"Americanisms" that Brits hate

I bet the Germans you know speak with a German accent, the French with a French accent, etc.

But more to the point. You probably know that English became the world's lingua franca only after America took over as a superpower. So it's quite natural that non native speakers picked the American accent.

We apologise for the inconvenience. Though, due to the recent troubles in England, I've been eagerly listening to, and more delightedly watching Babita Sharma on the BBC News at night. I hope it helps

 

That is pretty much so, except that the Germans, Swedes, and Dutchmen I know speak pretty close to RP. The French speak English with an accent which owes nothing either to RP or to American English, and most of the Chinese I know have learnt English as a second language in the UK or Australia, but have a distinct Chinese pronunciation.

That is not quite so. The United States emerged as the world's superpower shortly after WW2. The spread of English long predates the 1950s. An empire which, by the 1800s, ranged from the North American continent, across the Middle east and sub-Saharan Africa, across the sub-continent, and included much of South East Asia, as well as Oceania, established British English as the principle form of international communication (much to the chagrin of the Napoleonic French). There is no denying the commercial influence of the Americans from the latter half of the 20th century, but the basis of English linguistic dominance had been set in stone by then. And the largest English speaking community in the world is India.

 

Even before the US emerged as the sole superpower, it was still far and above the predominate great power. It had a massive population and an economy larger than the whole of the entire British empire. Only Soviet Russia was comparable in some aspects, and even then it was an economic dwarf.

Prior to WWII, English would have been not entirely dissimilar in status to a language like Spanish -- well dispersed, but of little practical import. Everyone everywhere learned French, which was far and above the lingua franca well into the mid-20th century. (Remember, Britain's 1914 declaration of war against Austria was entirely in French.) Further, in addition to French, if one lived in Eastern Europe he would learn either German or Russian, depending on specifically where he hailed from.

In Ernst Powell's biography of Kafka, he mentions that Kafka had a friendly acquaintance at a university in Prague who was a specialist in the English language and its literature. At the time (early 1900s) the subject was apparently considered something of a novelty and rather exotic.

I also recall seeing a documentary where an elderly Pole, who had been a Kapo, discussed how he attempted to wield what little influence he had to make more comfortable, shall we say, people who could render the service of teaching him English. What struck me was the fact that many of the individuals he made this offer to (I believe around 5 or 6 were solicited in total) refused, because they found it to be such a bizarre request. They were, it seems, under the impression that the offer was some manner of Nazi trickery or scheming.

And, of course, as Otto von Bismark stated in the late 1800s, the most important event of the 20th century would prove to be the fact that Americans spoke English.

 

Interesting - tell me, how many Americans, Englishmen, Scotsmen, Irishmen, Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders, South Africans, Malays, Burmese, Hong Kong Chinese, Fijians, Indians, etc. conducted their domestic and international commerce in French during the 1930s? And how many did so in English?

BTW, French has long been the language of diplomacy.

 

That is a bit of a loaded question, leo. As I stated, nobody argues that English wasn't well-dispersed. As such, it was possible to conduct a great deal of commerce within the Anglophone world, which spans several continents. However, the language wasn't of much political import until the US took over.

But, to answer your question specifically, "how many did so in English?" As many, I'm sure, as the various Spaniards, Mexicans, Peruvians, Filipinos, Chileans, Argentinians, Colombians, Venezuelans, Panamanians, Bolivians, Uruguayans, Paraguayans, Ecuadorians, Cubans, and so on who conducted domestic and international commerce in Spanish. Nonetheless, all that trading did not make Spanish an internationally important language.

 

LOL, sez an American who admits to hating Great Britain!

I think not, there are more Indians alone than all those nations put together, let alone the rest of the English speaking world.

 

You are aware, I'm sure, that there are over 120 languages spoken in India, 23 of which are officially recognized. Today, only around 15% of the Indian population speaks English fluently. As you can no doubt imagine, this number was drastically lower in the 1930s, when English was reserved for the various indigenous Indians in administrative positions and their fair British masters.

Facts are facts, regardless of personal persuasions. I can see that you're beginning to run out of ammunition for your argument, though.

 

This seems a little contradictory, doesn't it?

How else would one define political import if not by number of native speakers and amount of commerce conducted?

 

Not in the least.

Well you've got your answer right in your post... It is defined by how important the language is on a political level outside of its native grounds. Obviously, English was important in the Anglophone world, as the Anglophone world consists of English speakers. I mean, I'm terribly sorry, but really... Come on, now. English was only important insularly, within said Anglosphere.

Conversely, France and Germany were smaller in size, yet were able to project more political prominence. In short, other people felt the need to learn their languages (whereas people did not feel the need to learn English prior to WWII). That is how one defines political import.

 

Now that you've finished your gingoistic monologue, we can speak about the facts.
Until the 1950's or later, international trade was conducted in a variety of languages. Sure the UK had its sphere of influence, as did Spain, France, Germany, etc., but there was no universal language of commerce. The US changed all of that. As the weathiest nation, eager to do business globally, countries found it important to teach English in their schools so that they could interact with AMERICANS, not Brits. As such, American English began to be taught globally.
In the oilfields of the ME, to the plantations of SA and Central America, English was taught by Americans. The days of the British-accented missionaries teaching the Queen's English have long passed. Your romanticized notion is a figment of your imagination.

Even the customer service call centers set up by American companies in India are manned with Indians trying to speak Americanized English, so even your former colonies have abandoned the Queen's English.

 

LOL! And my post was deemed jingoistic??? Hypocrisy, thy name is America!

 

Quite so, but my position is a simple one, which needs little in the way of ammunition.

The Indo-Germanic language of English, the native tongue of modern Britons, spread around the world long prior to the period of American economic dominance. Only a fool would deny the influence Americans have had on the commercial spread of the language since WW2, but only that same fool would deny that English was an established international language well before the 1950s.

And your prejudice towards Great Britain and her inhabitants is equally well established, and stated in your own words on this board. I respect your right to that opinion, but you can hardly claim to be a disinterested observer in respect of the UK.

 

We have already been over this. I do not deny that English was an established international language. It spanned many continents, crossed many oceans, and was spoken by many peoples within the massive entity that is the Anglosphere. Nonetheless, English remained politically impotent outside of the English-speaking world until the post war era.

Indeed; I acknowledge my prejudices. However, I can be a disinterested observer of the English language -- the language which my country transformed into the lingua franca on a scale unprecedented in human history since the Roman's Latin language in ancient Europe.

 

I wouldn't call it prejudices. More likely postjudices. And you are not alone. No-one in continental Europe likes them either.

 

Good points that I readily concede, except that English, as the language of the world hegemon for a couple of hundred years, cannot have been politically impotent. It was politically significant then, for much the same reasons it is politically significant now. What you call the Anglosphere was a centre of world commerce, much as the American sphere of influence is in today's world.

LOL, it is true about your nation's (largely commercial) influence, but when your countrymen learn to speak the English language, we may perhaps consider your other jingoistic claims seriously.

 

Dialects are dialects, and everyone argues pointlessly about their virtues or otherwise. It is handy to have a language like Swahili that everyone speaks. What I fear is that everyone else will have a 'warm' home language AND English whereas original English-speakers will just mouth a cold biznezEng. The icy Mefirsters who support conservatism may be dead straws in the wind, I fear.

 

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I do so totally agree with David Mitchell, and 'Er indoors at Buck House. The one unforgiveable solecism which will get Bible-thumping, God-bothering, Scripture-quoting, and gun-toting Septics turned away by the bouncers at the pearly gates is that one (because, after all, it is well known - or was to the Victorians - that God is an Englishman).

He is also, if those same Scriptures are to be believed, a possessive, jealous, egotistical, blood-thirsty, inflexible, unreasonable, and irascible old bugger, so it is probably inadvisable to irritate him with such mindless solecisms. These same Americans believe that He created all things, big and small, and as the creator of the English language, it is probably literally playing with fire (and brimstone - for a very long time,) to feck about with his creations.

Don't take this the wrong way, my trans-Atlantic friends; I'm only thinking of you.

 

No one felt the need to learn English until the US came into play in global politics. That says it all.

We speak English perfectly well, indeed, and we're the reason people outside of Australia, Belize, Great Britain, and other such minimally important nations speak it as well.

People here aren't that fond of them either. We make them think we have a special relationship (that way their politicians can shine in our reflected glory [or infamousness, take your pick] so as to look important) and in return we get a lap dog. The best thing about it is that the English political class doesn't even realize what's going on.

While they solicit our police officers for assistance with the riots in their capital, everyone on this side of the pond is having a nice laugh at their expense.

Feck about? Believe me when I say that there is no one on this earth who wishes to "feck about" with English more than I -- I wish the US would have taken Webster's advice a century and a half ago and actively pursued a national language. Believe me, I want to "feck" with English. I want to exacerbate the Trans-Atlantic differences, I want to highlight all the dissimilarities... and encourage more of them! In short, I have no greater desire than to turn the faces of various resident professors all throughout Oxfordshire a lovely magenta.

Oh, and for the record: I'm an atheist.

 

Couldn't the rise of English as the Global Lingua Franca be explained by the rise in globalism generally, rather than America specifically? A non-globalised world has no need for a Lingua Franca, after all.

 

Your comments about the spread of English around the globe were nothing more than your longing for the days that the sun never set on the British Empire. Well, news flash. The British Empire is gone, thanks in large part to the US. Divestment of your banana republics and sand castles was part of the price you paid for us bailing you out in WWII.

 

The battle of Britain was won before direct US involvement in the war and before lend lease began.

I'd love to know how you bailed them out.

 

"We must be very careful not to assign to this deliverance the attributes of a victory. War's are not won by evacuations."
Winston Churchill
To Parliament
4th June 1940

 

Yet again, no. Brushing up on your history would bode well for you in this discussion, I believe.

There have always been lingua francas; there has always been a need for people of different native tongues to communicate with each other. Greek, Latin, French, and Sabir are but a few examples of lingua francas which where in place before globalization.

Do you know the etymology of the term lingua franca? Its Italian for "Frankish language." (Frankish being the appellation chosen by the members of the Italian states to denote the French monarchs circa 1600, prior to there being a common sense of francaisite'.) I bring this up because the French monarchy, and its language, no less, were long considered mainland Europe's standard bearers in all things. Indeed, standard bearers far before the British royalty had abandoned animal pelts for vestments and twigs for scepters.

 

None of those languages were global. That's a key difference.

Only one language has ever been able to claim itself as the global lingua franca, and that happened to come after globalisation.

*Shockface*

Furthermore, I'm pretty sure French was the lingua franca of Norman England. I'm not sure how any of that is relevant, though.