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Why English? The historical context
INTRODUCTION
The 1990s were a revolutionary decade which saw the proliferation of new linguistic varieties, coming from the implementation of the Internet and the subsequent public recognition of the global position of English.
In the first edition of “English as a global language” (2003) David Crystal states that although “English has already grown to be independent of any form of social control”, there’s nothing likely to stop its spread as a global ‘lingua franca’.
CHAPTER 2
In the second chapter of his book, Crystal presents us with two answers to the question posed in the title, namely “Why English as a global language?”:
- Geographical-historical, which shows how English reached a position of pre-eminence tracing their movement around the world;
- Socio-cultural, which explains why it remains so looking at how people all over the world have come to depend on English for their economic and social well-being.
The language has penetrated in the world political life, business, safety, media and every education field.
English arrived in England from northern Europe in the 5 th^ century and began to spread around the British Isles first and Ireland then (12 th^ century) when it fell under English rule.
Between the end of Elizabeth I’s reign (1603), and the beginning of Elizabeth II’s reign (1952), English speakers increased almost fiftyfold. – Most of them were Americans.
AMERICA
The first expedition in 16th century turned out to be a failure. The first permanent English settlement dates from 1607: Jamestown and the area of Virginia.
In 1620 the first group of Puritans arrived on the Mayflower, establishing in Massachusetts. The Pilgrim Fathers were looking for a land in which found a new religious kingdom, free from persecution.
During the 17th century, new immigrant arrived bringing an increasing variety of linguistic backgrounds into the country. In the 18th century, instead, there was a great wave of immigration from Ireland.
In 1790 the first census was done: the population consisted then of 4 million people, mostly living along the Atlantic coast.
Spanish, French, German, Dutch and Africans also influenced the language in America, as result of the slave trade.
In the 19th century immigrant started to arrive from Europe as result of ill-fated revolutions, poverty and famine: Irish, Germans, Italians and Jews fleeing from the pogroms. Within one or two generations they came to speak English through a process of assimilation and different linguistic worlds were now forming within several families.
At the end of the 20th century, a conflict between the need for intelligibility and identity had begone to grow and fueled the movement in support of English as the official language of the USA, whose independence was declared in 1776.
CANADA
The first English-language contact with Canada was in 1497. The English clashed with the French, whose presence dated from the 1520s, with the explorations of Jacques Cartier. The conflict came to an end only after the French defeat in Queen Anne’s war (1702-13).
The major development followed the US Declaration of Independence in 1776. Loyalist supporters of Britain found themselves unable to stay in the USA and most of them left for Canada, settling in what is now known as Nova Scotia.
This is the reason Canadian English has lot in common with the English spoken in North America, but here a certain sociolinguist situation is found, not present in other English-speaking countries. In fact, French is a co-official language, chiefly spoken in Quebec.
THE CARRIBEAN
A distinctive kind of speech emerged in the islands of the West Indies and the southern part of mainland and was spoken by the incoming black population that used to work in slavery in sugar plantation.
This practice was started in 1517 by the Spanish, who exchanged slaves for commodities as sugar, rum and molasses.
The first 20 slaves from Africa arrived in 1619 on a Dutch shop. – They were 4 million in number at the end of US Civil War in 1865, when slavery was abolished. Before then, slave-traders used to bring together people from different linguistic backgrounds, to make it difficult for them to plot rebellion among them. The result was the birth of pidgin forms, which continued to be a means of communication even when they arrived in the Carribean.
English became stronger and stronger thanks to the political influence of Britain. This is why in these islands we still can find a variety of English reflecting individual, political and cultural history.
AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND
Australia was visited in 1770 by James Cook. In twenty years Britain had established its first penal colony in Sydney. About 130,000 prisoners were transported in the next 50 years. Free settlers arrived from the very beginning. The British Isles provided the main source of settlers and thus the main influence on language. Many came from London and Ireland, so their accent influenced the local language, which also contains expressions from the Aboriginal language.
In New Zealand the story of English started later, when European whalers and traders began to settle there in the 1790s. – Christian missionary work then began among Maori from about 1814, which led to a rapid increase in European immigration.
Three strands of New Zealand’s social history in the present century have had especial linguistic consequences:
