So, what's this Globish revolution?
Robert McCrum, Observer Literary Editor, reports on why Globish -
English-lite - is becoming the universal language of boardroom, the
net and politics
Jean-Paul Nerriere is a successful 65 years Frenchman who occupies a
surprising place in contemporary European culture.
Now retired, the defining moment of his career occurred in the late 1980s. As
vice-president of IBM in America, Nerriere was put in charge of international
marketing and on company trips to Tokyo and Seoul. During a trip, he noted
that his conversation with the Japanese and Koreans was much easier and
more efficient than what could be observed between them and the British and
American (IBM) employees who went with him.
So Nerriere came to the radical conclusion that the language they spoke
together was not English, but something vaguely similar. He called it
‘Globish’ (pronounced ‘globe’ish’) and he decided it would be the worldwide
dialect of the third millennium.
Globish is not 'pidgin' or 'broken' English but it is highly simplified and
unidiomatic. “It’s English-lite”, said Perriere.
He began to codify a Globish vocabulary, then in 2004, he published a mission
statement, Parlez Globish, that develops and demonstrates a theory and give
a beginning of the methods required to make Globish works. His book has
hardly been reviewed, or much noticed.
The grammatical rules of Globish are based on English grammar but a typical
conversation in Globish would be painful to a native speaker. On the contrary,
it might bridge the communication gap between a Korean and a Greek trying
to reach a business deal. Perriere’s ambition is to promote global
understanding between nationalities. He hopes that some day, Globish will be
accepted as a viable alternative by the European Union or the United Nations.
He distinguishes Globish from Esperanto because 'Globish is not artificial,' he
says, 'It derives from the observation that some kind of English is spoken
everywhere.' He knows that is not a real language, it is not yet a reality.
Booker prizewinners will continue to express themselves in varieties of
British or Indian or Australian English. Dictionaries will continue to
define British and American, and even Indian, versions of the language.
In the description of Nerriere, Globish is a device that will limit the
influence of the English language. He says: 'I am helping the rescue of
French, and of all the languages that are threatened by English today
but which will not be at all endangered by Globish.’ Nerriere is inspired
by old-fashioned French nationalism. He thinks languages like French
could hardly complain if Globish leaves them the possibility to have
influence.
Today a kind of Globish revolution is going on, a globalisation of Anglo-
American culture as much as language in which 'some kind of English' has
become a universal global currency. For example, today 80 per cent of the
world's home pages on the worldwide web are 'in some kind of English',
