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This chapter explores the difference between English and its sister languages. It shows that in the emergence of Modern English, simplification dominated complexification to a greater extent than in any other Germanic language. Evidence suggests that this simplification was not a happenstance peculiarity, but due to a sociohistorical hindering of the full transmission of its grammar across generations. English is significantly less complex overall than its sister languages, based on factors such as inherent reflexes, external possessors, directional adverbs, and indefinite pronouns.

This chapter discusses comparative syntax and the parameters underlying some very fine-grained differences (in the area of quantity words) between English and French. One type of parameter proposed involves the choice between pronouncing and leaving silent a particular functional element. Comparative syntax necessarily involves work on more than one language, but it is not that simple. On the one hand, it attempts to characterize and delineate the parameters that ultimately underlie cross-linguistic differences in syntax. On the other hand, it attempts to exploit those differences as a new and often exciting source of evidence bearing on the characterization and delineation of the principles of universal grammar, of the properties that, by virtue of holding of the (syntactic component of the) human language faculty, will be found to hold of every human language.

One of the most interesting phenomena in the history of the English language is the remarkable rise of the word right, in its many interrelated senses and uses. This chapter tries to trace the changes in the meaning and use of this word, as well as the rise of new conversational routines based on it, and raises questions about the cultural underpinnings of these semantic and pragmatic developments. It explores the hypothesis that the “discourse of truth” declined in English over the centuries; that the use of “right” and “wrong” as parallel concepts (and opposites) increased; and it notes that the use of right as an adjective increased enormously in relation to the use of true. Furthermore, the chapter explores the role of the word right as a conversational response and its role in modern Anglo discourse of cooperation and mutual concessions. The chapter traces the transition from the Shakespearean response “Right”, described by the OED as “you are right; you speak well”, to the present-day “Right” of non-committal acknowledgement, and it links the development in semantics and discourse patterns with historical phenomena such as Puritanism, British empiricism, the Enlightenment, and the growth of democracy in America and in other English-speaking countries.

For many 19th- and 20th-century theorists and activists, language was crucial to nationalism. Scholars suggest that the linguistic effects of the Norman conquest constituted an important though temporary blow to English identity, and that survival of English was important for survival of Englishness. This chapter argues that whatever connection there was between the English language and English identity, it was fairly weak. The discernible influence of Old English literature after the middle of the 12th century is also negligible. However, it contends that bilingualism was also very important in facilitating the process of cultural assimilation. In particular, England fairly quickly developed into a bilingual society, at least in towns, the aristocracy, and perhaps among the middling sort.

While the majority of West Africans in the United States are Anglophone with Christian leanings, today’s most recent African immigrants are Francophone or French-speaking and Muslim. Even if they did study English in their countries of origin, it was the British version, and most have great difficulty adjusting to an American accent, which also includes the Black vernacular. In the Harlem context, their Frenchness can be both a benefit and a hindrance. But while few have the money or time to take English as a second language (ESL) classes, they realize that if they are going to take advantage of the place many have viewed as heaven, they must learn the language. While most are polyglot, they are primarily conversant in local African languages such as Wolof or Djoula, and this chapter covers the linguistic challenges African Muslims face in a city like New York.

This chapter presents the story of the language movement's centrality to the struggle for Irish national independence. From its unlikely beginnings in small journals to the hegemonic role played by the Gaelic League in the ideological and cultural war, the movement to preserve, revive, and restore the Gaelic language as part of the formation of national identity was one of the most important factors in motivating and inspiring those who engaged in the physical fight against British rule. But the history of the Revival movement is complex, taking in as it does a whole spectrum of political positions and arguments which ranged from reactionary Catholicism to revolutionary socialism, and from complete rejection of the English language to those who espoused a new form of language — Hiberno-English — which had been created out of a colonial history.

Outlining the debates over the relative merits and demerits of the English and Gaelic languages in Ireland in the period of the Penal Code, this chapter traces a shifting historical narrative which matches developments on the ground. As English gradually but surely gained dominance in Irish public and civil life, and as Gaelic culture and tradition receded from public view if not everyday practice, there emerged a whole series of arguments about the proper language of education in the country. Not the least of these strands was that launched by Protestant antiquarians and their Catholic counterparts — for differing reasons — about the antiquity and integrity of the Irish nation. Towards the end of the period, there appears what can be recognized as the first elements of a form of linguistic nationalism that was to be so influential later in Irish history.

This chapter resituates Gerard Manley Hopkins, whose name has become synonymous with metrical experiment, within the prosodic, philological, and theological debates of his time. His commitment to defining accent and stress in English was a critical turning point in his thinking about his identity as a Catholic and as an Englishman. It argues that his attempt to create a new English meter was a particularly Victorian engagement with poetic form, national identity, and the English language. Broader movements in comparative philology (particularly those associated with scholars such as Max Müller and Richard Chevenix Trench) influenced Hopkins's attempts to reconcile the history of English and the materiality of meter with his Catholic beliefs. Hopkins is used to prove that even the most obscure and alienated-seeming poet must be read as part of the broader debate about what meter can do for the quickly changing nation. Hopkins's successes and failures, anticipate later attempts to examine the constituent parts of meter and the English language.

This chapter details the beginning of the destruction of the Gaelic order in Ireland by military, legal, and economic means. Though there is little evidence of the widespread use of English in the countryside, it is already evident in this period that English was the language of towns and that it had important economic, bureaucratic, and political functions. The defeat of Catholic forces in the 1640s and again at the end of the period gives rise to angry lamentation by the Gaelic bards for the loss of traditional Gaelic culture and faith. The chapter also traces the emergence of both the native response to the new historical circumstances, including the formulation of a new mode of Irish national identity, and the colonial attacks on Gaelic historiography, language, and culture.

Describes the Legislation Bureau's efforts to simplify the language of the draft. The cabinet embraced the idea of making the basic law more available to the people, and allowed the Legislation Bureau to re‐write the March 6 draft from difficult literary Japanese to the common spoken language. As government ministries submitted their comments and suggestions on the content of the draft, Irie and Satō negotiated with Kades and Hussey to clarify the draft's language but the Americans allowed no further substantive changes. By April 17, agreement was reached on a final draft in the form of a legislative bill written in colloquial Japanese, and a new English‐language draft.

This chapter argues that any education system that gives emphasis to minority languages cannot at the same time ignore the need to provide access to a language of wider communication, such as English, since a key purpose of education includes preparing learners for the communicative demands they will encounter in the workplace. The chapter suggests that the notion of language rights, rationalized as the protection of an inherited ethnic identity, is not well placed to accommodate the task of helping learners navigate a changing and unpredictable workplace. With this in mind, The chapter goes on to examine three specific issues. The first has to do with the place of minority languages in language education, specifically ‘heritage education,’ since these have sometimes been criticized as obstacles to socioeconomic mobility. The second concerns the kind of language education that might best prepare learners for the workplace, since the workplace itself represents an increasingly changing and unpredictable environment. The third issue has to do with how the notion of language rights, understood as the protection of an inherited ethnic identity, compares with other kinds of rights, such as the right to decide for oneself what languages to learn, especially if these present opportunities for socioeconomic betterment.

This chapter examines how the problematic pan-Indian identity is posited by indigenizing the English language, and raises questions about the part played by a small minority of the intelligentsia in educating the westernized Indians in what is believed to be a timeless and pure ‘Indian’ tradition. Kanthapura is an appropriate text for the ensuing study not simply because it shows the peasantry's awakening to national consciousness but also because it is written in English, which can be seen as both a potential and a problem. A study of Kanthapura is also relevant from the point of view of the class of people who constructed it — a national intelligentsia grounded in the study of English language and literature, and co-opted, to a large extent, by western thoughts and ideas.

This chapter stages a kind of debate between writers and critics such as Remy de Gourmont, who protested against English and all its works, and others such as the poet (and teacher of English) Stéphane Mallarmé, whose treatise Les Mots anglais (1877) has a powerful affinity with Proust’s aesthetic. Mallarmé makes the philologist’s, but also the poet’s, case for language as necessarily mixed and cross-bred. His analysis of English as an ‘idiome composite’ speaks directly to A la recherche; more important even than this, he suggests a potent reason for Marcel’s fascination with etymology, which occupies whole swathes of the novel’s later volumes and seems, at first sight, such an odd distraction from the business of social comedy or sexual tragedy. The connection between etymology and ‘involuntary’ memory, the mainspring of the novel’s creative impulse, forms the culminating point of the argument and the book.

This chapter provides a list of bibliographic sources used in researching English language in Singapore. These include The English Language in Singapore edited by William J. Crewe, English in Singapore: An Introduction by Low Ee Ling and Adam Brown and Disglossia and register variation in Singapore English by Bao Zhiming and Hong Huaqing which was published in volume 25 of World Englishes.

This chapter demonstrates how national parishes and their parochial schools were among the societal institutions that most effectively fostered the integration of European immigrants and their offspring. Attitudes of forced assimilation can lead to frustration and thwart newcomers' desire to integrate. Yet church congregations and organizations remain a refuge for many emigres and can help them and their children and grandchildren adapt to life in the United States. While across generations English language use and other influences of the U.S. milieu are inevitable, the relative success or failure of Latinos' incorporation into the U.S. Catholic Church enhances or inhibits that process. Within the Catholic fold itself, the progression from hospitality to homecoming remains a daunting challenge that many Hispanic ministry leaders concur has only begun to be addressed.

This chapter discusses the rise of a standard for language. It argues that it is the presence or absence of standardization, both as a process and, perhaps more significantly, as an ideology which serves to provide the major difference between these 14th- and 19th-century conceptions of language, linguistic choice, and language variety. It describes the existence of a sense of a ‘standard’ of English by the late 17th century, even if popular opinion viewed this as deficient in the rules by which a standard should ‘properly’ be used.

This chapter discusses how the English language has been introduced into Norwegian. Topics covered include the history of language contact, pronunciation and spelling, morphology, how borrowing affects the meaning of loanwords, forms of linguistic borrowing and their categorization, and the future of Anglicisms.

This chapter examines how the English language has been incorporated into Icelandic. Topics covered include the history of language contact, pronunciation and spelling, morphology, how borrowing affects the meaning of loanwords, forms of linguistic borrowing and their categorization, and the future of Anglicisms.