Re: English on the internet

Jay Lemke (JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU)
Thu, 18 Apr 96 12:09:00 EDT

Yes, among the European languages, English is rather welcoming
of foreign words and expressions. Is this partly an effect of its
own mongrel history? Anglo-Saxon had little choice about accepting
Norman-French words into its vocabulary..., and indeed in those
days before standardized national languages (i.e. before the late
18th early 19th c.) there were not separate and distinct languages
as we think of them today (except perhaps for Latin).

It may also be partly a luxury of the dominance of English, which
can afford some 'dilution' of its imaginary historical purity,
which more globally marginal languages (dare I say French? certainly
German) don't seem to feel they can afford. I can well understand
language-cultures resisting the steamroller of English, and its
infiltration of their vocabularies. English has little need to
take such a defensive stance, being the aggressor language.

Of course all of modern European culture has a hidden investment
in the idea of separate and distinct languages, cultures, nations.
As it did formerly in its notion of separate and distinct human
races, and as it still does in the parallel notions for class,
gender, sexual orientations, etc. Let us learn to speak rather
of the Englishes of the world, and Englishes of every US city,
as we can hear here the Englishes of our xmca friends.

JAY.

JAY LEMKE.
City University of New York.
BITNET: JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM
INTERNET: JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU