Incredible English

(Note: This article is written in Indian English and is written in a style suited to publication in a local newspaper.)

Today one often comes across individuals who lament the degeneration of the English language. They express concern over the inaccuracies in grammar and spelling, and find the younger generation’s apparent nonchalance when it comes to proper English usage infuriating. They wonder how a teenager can spell right or write as rite? How can ‘see you’ become simply c u or ‘life is great’ be spelt as lyfz gr8? Social networking sites like Orkut, Facebook and Twitter are usually blamed for this state of affairs. Another culprit held accountable is the text messaging service available on mobile phones.

Evidently, it seems in every generation there have been individuals who were worried about the diminishing quality of this language. In the year 1946 in an essay titled Politics and The English Language, George Orwell pronounced, “Most people who bother with the matter at all would admit that the English Language is in a bad way.”

Inadvertently, while learning the rules of grammar and spelling in school class rooms, a mistaken impression is created that these conventions are rigid and have remained unchanged frozen in time. The simple fact, however, is that sentence structures and word spellings have evolved over time and will continue to do so. For example, somewhere between the years 500 to 1100 (known as the Old English period) ‘Welcome’ was written as Wilcume, ‘Who are you?’ was Hwæt eart þu? and ‘Thank you’ (I thank you) was Ic þancie þe. So considering how spellings, words and phrases have changed in the past, don’t be surprised if in the future words like rite (right), gr8 (great), frm (from), u (you), c (see or sea), 2moro (tomorrow) etc become accepted as standard or ‘correct’ language.

Linguists studying semantics also draw our attention to the fact that meanings associated with words also change as centuries pass by. For example, ages ago the word awful meant wonderful or deserving of awe, today it means something extremely unpleasant or bad. Nice meant a person who was ignorant, now it is used to refer to a well-behaved person. The original meaning of tell was to count.

And Oh! Do you know someone who sniggers at the young urban multilingual breed who with casual ease mix English vocabulary with words from their native tongue all in one sentence? Present day multiplex movies are full of characters who deliver dialogues in a combination of Hindi and English. Before accusing this young breed of corrupting the purity of proper English usage, it would be interesting to note that many words that are today considered to be part of correct English vocabulary were actually borrowed from other languages. These are called loanwords. Loanwords are absorbed from one language into another when there is cultural and/or economic contact between people belonging to two different language communities. For example, words like ballet, bigot, grotesque, niche and others were borrowed from French. Canyon, mosquito, tornado etc came from Spanish. Pizza, studio, casino, cameo etc are Italian in origin. Hindi has lent words like bungalow, jungle, loot, pajamas and many more.

Not to mention, in an attempt to be original and innovative authors and orators regularly coin new words. Many such words pass into common use and add to the length of the existing vocabulary list. Shakespeare himself is said to have coined over 1700 words. These include words like amazement, embrace, manager, gossip, majestic etc.

Again, being a vibrant dynamic language full of vigour and vitality, English is quick to create new words to accommodate lifestyle adjustments and changes in the field of science, technology and culture occurring in the 21st century. For example, the words emoticon (a word formed by combining emotion and icon) and screenager which refers to a teenager who spends a great deal of time at his computer staring at the monitor.

With all these words being regularly added to the existing vocabulary list, it is impossible that the way this language is used in daily life remains untouched. English is a living dynamic language that has changed and evolved tremendously in the past and it will continue to do so in the future.

By

Sandhya Joseph