The triumph of English

The triumph of English

The history of English, or rather, the
traditional way the history is told,
represents an obstacle to a clear view
of the future. Global English may
represent an important discontinuity
with the past, rather than the triumph
of Modern English on the world stage.

The history of English is conventionally divided into three parts: Old English,
Middle English, and Modern English. The tripartite structure draws attention to particular
events in British history – especially the Norman invasion, which heralded the rapid
‘frenchifi cation’ of the English language, and, later, the constellation of political, religious,
and economic developments which surrounded the emergence of Britain as a
modern nation-state. Now, we are talking about a fourth period
in the history of English: after Modern English comes the period of ‘Global English’.
Rhetorically inconvenient though a fourth period would be, it would allow an exploration
of the new status of English as a global lingua franca and the new cultural, linguistic, political and economic issues surrounding English as it is used in a postmodern world.
There is, however, a great danger in simply adding a new historical period to
cater for global English. The traditional history of English, as taught in all the main
textbooks, was largely created in the 19th century and refl ects 19th-century values
and world views. Just as archeologists and historians have argued that our modern understanding of medieval life has been distorted through a 19th-century lens, so some linguistic historians are now urging a reappraisal of the history of English.
The traditional history is constructed as a grand narrative. It provides a myth of national origins as a rags-to-riches folk tale in which our hero, the English language, emerges from humble and obscure origins and fl owers in Old English times – both as a literary language and as the foundation of a new Anglo-Saxon political awareness (presaging the role of English in establishing a
future national identity). Now comes the complication in the story; the point at which the villain appears and disrupts the status quo.
In the grand narrative of the history of English, it is French which
is positioned as the villain, with whom the English language does battle – and eventually
triumphs. According to this account, the linguistic and cultural integrity of Old English
was all but destroyed after the Norman invasion, not least by relexifi cation from French.
The whole business of recreating a literary language and national identity had to begin
anew.
Hence the modern era – starting in the 16th century – represents the fi nal triumph
of English. The language now overcomes its historic villain and re-emerges as a national
language, with a literature provided by the likes of Dryden and Shakespeare; scientifi c
writing by Isaac Newton and his contemporaries in the Royal Society (17th century);
regulatory apparatus provided by the kind of dictionary fi rst compiled by Samuel Johnson
(18th century) and, most monumentally, by the Oxford English Dictionary in the late 19th
century.

The values that permeate this conventional story of English are those of the 19th
century, including Victorian concepts of modernity. As we have seen, modernity was
a discourse about progress and growth and about constructing modern nation-state
identities. Linguistic modernity was not just about constructing national monuments to
the language such as the Oxford English Dictionary, but also embraced the need to
shoulder the ‘English speaker’s burden’ of taking English, as a civilising force, to the
furthest reaches of empire.

If you take the view that the traditional history of English refl ects a very national,
modernist, 19th-century view of the world, then tacking on a new chapter entitled
‘Global English’ may be a serious mistake. It dangerously continues the grand narrative
by adding a coda, suggesting that English,

which in modernity triumphed as a national language, has now triumphed as a global
language, overcoming its arch rival yet again, but this time in the global arena by
displacing French as the preferred international lingua franca, or as the preferred
working language of Europe.

This view of global English is altogether too ethnocentric to permit a broader understanding
of the complex ways in which the spread of English is helping to transform
the world and in which English, in turn, is transformed by the world  From Anglo-Saxon runes to text messaging.

The ‘Story of English’ as it is traditionally told is a very Anglo-centric one, based on a myth of national origins which shows how the language achieved greatness against the odds. This narrative was largely constructed in the 19th century, by scholars who wished to stress the Germanic roots of the language and the continuity of modern English with Anglo-Saxon