Chapter 18: WOrLD eNGLISheS COMMeNtarY ON aCtIVItIeS

activity 18.1

According to the most widely accepted figures (e.g. Crystal 2008), there are around half a billion native speakers out of a total of more than two billion speakers of English overall. But the figures are only suggestive. You probably correctly situated most of the native speakers in the USA, where there are more than in the UK, Canada, Australia, Ireland and New Zealand combined. Large numbers of non- native speakers of English are located in the Indian subcontinent (South Asia); in large patches of West Africa, and from East to South Africa; scattered across Southeast Asia; and now all across Europe, especially Scandinavia.

activity 18.2

With respect to pragmatics, you will probably have noted the formality of the reader’s query, as reflected in the salutation ‘Respected Sir’ and terms like expenditure instead of costs. A prominent feature of the astrologer’s response is its cultural specificity and expertise, as reflected in the terminology used (both English words like propitiate and the Hindi words listed below) and the emotive vocabulary choices (like wrath).

Grammatical features include: the use of the progressive instead of simple present (I am having a lot of debts); variable use of articles and possessive pronouns (almost completely absent in the reader’s query); non- native word order (let us see when can you expect improvement); variable use of prepositions after verbs (e.g. seek for); plurals on ‘non- count’ nouns (➔ 7) (e.g. expenditures).

We have already indicated some noteworthy lexical usage. Other non- native vocabu-lary choices correspond to ‘archaisms’ in native Englishes (e.g. afresh), or differences in collocation (e.g. soften your ego). Most striking in the astrologer’s response are, of course, the borrowings from Hindi:

• roga means ‘sickbed’

• shadabala is the Vedic astrology system

• khandita means ‘damaged’

• pooja is a form of ritual worship (of a Hindu deity)

• visarjan refers to the ritual immersion (of a Hindu idol)

• pranapratishtha refers to the ritual invocation (of a Hindu deity)

• dasha means ‘position’ here

• Sadesati refers to the astrological phase of Saturn

• Ganeshji refers to the elephant- headed Hindu deity, Lord Ganesh

• VighnaHarta refers to an aspect of the dual nature of Ganesh

• Ganesh Sankata nashan stotra is from a devotional song or prayer

Unconventional spellings (e.g. loses and troublesum) are similar to those made by native speakers, and so in the absence of evidence for their systematic use by other Indian English speakers, are probably not significant.

Chapter 18: WOrLD eNGLISheS COMMeNtarY ON aCtIVItIeS2

activity 18.3

The principal differences between AmEng and BrEng uses of the words are listed in Table 18.1. Of course, speakers of other varieties of English may well have other usages to add. (For example, what in BrEng is a pavement and in AmEng is a sidewalk is in Australian English a footpath.)

For more, look at one of the many online collections, such as Mark Glicksman’s English (British) – American Dictionary (➔ W18.8).

Table 18.1 Different uses of words in British and American Englishes

Ambiguous word In BrEng the word is used where AmEng speakers would use:

In AmEng the word is used where BrEng speakers would use:

jumper sweater dress, suicidal person lift elevator, ridehood (car) bonnet, gangsterpavement sidewalk road(way)truck lorrypants underpants, not good trousersrocket arugulapurse coin purse handbagbill check note (of currency)

activity 18.4

This commentary is in comparison to standard British English.

• There are some inconsistencies in the spelling in that me is spelt ‘mi’ and ‘me’ and unconventional spelling is used e.g. yute, dem, neva, sen’, u, subjec’, dweet for ‘do it’.

• The unconventional spelling is an attempt to represent pronunciation: <D> for [ð], <T> for final [θ], <A> for final [ə], the apostrophe in sen’ and subjec’ indicating the simplification of the final consonant cluster [nt] in sent and [kt] in subject.

• U for ‘you’ may represent pronunciation or may be an abbreviated spelling.

• The first person pronoun is used in the same form, whatever its syntactic function in the clause (mi always hear, evry bady know mi).

• The first person singular possessive determiner appears in standard form whereas for the first person plural, wi is used where in Standard English our would be used.

• Fi is used for to in the infinitive of the verb in the clause of purpose ‘to save us from our sins’ and is reminiscent of the older form of Standard English ‘He did this for to save us from our sins’. Fi is used elsewhere to mean ‘for’.

• ‘Dead’ is used for the verb in die on the cross to save us from our sins.

• The adjective hungry is used for the noun hunger.

• A is used to indicate a past participle in ‘did a put on’ and ‘did a talk about hell an’ fire’.

Chapter 18: WOrLD eNGLISheS COMMeNtarY ON aCtIVItIeS 3

activity 18.5

Plurality on nouns is expressed with the suffixes –s and –dem (from them). The suffix –im (from him) corresponds to the possessive –s used in most Englishes. A free- standing version of dem is used for both subject and object third person plural. Like the Caribbean example in Activity 18.4, wi (from we) is used for the first person plural possessive (but note that the we occurring in sentences 1 and 6 is related to the subordinating conjunction who, not to the pronoun we).

activity 18.7

The proverbs exemplify different attitudes to language. The Welsh proverb demonstrates how a language can be seen as an oppressive force and the oppression may be political or social. The Romani proverb, and to a certain extent the Filipino proverb, demonstrates the importance of language in an individual’s sense of identity – to make this more concrete, consider how you might feel if, overnight, you were told that your education was to be through the medium of another language. Consider also how your lecturers might feel! The Hausa proverb is concerned with the importance of language in development (of the individual or the society) and how the imposition of one language on another can disem-power one group of people in relation to another group.

activity 18.8

You might reasonably conclude that the Scots version of the line resembles the English version as much as the varieties in the preceding activities resemble BrEng or AmEng. There are spellings that correspond to pronunciations you might be familiar with from visits to Scotland or from hearing Scots in films or on TV. For example, the vowels in mony (corresponding to many) and aboot (corresponding to about), or the penultimate consonant in feelins. At the lexical level, you should be able to recognize 15 of the 16 words, with kent being the only potentially ‘foreign’ one. Again, those familiar with Scottish speakers of English might recognize this verb, which is used as a dialectal variant for ‘Standard English’ know. The syntax of this sentence is identical to that of ‘Standard English’. (How do you interpret the fact that the Scots line is directly addressed to the reader (Ye hae mony weys …), whereas the English line is impersonal (There are lots of ways …)?)

The non- linguistic grounds for treating Scots as a separate language are essentially social and political, the same as those which lead to the recognition of other dialectal differences as demarcating separate languages when they are spoken by separate national communities (such as Hindi in India and Urdu in Pakistan – linguistically the same language, as are Flemish and Dutch, the former in Belgium and the latter in the Netherlands). In cases where instead of spilling over borders, the ‘national’ language is not spoken by everyone in the country, the opposite case can hold, as in the case of China, where the macrolanguage of Chinese is actually a family of different languages united by a single writing system. As Calvet (1974, cited in Phillipson 1992: 39) put it: ‘a dialect is never anything other than a defeated language, and a language is a dialect that has succeeded politically.’

activity 18.9

If you want to know more about the implications of this way of thinking for English Language Teaching, look at Graddol (2006) and Kirkpatrick (2007).