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The English is Coming: How One Language is Sweeping the World ReviewIt's an exciting time for the English language. All over the world, people are learning English and using it as a lingua franca, a common language. Everyone has an opinion on the merits and the detriments of a single language gaining so much influence - it makes communication easier if more people speak a common language, but at what price? Are other languages being shoved out of existence by this language gorilla?
Meanwhile, while people debate the influence English is having on the world, what influence is the world having on English? It's apparent that the English people are speaking in Singapore, for instance, is not the English people are speaking in Texas or in Zimbabwe. And English, or Englishes, aren't sitting still - they're mutating and morphing at a furious pace. What's happening?
Several recent books attempt to answer these questions and figure out where English is going. The English is Coming is one of the more entertaining ones I've seen lately. Leslie Dunton-Downer initially takes a traditional route by looking at the history of English as a language and as a lingua franca. (You can't tell where you're going until you know where you've been.) She does this in an easy manner, free of academic jargon. I imagine that middle schoolers and older would find it easy to follow.
Dunton-Downer's book is not only conversational in tone, but it appeals to those of us with short attention spans. It jumps from topic to topic smoothly, and breaks things up every so often with the story of a word that has transcended English and gone international, such as taxi and shampoo. Some of the stories are familiar - okay and bikini, for instance. Others choices are debatable, such as cookie and safari. But they are all interesting.
The English is Coming stands in contrast to the recent Globish: How the English Language Became the World's Language by Robert McCrum. McCrum was one of the writers of the excellent PBS series of several decades ago, The Story of English. In Globish, he loses a lot of his credibility by making outrageous claims that English is, by its nature, conducive to democracy and other fine qualities. Globish is rubbish. The English is Coming, on the other hand, is mostly even-handed about English, although Dunton-Downer makes the case that English is an excellent choice for a global language because it is inherently easy to learn. I wonder if that's true - it seems like a difficult language to learn, but as a native English speaker, I can't say.
Other recommended books on global English:
Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World by Nicholas Ostler
English as a Global Language by David Crystal
The English is Coming: How One Language is Sweeping the World OverviewEnglish has fast become the number one language for everything from business and science, diplomacy and education, entertainment and environmentalism to socializing and beyond—virtually any human activity unfolding on a global scale. Worldwide, nonnative speakers of English now outnumber natives three to one; and in China alone, more people use English than in the United States—a remarkable feat for a language that got its start as a mongrel tongue on an island fifteen hundred years ago. Through the fascinating stories of thirty English words used and understood in nearly all corners of the globe, The English Is Coming! takes readers on an eye-opening journey across culture and commerce, war and peace, and time and space. These mini-histories shed new light on everyday words: the strange turns of fate by which their meanings evolved and their new roles as the building blocks of the first language ever to forge a global community. Exploring such familiar terms as shampoo (from a Hindi word for scalp and body hygiene long practiced in India); robot (coined by Czech painter Josef Capek for his brother Karel's 1921 play about man-made creatures); credit (rooted in a prehistoric phrase of sacred significance: "to put heart into"); and dozens of others, Dunton-Downer reveals with clarity and humor how these linguistic artifacts embody the resilience, appeal, adoptability, and wild inclusiveness that English, through a series of historical accidents, gained on its road to worldwide reach. These words explain not only how English has managed to link our distant and often disparate pasts but also how it is propelling humankind to a future that we can, for the first time, talk about and shape in a language that now belongs to all of us: Global English. Perfect for culture buffs, armchair travelers, and language lovers alike, The English Is Coming! is sure to inspire truly global conversations for decades to come.
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