Lingua inglese 1: Language is one of the democratic forces, English and French in Canada, Internal evidence, the origin of English, the Changery English, Standardisation

Changing English

Chapter 1

Language is one of the democratic forces that let us fight against oppression, especially when a nation colonizes another one. Language is a social semiotic; the process of making language never stops. It changes all the time; some rules can be unaccepted at one time but accepted at another. English is a lingua franca, spoken by people who are not English; it is used by 750 million people all over the world and is more spoken and written than any other language. Crystal makes a distinction of 3 types of speakers:

• Speaker for whom English is a mother tongue
• Speaker for whom English is a second language
• Speaker for whom English is a foreign language

Other writers make a simpler distinction, between native and non-native speakers. The main characteristics of this lingua franca are:

• Dropping the 3rd person in the present tense (-s)
• Confusing the relative pronouns who and which
• Omitting the definite and indefinite article when they are obligatory in ENL (English as a Native Language)
• Failing to use correct form in tag questions
• Inserting redundant prepositions
• Overusing certain verbs of high semantic generality, such as have, do, make, put, take
• Replacing infinitive constructions with that-clauses as in “I want that”
• Overdoing explicitness (black colour)

Language choice in Kenya

In Kenya, which is a British colony, there are 2 official languages: English and Swahili. It achieved independence in 1963. The main way in which English is learnt is through the education system. This bilingualism can be problematical: the teachers should speak both languages and would codeswitch, which means alternate between English and Swahili. In this context, a new form of linguistic variety has emerged, containing elements of English and elements of Swahili: “Sheng”.

English and French in Canada

In Canada, there are 2 official languages: English and French. Most Canadians speak English, with the exception of the province of Quebec, which is called “a French island in an ocean of English”. Both these languages competed in colonizing North America; this competition ended in 1759 with the victory of English people over the French. After the independence of Canada, French settlers believed in a relationship with the English, but they were confined to Quebec.

Chapter 2

The history of language includes the internal history (linguistic history) and the external history (where, when, and who spoke the language). There are 2 types of evidence:

• Internal evidence – linguistic evidence
• External evidence – archaeological or scientific information (non-linguistic evidence)