How the English language is developing

See also:
EAL statistics - languages
ESOL, TEFL and bilingualism update

'Bilingual' teens say CUL8R to English

British teenagers have become bilingual, communicating in an online language that at first sight looks to most adults like an unbreakable code. The online community Habbo Hotel, whose users are mostly aged between 12 and 16, has published a glossary of the punctuation symbols, abbreviations and 'emoticons' that young people send to one another.

Teenagers combine symbols, letters and numbers to keep in touch with their friends via e-mail, instant messaging and mobile phones. These range from (()):** meaning 'hugs and kisses', to P999, or 'parent alert', and LMAO BBS, 'laughing my arse off and will be back soon'.

Online language began to evolve in the late 1990s, when words such as 'see' and 'be' were reduced to the phonetic consonants, so that 'see you later' became CUL8R. Many services aimed at teenagers also feature 'emoticons', pictorial symbols, such as love hearts, thumbs up and mobile phones, to help them express their feelings.

(Independent, July 14 2006)

English language nears the one-million-word milestone

Some time soon the English language will create its millionth word. The Global Language Monitor (GLM), a San Diego-based linguistic consultancy, reckoned that on 21 March 2006 there were about 988,968 words in the language, "plus or minus a handful". At the current rate of progress the one-million mark will be reached in summer 2006.

The GLM started with a base vocabulary drawn from major dictionaries that contain the historic core of the language. Then it created its own formula, called the Predictive Quantities Indicator (PQI), that measures the languages found in print, electronic media, television and radio. That establishes a rate of increase in the creation of new words, and the import and absorption of foreign words into English.

No one argues about the huge richness of the English language - fed by Germanic, Scandinavian and Latin streams, unrivalled in its readiness to borrow from every language.

The process is only reinforced by the universality of English. True, more people (over a billion) may be native speakers of Mandarin Chinese than of English (an estimated 500 million, roughly the same as Hindi). But if there is such a thing as a world language, it is English, spread first by the British Empire, then by the economic, cultural and military juggernaut of the US, and now by the internet. And, at every stop new words are coined, or scooped up from other languages.

The GLM claims that its projected figures are conservative- and in fact some estimates put the total of English words at two million or more. The devil lies in definition: what constitutes a new word? Does slang count? And what about archaisms and obsolete words? Another study, the Life and Times of the English Language, by Robert Claiborne published in 1990, puts the number of words at no more than 600,000. The latest edition of the Oxford English Dictionary contains more than 300,000 head words, and some 615,000 'word forms', that include the lead words, plus combinations and derivatives. The edition also includes new words such as 'podcast' and 'offshoring'. By contrast, Websters Third International Dictionary has 54,000 word families - base words, inflections and derivations.

In comparison, Spanish linguists say there are 225,000 words in contemporary use, the largest German dictionary contains about 200,000 words and the Russian language has just reached the 125,000 mark. French has just 100,000 words, one-sixth of the figure used in the UK. But the Academie Francaise, the body that defines the language, recognises just 25,525.

But no one should feel intimidated. The average vocabulary of an educated native English speaker is about 24,000 to 30,000.

(Independent, 13 April 2006)

Examiners have said they are unimpressed by many pupils' use of English in an annual report on performance in one of Britain's most popular exams. Even the high-achieving pupils made "almost unforgivable" basic errors, said the Edexcel examiners in findings that will add to pressure on ministers to raise standards.

In its annual report on English GCSE, Edexcel said: "There were…surprising numbers of lapses in standard English, particularly in verb forms: 'gonna', 'aint', 'wanna' and 'shoud' appeared with surprising regularity."

(TES, 16 September 2005)

The BBC's Wordhunt Project is asking viewers to help update the Oxford English Dictionary by finding their earliest occurrences of words and phrases, including several that teachers may have come across long before they fell into common parlance outside the school gates.

Helena Braun, Wordhunt assistant producer, said: "We know that people were looking for nits right back into the early 1900s. But it is not written down very often. It is the language of the playground. "The OED has learned people going through academic tomes. But for street words, or slang, school is a better place to start."

Records of a school fete, for example, may refer to a bouncy castle before its first officially recorded occurrence, in 1986. Researchers also hope that teachers will have dated essays or videos demonstrating early use of classroom slang. So far, they have been unable to find any "mingers" (unattractive people) before 1995, or records of anyone "on the pull" (looking for a sexual encounter) before 1988.

"Teachers always complain that pupils write essays in slang or text-speak," said Ms Braun. "But that does have educational value. It could be really helpful for us... as long as they've remembered to put the date at the top."

Trevor Millum of the National Association for the Teaching of English agrees that teachers are often among the first to hear new teenage slang. But he questions whether many will have written proof of early usage. "Much as we love marking, we don't tend to hang on to past essays. Our rooms are too full of current marking."

(TES, 19 August 2005)

Ombudsman and Information Commissioner Emily O'Reilly has supported a campaign for clear public information by unveiling the first ever quality mark for plain English. The aim of the mark, developed by the National Adult Literacy Agency (NALA), is to reward businesses and other organisations that use plain English in their information and marketing material such as letters, reports and promotional leaflets. Using plain English will help make their services and products easier to understand and use, particularly for adults who are improving their literacy skills.

Research and practice has shown that plain English boosts the effectiveness of information and marketing material. The mark will be given to each document that meets plain English guidelines to establish a standard for clear, accessible information. In addition, the mark will be an important tool for raising awareness of plain English. Organisations that receive the mark will be making a string statement about the use of clear language and design.

The mark was launched on 21st June 2005 by NALA and is offered as part of the Agency's Plain English Service. The service includes:

• Editing correspondence, forms and publications
• Offering advice on plain English
• Delivering training and workshops on plain English techniques.

(Press release, 21 June 2005)

In conjunction with the BBC, the Oxford English Dictionary is seeking to establish the first verifiable usage of all 600,000 words in the dictionary. To join the Wordhunt Project, viewers must submit an earlier appearance of one of the 50 words on the OED's initial list, with the verification of the date. The next edition of the dictionary will be altered accordingly.

Richie Benaud has been asked to date the first cricketing usage of the 'jaffa', an unplayable delivery that has left the dictionary editors stumped. In many cases, the OED is unable to tell how a word was invented. It is seeking assistance from people who might claim to have been present when the musical description 'ska' was introduced into british-Jamaican clubs. The dictionary is certain that gentlemen required 'something for the weekend' before 1990 but "finding documentary evidence has proved unusually difficult".

(The Times, 10 June 2005)

An innovative course in the Jamaican langauge, believed to be unique in Britain, is being run at the Handsworth campus of Birmingham's City College. About 30 students, aged 14 to 60, attend the three-hour classes once a week. They learn spelling, grammar, literature and cultural traditions such as music and dance. The course was set up in early 2005 after the Institute of Linguistics acknowledged Jamaican as a language in its own right, rather than a dialect. The course has been shortlisted for the European Award for Languages 2005, but it is yet to be accredited. It is hoped that successful candidates will eventually achieve an Open College Network level 2 (GCSE grade A-C equivalent) qualification, followed by a diploma in public service interpreting.

Influences include French, Spanish, Portuguese, Taino - the original language spoken on the island - as well as west African languages such as Igbo and Efik, spoken in Nigeria, Fante, from Ghana and Kikongo, which is spoken in Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The college is planning further courses to cater for the demands of the different levels of speakers, including awareness sessions for public-sector workers, family learning courses, and introductions for those who wish to learn from scratch.

(TES, 27 May 2005)

The reference guide is a light-hearted yet comprehensive reference tool with bucketloads of useful information, and a few fascinating surprises to boot, for people with or without Asperger's syndrome.

(Society Guardian, 28 July 2004)

Global usage of English speaks volumes in trade but other languages rise on Internet

The value of the English language's dominance in international business and politics was put at £5,455 billion, more than the combined worth of the Japanese and German languages.,, according to a speaker at a conference at the Royal Society of Arts on the English language. However, the dominance of the language is threatened by its very success because so many people will learn a form of English that it will break up into mutually unintelligible dialects. To keep English as the international language of business, users may find themselves having to learn it twice: once as a local dialect and again in a standardised form.

"The danger is that English may become diglossic [the existence in a language of a high ,or socially prestigious, and a low, or everyday form] in the same way that Arabic, Greek and German already have done," Professor David Crystal, editor of the Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, said.

In 1996 up to 85% of messages conveyed on the Internet were in English. Now the proportion is down to 60% and falling. Professor Crystal stopped counting other languages on the Internet when he reached 2000.

Davis Blair, from Macquarie University in Australia, pointed out that Greek, Latin and French preceded English "at the lingua franca summit". He said: "The very fact that each lost its place should caution us in our linguistic chauvinism."

English is the mother-tongue of more than 400 million people, and the official language for a further 400 million, mainly in the former British colonies. Between a quarter and a third of the world's population can already use it, and the only other candidate for global status is Spanish, the world's fastest growing language.

About 90% of the world's computers connected to the Internet are based in English-speaking countries. Mote than 80% of home pages on the Web are in English, while the next greatest, German, has only 4.5% and Japanese 3.1%.

(The Times, 19 March 2001)

British marketing consultancy firm The Fourth Room conducted a survey to gauge the extent of the nation's literacy on the web and found that the use of email has had a devastating impact on the standard of written English.

According to the research, computer users today are too lazy to hit the 'shift' buttons on their keyboards - emails are frequently written entirely in lower case, with no capital letters for names or the beginning of sentences.

Chief Executive officer Piers Schmidt commented: Language is a living thing. You can't expect it to stay the same. And with the internet, email and mobile phone messaging, the changes happen much more quickly. In the space of just a few years a new language has developed - we call it weblish instead of standard English. It's a sort of shorthand for the 21st century.

The latest edition of the Oxford English Dictionary includes 62 new words representing the changes in our communication culture including e-commerce, dot.com and webcam.

John Simpson, chief editor of the dictionary says, "The standards may be different now but it has certainly encouraged writing and communication. And that means a faster development of language change. There are a whole raft of words that either come from the internet or where the internet has given them new meanings.

The Queen's English Society says it wants to "defend the precision, subtlety and marvellous richness of our language against debasement, ambiguity and other forms of misuse."

(Daily Mirror, 26 January 2001)

According to the British Council, by the end of the year 2000 the number of people with English as a second language will overtake the number of people for whom the language is their mother tongue. More than 750 million people already speak English well enough to use it for business or computing. A billion are in the process of learning the language.

(Independent, 31 October 2000)

Modal verbs such as 'shall', 'should', 'must', 'may' and 'ought' are in terminal decline according to academics who have charted changes in grammar since 1961. They are being replaced by Americanisms such as the written equivalent of 'gotta' and 'gonna'.

Professor Geoffrey Leech of Lancaster University's linguistic department is philosophical about the changes. "There is no point in being other than fatalistic," he said. He is carrying out a three-year study of how grammar in written English has changed. The work is based on a million words collected by Professor Leech in 1961 in extracts from newspapers, magazines, academic journals and books. This has been compared with a matching collection set up in 1991.

Professor Leech said: "Two strong tendencies can be summed up as Americanisation and colloquialisation. The modal verbs are one example of American influence - the evidence suggests that the British in the Nineties are roughly catching up with where the Americans were in the Sixties. Colloquialisation is a trend towards more informal grammar, where writing imitates speech habits."

One lesson for schools, he suggests, is that they should not waste time teaching children outdated grammatical forms. Textbooks were often out of date and devoted too much space to the use of words such as shall and ought which were increasingly rare, he added.

(Independent, 13 August 1999)