Posted on 07/11/2004 11:46:20 AM PDT by UnklGene
The triumphant rise of English -
By Janadas Devan
THE MEANING OF EVERYTHING: THE STORY OF THE OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY
By Simon Winchester Oxford University Press
THE English language is constantly expanding. The 11th edition of the Concise Oxford English Dictionary, for instance, which appeared early this week, included 2,000 new words and phrases - among them, 'va-va-voom', 'blue-on-blue' and 'speed dating'. According to one report, the OED's lexicographers catalogued about 90,000 new words in the past century, or roughly 900 each year.
But as impressive as are these numbers, they pale somewhat in comparison to the past. English, the pre-eminent language of globalisation, didn't became promiscuous only recently. In fact, it was always promiscuous. Promiscuity, one might say, is its chronic condition.
Old English - consisting chiefly of the Germanic tongues that the Teutons brought with them, mixed with the language of the vanquished Celts - had around 50,000 words, according to Mr Simon Winchester. One of those words, Angles, the name of one of the Teuton tribes, ultimately gave us the name for the language itself - Anglia, Engle, Englisc, Englaland, England, English.
By the 12th century - by which time Old English had absorbed thousands of words from the invading Norman French and transformed itself into what is now called 'Middle English' - the word-stock had doubled to around 100,000. 'Historical studies studies suggest that by 1365, some 300 new French words were being incorporated into English every year... A slew of phrases still familiar in Modern English - have mercy on, take leave, learn by heart and on the point of, for example, all have their origins in this wonderfully energetic period in English linguistic history.'
It was succeeded by an even more energetic period - the Renaissance. 'Analyses suggest that between 1590 and 1610, around 6,000 new words were being added to the lexicon every year.' They came not only from the usual European sources, but also from further afield: Malay (paddy, sago); Persian (caravan, turban); Turkish (sherbet, yoghurt); Algonquian (racoon); Cantonese (ketchup); Arabic (sofa, sheikh). By the close of the Renaissance, there were about 200,000 words in the English lexicon.
William Shakespeare alone coined a whole slew of them. Some have been forgotten - 'vastidity', for example, meaning overwhelmingly big. Many of his phrases, especially of insult, though remembered, are hardly used now - 'whoreson beetle-headed flap-ear'd knave', to cite one favourite example. But a great number of his coinages became an inextricable part of the language - among them, accommodation, laughable, dislocate, dwindle, submerged, baby-eyes, pell-mell, ill-tuned.
It is astonishing to recall, but Shakespeare had no access to a dictionary, though he probably did use some sort of thesaurus. Unlike the French and the Italians, the English, till recently, had a rather laissez-faire attitude towards their language. The French have had their Academie Francaise since 1634, and the Italians their Accademia della Crusca since 1582. 'The task of both bodies was to preserve linguistic purity, to prevent the languages' ruin by permitting inelegant importations, and to guide the public on just how to write and speak.' No such body has ever existed for English.
Which perhaps explains its prodigious promiscuity. By the time the first edition of the compendious Oxford English Dictionary appeared in 1928, the language had at least 414,825 words. The second edition of the OED, published in 1989, had 615,100 words. In addition, an estimated half-million technical and scientific words remained uncatalogued. The Revised OED, being prepared now, may define as many as a million words. By comparison, German has a lexicon of only 185,000 words, and French fewer than 100,000.
There is a good reason why English, according to one estimate, is now the mother tongue of about 400 million people, the second language of perhaps 600 million more, the language of three-quarters of the world's mail, 80 per cent of the information stored in the world's computers, half its technical and scientific periodicals, half of all business deals in Europe and most of the world's largest broadcasting companies (CBS, NBC, ABC, BBC and CNN). A language that was first created by a series of invaders who washed up on that oddly-shaped island off the coast of Europe, has never ceased to allow itself to be invaded. That is the secret of its influence.
But it was also the reason why it took the English such a long time to produce a comprehensive dictionary of their language. A few remarkable men tried - pre-eminently, Samuel Johnson in 1755, and the American Noah Webster in 1828 - but their dictionaries were hardly comprehensive. Johnson's had only 43,500 words, and Webster's 70,000, though the language already had in excess of a quarter-million words by 1800. It was not till the OED came along in nine volumes in 1928 that we got something resembling a comprehensive accounting of the language.
Typically for the British, the OED was a private venture, begun by the Philological Society in 1860 and funded by the Oxford University Press. And typically too, it was undertaken by eccentrics.
Mr Winchester tells the tale wonderfully. Here we meet Herbert Coleridge, the first editor and the grandson of the famous poet, whose final words when he died at the age of 31 were 'I must begin Sanskrit tomorrow'. Coleridge's chief contribution to the OED was to lay down a 'non-judgmental, descriptive, and manifestly non-prescriptive way' to discern the meanings of words.
We also meet J.R.R. Tolkien, who served as assistant editor for a year, labouring 'mightily over words beginning with W, among them warm, wasp, water, wick, wallop, waggle and winter' - not to mention 'walrus', which he filled a good-sized notebook trying to define. And we meet too a Dr W.C. Minor - 'a madman, a murderer, and an American' - who contributed definitions and illustrations for a great many words while sitting in a cell in Broadmoor, an asylum for the criminally insane.
That somehow seems symbolically apt. The genius of English, after all, has always been its capacious tolerance of the odd.
"We also meet J.R.R. Tolkien, who served as assistant editor for a year, labouring 'mightily over words beginning with W, among them warm, wasp, water, wick, wallop, waggle and winter' - not to mention 'walrus', which he filled a good-sized notebook trying to define. And we meet too a Dr W.C. Minor - 'a madman, a murderer, and an American' - who contributed definitions and illustrations for a great many words while sitting in a cell in Broadmoor, an asylum for the criminally insane."
Hardly a day goes by that I don't reference my CD copy of the OED. I use a Mac and have a partition labeled OED2 with the data files on it. It confuses the application into thinking I have the CD mounted so it runs from the hard disk. It is at my immediate beck and call. It is te ONLY reason that I use 'classic' in an OSX environment. A great reference.
/john
Husband just started reading this book Friday night....On the way to church this a.m. we got to talking about the other Winchester books we've read...
Thanks for the ping!!
BTTT
I think French, Italian and German (probably all the European languages) will soon go the way of Latin and die of lack of use.
The language of the future isn't English at all--Its Spanish--at least here in California. All you Freepers in the other 49 states better start learning Spanish because its coming your way soon. You will not be able to get a job in the USA without some Spanish under your belt. In California many jobs, good ones too, are closed to English speakers only. The word is "Bi-Lingual" (English-Spanish) Even bad Spanish is an open door to a good well paying job. So brush up on your espanole senior--even the President's doing it. Spanish, not English, is the wave of the future.
Bookmarking for further reference...
Until they need to express something difficult with it. I think that's one of the points of the article.
The Spanish of the future that is the American national language will contain about 80% English words :-)
You can travel just about anywhere in Europe, for example, with the exception of some very remote and rural areas, and be able to function quite nicely with only English (the French, of course, will pretend not to understand you when it serves their purposes, but they understand perfectly well, for the most part). Asia is more difficult, but I understand (I've never been there) that English is gaining there, too. English is the language of the internet, of air traffic control worldwide, and of a preponderance of broadcasting, and all that certainly contributes to its global expansion.
You're right, though, with respect to the rise of Spanish in the U.S. -- and not just in California. Even here in the Carolinas, those in the construction business, for example, find it most helpful, if not actually necessary, to be somewhat conversant in Spanish. And it may be worth the effort, because generally speaking, Spanish-speaking employees seem to be hard workers. As opposed, for example, to those who speak Ebonics.
To be replaced by? If you say English, be careful. English is fast on the way of becoming the second language in the country that sets the standards. Once Spanish becomes the primary instead of secondary language in the USA, it will take English off the world stage.
The Spanish coming in via Mexico is Latin American Spanish. It is not really all so different from English since English has swallowed all its sources, which include the same sources Spanish came from. We're already absorbing Arabic thanks to OBL and Saddam, and reabsorbing Hindi some more thanks to the Taliban. Words flow from one language to another, but it is 99 to 1 flowing into English. Spanish-English will probably be a spoken dialect in the community, and high English will be used most commonly amongst travellers--which is everybody.
It appears that way here in AZ as well.
Except that I notice that news conferences by the new Iraqi government are often in English. In Kabul, same thing. Even Saddam knew a bit of English I think.
Go to Germany, English is probably the most common second language. You can travel everywhere there, and people virtually everywhere can understand you in English.
France - well, we won't go there.
The most common foriegn language in China is English. I understand huge numbers (a majority ?) of students learn English.
Yes, there are lots of Mexicans that don't think they need to learn English. All that means is that we will have a future two-tier culture where spanish speakers clean houses, and English speakers own them. It's being done for political purposes, and the results will be nasty.
The Spanish only is pandering to cheap labor needs. If you start enforcing laws agaist hiring illegals the whole thing would dry up and blow away.
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