We may, in due course, all need to be in control of two standard Englishes—the one which gives us our national and local identity, and the other which puts us in touch with the rest of the human race. In effect, we may all need to become bilingual in our own language. — David Crystal, The English Language, 1988
Dr. Crystal’s prediction is now over 20 years old.
Does it ring more true/false today ?
To be fair, I think it is a prediction that is still evolving, whereas this one…
… um… yea…
Two interesting quantitative things to keep in mind :
1) David Graddol produced a report for the British Council demonstrating that 75% of exchanges in English take place between non-natives.
2) Most figures you’ll find show around 350 million native speakers and close to 2 billion non-native speakers. A 1 to 5 ratio that many would say is growing further apart every day.
One qualitative thing to keep in mind:
1000s of diverse accents from all around the world
(click on the globe to hear them thanks to George Mason University)
Whose english is right ?
No one’s, however, the person who can successfully understand and communicate with diverse populations is probably the best example to follow or to teach.
Here’s that shocking moment in my blog where I… yes… I share another etymology
comes from the Latin verb, commūnicāre, itself arising from the adjective, communis which means “common, shared”… and communis comes from com- (“with”) and munus or “exchange”. From the latin root munus we’ve inherited renumeration (munus again = reward) and immunity (no exchange).
Another word that commes from communis is communism, the political philosophy that all of society’s goods should be common/shared. In the end we have no choice but to share language and the quote that will follow demonstrates that more perfectly than I’ve ever seen before.
The word in language is half someone else’s. It becomes “one’s own” only when the speaker populates it with his own intention, his own accent, when he appropriates the word, adapting it to his own semantic and expressive intention… Expropriating it, forcing it to submit to one’s own intentions and accents, is a difficult and complicated process.” (Bakhtin, 1981, pp. 293-294)
Thanks to Willy Cardoso 4 introducing it to me here !
So what’s the takeaway ?
For learners and native speakers of english alike, English can become yours and you can have your own or multiple versions of it, just as David Crystal said 20 years ago. To communicate effectively, it helps to be flexible while enjoying the beautiful diversity of all that’s out there.
For teachers of English, a question: Are you preparing your students for international communication (assuming that is their need) ? To what extent is the English they’re learning every day diverse, and how could you better serve them to this end ?