My wedding has had little or no effect on the great state of things in general, but the Norman Conquest had an extremely pronounced effect on all of us reading this article. Within a few hundred years of the battle, thanks to the French, the language spoken in England went from being mostly Germanic to one with a heavy mixture of the Romance or Latin languages. The Romans did invade the island in 55 BC, and more or less messed about there for about 450 years, but at that time they left little of their language behind. The subsequent invasions by all sorts of Germanic tribes saw to today’s English being classified as a Germanic language. The Latin of the Romans, along with a lot of Greek, came back to England via the Normans.
Language is fascinating to me. A representative map of just the major languages would have the colors of a small box of crayons. A map of all the languages of the world would have more colors than the paint chip racks at the local hardware store. I wish I knew more than English and a soupçon of French. In my European travels I’ve been able to get along with spoken and written language because of the similarities to the English words. I remember seeing the sign ‘Apotekit’ in Oslo - of course: apothecary – a drug store. I was pleased with myself for that one. I was also humbled when I learned that I was entirely off base with my assumption* that few Norwegians would speak English. Four of us were standing on a street corner in Stavanger, going through the Norsk:Engelsk dictionary, looking for the translation of ‘battery’ because our Brit friend had forgotten to bring some for his hearing aid. A Norwegian gentleman tapped one of us on the shoulder and quietly enlightened us: “Don’t worry, they speak English in the shop.” Too true. The study of foreign languages, especially English, French and German, is compulsory in Norway and many other European countries.
When someone apologizes to me because of their poor English, I always apologize in turn. After all, they speak my language, but I don’t speak theirs. The world seems to be using more and more English. It has become the default language for air and sea traffic. Though the Chinese are catching up - after all, they do have it over us in population - the highest percentage of internet users speak English. While the teaching of other languages in our schools may be declining, our own language is quickly absorbing new words from all over the world. It’s not the same old Germanic/Latin base it once was. Pity the poor editors of the Oxford English Dictionary - 22,000 pages or so, and increasing every day. From pajamas and khaki, safari and coffee, to gung-ho and feng shui, and origami and karaoke, our language just gets bigger and better.
* Of course you know what ‘assume’ does - it makes an ‘ass’ out of ‘u’ and ‘me‘
** September 26th - by coincidence, this came up today on Garrison Keillor's "The Writer's Almanac": Today is the official European Day of Languages, which is a yearly event begun in 2001 to celebrate human language, encourage language learning, and bring attention to the importance of being multilingual in a polyglot world. On this day, everyone, young or old, is encouraged to take up a language or take special pride in his or her existing language skills.
There are about 225 indigenous languages in Europe, which may sound like a lot but is only 3 percent of the world's total. Children's events, television and radio programs, languages classes and conferences are organized across Europe. In past years, schoolchildren in Croatia created European flags and wrote "Hello" and "I love you" in dozens of tongues while older students sang "Brother John" in German, English, and French. At a German university, a diverse group of volunteer tutors held a 90-minute crash course in half a dozen languages, like a kind of native-tongue speed-dating, groups of participants spending just 15 minutes immersed in each dialect until the room was filled with Hungarian introductions, French Christmas songs, and discussions of Italian football scores.
** September 26th - by coincidence, this came up today on Garrison Keillor's "The Writer's Almanac": Today is the official European Day of Languages, which is a yearly event begun in 2001 to celebrate human language, encourage language learning, and bring attention to the importance of being multilingual in a polyglot world. On this day, everyone, young or old, is encouraged to take up a language or take special pride in his or her existing language skills.
There are about 225 indigenous languages in Europe, which may sound like a lot but is only 3 percent of the world's total. Children's events, television and radio programs, languages classes and conferences are organized across Europe. In past years, schoolchildren in Croatia created European flags and wrote "Hello" and "I love you" in dozens of tongues while older students sang "Brother John" in German, English, and French. At a German university, a diverse group of volunteer tutors held a 90-minute crash course in half a dozen languages, like a kind of native-tongue speed-dating, groups of participants spending just 15 minutes immersed in each dialect until the room was filled with Hungarian introductions, French Christmas songs, and discussions of Italian football scores.
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