Melange vol.3 - Multilingual Page Part I

Q. How has English developed? What is the origin of English? What languages are in the same stream as English?

A. English comes from tribes from Northern Europe (the area around Germany and Denmark now) that settled in Britain, 400-600 AD. Around that time Celtic tribes lived in Britain. Languages in the same stream include German, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic, and other languages, such as Frankish and Gothic, which are no longer spoken. The French invaded England in 1066 and now we have a lot of words from French, Latin and Greek in our vocabulary.

Q. Why has English become the most widely-spoken language in the world? Is it the legacy of British imperialism?

A. Yes that can be one reason. Britain developed colonies in key trading places such as Cape Town - the tip of Africa, India, Singapore, Hong Kong and North America. Also, the influence of the United States is great. The U.S. became a powerful nation in many aspects such as technology and produced a large amount of important literature in English that people want to read.

Q. So, it's not because English is an easy language? Some people say that English is easy to learn compared to other languages, say, for instance, German, which has three genders?
A. No. English might be easy in some areas, such as morphology, but is complicated in other aspects. There are many phrasal verbs and idioms, and the spelling system is inconsistent. I think the Spanish or German spelling system is much more logical. English is no more difficult than French or Spanish.

Q. Please introduce us to your favourite writers or poets, who you think use beautiful English.
A. John Donne, Robert Frost, W.H. Auden, Shakespeare. Also I think the King James version of "Psalms" is very beautiful.

Q. Is there any good way to guess where a person is from by his/her accent?
A. Oh, yes. There's an interesting episode in the Bible. They used accents as a test to distinguish different tribes. To say the word "shibboleth", a certain tribe pronounced it as "sibboleth", and we have shibboleths in English too. For instance, New Zealanders and Australians say "fish and chips" differently. A New Zealander will say it like "fush and chups" and Australians say "feeesh and cheeeps".

Robert (Robbie) Petterson:
Lecturer, Faculty of Applied Studies, International Pacific College. He holds BA in Linguistics and BSc (Honours) in Computer Science, Massey University, SIL Certificate in Field Linguistics, and Advanced Linguistics and Cross Cultural Communication, Summer Institute of Linguistics (Australia) and Certificate in Teaching English as a Foreign Language to Adults, RSA/Cambridge.
He also has work experience in Papua New Guinea as a linguist, anthropologist, translator, and literacy worker, which interests him in the languages of the Pacific.

The other day a person from the Labour Union came to IPC. While he was talking I was wondering if he came from South Africa, Rhodesia, or Zimbabwe. So afterwards I came up to him and asked: "Excuse me, where do you come from?" He said that he was from South Africa. Often there are certain pronunciations. South Africans pronounce "high" as "hah", "can't" as "cont". Canadians and Americans pronounce certain words, such as "out" differently. In Britain, (imitating the accent) Irish stress involves low tone. And in Northern England, they say "but" rhyming with "put". In Scotland, some people have a strong "r", and they say "look" like "luke".

Q. By what is variation of accent affected? You mentioned Scottish people's strong "r", and Americans have strong "r". Also many people from the South Island have strong "r" as well. Does it have something to do with the climate?
A. As for South Islanders' "r", probably it's because many Scottish people settled in there. I don't think it's affected by the climate. It's more like depending on social pressure. Later arrivals like to identify with the people who arrived there first.

Q. How many countries use English as an official language?
A. English is spoken in more than 60 countries officially and semi-officially. India has the largest population that speak English.

Q. Professor Higgins in My Fair Lady sings "Why can't English be learnt?" Some people are very strict with English like that. So perhaps for them English which is spoken in PNG or India is deplorable. What do you make of it?
A. Mark Twain used more than one dialect of English in "Huckleberry Finn", and there were some objections at first. I think that in this English variety, each has a delightful aspect. New Zealand already has two admired varieties - British standard and American standard. Once two standards can exist I think other standards can be accepted as well.

Q. What do you personally think about English spoken in countries other than Britain and the former British colonies? Do you think it affects their traditional culture?
A. Using English is a social pressure. For example, India has got a lot of languages such as Hindi as well as English. And people normally speak their traditional languages and English. In countries like US, Australia, and New Zealand, indigenous languages are getting lost or nearly lost, because there is social pressure so that they are supposed to adapt to the dominant ethnic group. To preserve traditional languages is connected with self-esteem of the people who speak them. It depends on what you think is important.