week found the story their way into the New York Post, and from there into the non-French speaking world press. For a dog lover in America, who took this week a package of joy from Iraq received, the message would probably come too late.
The story of the bomb dogs sounds admittedly doubtful. But every day there are thousands of more important messages that are circulated in a non-English language. After the attacks of 11 September 2001, the fact that the U.S. had let them surprise, also explains the fact that its secret service agent employed almost no more, the Pashtun - dominated - the language of the Taliban and their terrorist allies. The sad example of particularly sharp: Those who speak only English is merely a sophisticated illiterate.
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