the english langugage?

Srrrrrr   Sun Nov 13, 2005 5:00 pm GMT
How old is the English language?

Who invented it?

Why is it called English when it is international?

Why is the English language taught everywhere?

Why do we in the United States speak English?
Sander   Sun Nov 13, 2005 6:56 pm GMT
=> How old is the English language? <=

English is about, 73 years old.

=>Who invented it? <=

Jesus Christ did, between suppers.

=>Why is it called English when it is international? <=

Because foreigners can't pronounce 'the language'.

=> Why is the English language taught everywhere? <=

Because a lot of people have a lot of spare time.

=> Why do we in the United States speak English? <=

Because Frodo says so.
Adam   Sun Nov 13, 2005 6:56 pm GMT
"How old is the English language?"
I would say about 1000 years old.


"Who invented it?"
The English - hence the origin of its name - E..N..G..L..I..S..H.



"Why is it called English when it is international?"
Because it's a language that is English (just like I am) that was taken across the world when foreigners were our feeble and weak slaves.



"Why is the English language taught everywhere? "
Because it's the best language ever spoken on the face of the planet.



"Why do we in the United States speak English?"
Because the Americans are, deep down, still scared of the British, and they all have their suspicions that we will rule America again one day (and maybe we still do).
Guest   Sun Nov 13, 2005 11:55 pm GMT
*How old is the Dutch language?
Well after WW2 we were a confused bunch of mutherfuckers thinking our Language was German and the Amerikans and the Engels told us to revert back to the fact we are actually the German's bum people.
So its about 60 years old..

*Who invented it?
Germans choking on cheese while saluting to Hitler.

*Why is it called Dutch when it is international?
HUH? It ain't international just in the national of the Cheese chokers

*Why do we in the United States speak Dutch?
Oh the Amish - a bunch of white trash assholes who lives in fire warmed caves, still believes the world is flat, etc?
Don't bother asking me... I tried calling them except the operater told me they don't have a phone.
Sander   Mon Nov 14, 2005 12:03 am GMT
<Dutchland - Duitschland - Deutschland>

We are the same people asshole. Just we smell like rotten cheese and have a hardtime spiting our words instead of speaking them.
Kirk   Mon Nov 14, 2005 1:15 am GMT
<<How old is the English language?

Who invented it?

Why is it called English when it is international?

Why is the English language taught everywhere?

Why do we in the United States speak English?>>

These are basic questions that would be answered well by these articles:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_language

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_English_language
greg   Mon Nov 14, 2005 12:14 pm GMT
Je ne sais pas si l'anglais a jamais été « inventé » mais en tout cas il a bien été réinventé après 1066.
eito(jpn)   Mon Nov 14, 2005 2:52 pm GMT
Was the Norman Conquest good or bad for the English language? Without it, English could be better in its orthography, I presume. But what if English were not similar to French in vocabulary? The fact is that I can partially read and understand French because of lexical resemblance to English. More precisely, English words have some resemblance to French ones. What would you say?
Cro Magnon   Tue Nov 15, 2005 4:03 pm GMT
<=Srrrrrr Sun Nov 13, 2005 5:00 pm GMT
How old is the English language?

Who invented it?

Why is it called English when it is international?

Why is the English language taught everywhere?

Why do we in the United States speak English? =>

I'd guess English is about 1,000 years old.

It was originally spoken by Germanic barbarians who settled on a rather unimportant island after whooping a few Celtic tribes. Eventually their language evolved into Modern English.

English was called "English" long before it became international. That unimportant island I mentioned above just happened to have a kick-ass navy a few centuries ago, and they spread their language across the whole world. One of their colonies revolted and became the United States, which is why we speak English (except in the Southwest).

The reasons the English language is taught everywhere is because the United States built a lot of the modern infrastructure, especially in aviation and computers, after Europe beat itself bloody. English became the most important language in the world, and still is to this day.
Felix the Cassowary   Wed Nov 16, 2005 1:32 am GMT
Eito(Jpn): Without it, English could be better in its orthography, I presume.

I wouldn't be so sure. The English orthography of just before the Norman Conquest had already lost a one-to-one correspondence between phonemes and letters, and people tended not to write their own dialect, but the West Saxon one (the language of the dominant Anglo-Saxon kingdom). You can tell this sort of a thing through spelling mistakes (or perhaps "spelling inconsistencies") that the English scribes of the time made.

(Actually, regarding the first point it was likely there never was one in many words. Conisder the OE word for young, "geong". It was almost certainly pronounced /jung/ in spite of the spelling (which implies /jeɔng/).)

So the point is that without the social upheaval of the Norman Conquest, I don't know how likely a spelling reform would've been, yet English would clearly have needed one (somewhat as badly as today) by the time English started being written again. (Things like closed syllable shortening, the rounding of long a etc. Along with everything that's happened since, imagine all the readings a simple character like "a" would've had (using RP IPA): eɪ (as in nama, /neɪm/) æ (as in hand, /hænd/) ɑː (as in can't /kɑːnt/) əʊ (as in spak /spəuk/). We may've been lucky to have kept "ea" for the reading now /ɔː/ though, as in "wealc"=walk. Still, then you'd have to know whether "ea" was short and meant something like /æ, ɔː, ɑː/; or if it was long and meant something like /iː, eɪ/. And, worse still, we'd also have æ which would have many of the same readings, but also have /e/. So for /æ/ you'd've had three spellings: a, æ or ea, each of which had its own set of different readings!

Gah! Some price to pay for only having Anglo-Saxon spellings and (perhaps, if we were lucky) a single letter to spell "th". If we were unlucky we'd have two positional variants that didn't reliably encode the two different pronunciations, as well as "th" in Greek works like "rhythm" or "theta". Still, the thing that finally saw the end of the thorn in England was the printing press, and that would've come to England just the same. I imagine it would've taken wynn with it too, even if the French hadn't re-introduced double-u.

I admit I'm painting something of a worst-case scenario, but I also think it's a reasonably likely one in the absence of an invasion or anything.

(It's possible that given the troubles we'd be having were a few hundred years older and had even more dialects to throw into the mix we might've had a proper spelling reform. I doubt that for a few reasons. The best justification for a reform—widespread literacy—wouldn't've have happened any earlier, so that incentive would be the same; but on the other hand instead of people just saying "Think of Shakespeare!" they would've said "Þinc of Sceacspere and Beowulf!". Also, these are English-speakers were talking of. Since when have *they* wanted to reform spelling?)
Kirk   Wed Nov 16, 2005 2:09 am GMT
Yes, even in Old English there were plenty of noticeably different dialects, as evidenced by different spellings even during the same period.

Also, as crazy as English spelling seems today, it tends to actually do a pretty good job considering how many different dialects it represents. Often, from the narrow point of view of our own dialects, certain spellings don't make much sense, but more often than not they make sense to someone else. Think it's unnecessary to spell "vain/vane" or "tow/toe" differently? Some dialects distinguish them. Think "-gh" in words like "thought" are unnecessary? Some dialects have /x/ there which is represented by the orthographical "-gh." Are you a "cot-caught" merged American or Canadian? Of course according to your speech distinguishing "tot/taut" in spelling may seem silly but many English speakers in the world distinguish them. Similarly, while a nonrhotic RP speaker pronounces "farther/father" "court/caught" "fought/fort" the same, many English speakers easily distinguish those.

I could go on but the more I've learned about different English dialects around the world the more I've realized how good of a job English spelling actually does considering the amazing range of dialects it must represent (yes, I *did* just claim English spelling isn't actually so bad!). For English speakers, no matter your dialect, there are always going to be some classes of spellings which seem redundant or unnecessary but they (often) make sense to someone else. This is of course ignoring truly strange spellings like "colonel" but in terms of the language as a whole those are comparatively few.
Travis   Wed Nov 16, 2005 3:34 am GMT
Kirk, of course, one could still probably create a new orthography that is designed to basically include as many distinctions *in modern dialects* as feasibly possible, while being designed along phonemic lines to represent such. The only problem with such is that it might be necessary to exclude more heavily Scots-influenced Scottish English dialects, for the simple reason that if such weren't to be done, one might up having to essentially encapsulate Scots phonology in the orthography, with the consequence of making it excessively complex. Anyways, such would have the advantage of updating English spelling without sacrificing its ability to represent a very wide range of dialects in writing, even though it would, of course, result in a very complex orthography.
Damian in Scotland   Wed Nov 16, 2005 8:05 am GMT
It's a wonder that Adam has not suggested the idea of the English being paid copyright fees for the use of the English Language outside the borders of England! :-)

An excellent reference book on the English Language, right from its conception to the present 21st century, is:

Encyclopedia of The English Language
by David Crystal
Pub. by Cambridge University Press
ISBN 0-521-40179-8 (hc)

It starts, naturally enough, with the origins of the Language and goes on right through all it's developmental stages to the present day, including current usage such as Estuary and also includes sections on each and every form of English spoken throughout the world today...even pidgin English.....and Glaswegian...
Kirk   Wed Nov 16, 2005 9:09 am GMT
<<Kirk, of course, one could still probably create a new orthography that is designed to basically include as many distinctions *in modern dialects* as feasibly possible, while being designed along phonemic lines to represent such. The only problem with such is that it might be necessary to exclude more heavily Scots-influenced Scottish English dialects, for the simple reason that if such weren't to be done, one might up having to essentially encapsulate Scots phonology in the orthography, with the consequence of making it excessively complex. Anyways, such would have the advantage of updating English spelling without sacrificing its ability to represent a very wide range of dialects in writing, even though it would, of course, result in a very complex orthography.>>

Yes, true. But I just wanted to point out that many of those orthographic distinctions which seem pointless to a speaker of one dialect often make sense to someone else who natively speaks English.
JJM   Fri Nov 18, 2005 8:31 am GMT
"Was the Norman Conquest good or bad for the English language? Without it, English could be better in its orthography, I presume."

From a language viewpoint, your comments have no objective validity. Modern English is the way it is because of a number of historical factors; the Norman Conquest is just one of them (albeit a seminal factor in its development). There's no "good" or "bad" about this unless you're an ethnological nutbar.

And orthography stands alongside, but apart from, language. As blindingly obvious as it might seem, language is spoken. Writing is simply a method of representing language which may be more phonetically "efficient" (Serbo-Croat, German) or less so (English, Chinese).

Remember too that, until only very recently in human history, most of mankind - including English speakers - was essentially illiterate.