English will not be an official EU language after Brexit, says senior MEP

No other EU country has English as their official language and so it could lose its status.

Danuta Hübner, the head of the European Parliament’s Constitutional Affairs Committee (AFCO), warned Monday that English will not be one of the European Union’s official languages after Britain leaves the EU.

English is one of the EU’s 24 official languages because the U.K. identified it as its own official language, Hübner said. But as soon as Britain completes the process to leave the EU, English could lose its status.

“We have a regulation … where every EU country has the right to notify one official language,” Hübner said. “The Irish have notified Gaelic, and the Maltese have notified Maltese, so you have only the U.K. notifying English.”

“If we don’t have the U.K., we don’t have English,” Hübner said.

English is one of the working languages in the European institutions, Hübner said, adding: “It’s actually the dominating language,” the one most frequently used by EU civil servants.

The regulation listing official languages of the EU would have to be changed unanimously by remaining countries if they want to keep English as an official language, Hübner said.

However, an EU source explained that the regulations governing official languages are themselves subject to more than one translation. The 1958 regulation regarding the official languages of the EU, which was originally written in French, does not say clearly whether a member country – Ireland or Malta for instance — can have more than one official language, an EU source said. Interpretations of the French wording tend to conclude that this might be possible, whereas the English version appears to rule this out.

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http://www.politico.eu/article/english-will-not-be-an-official-eu-language-after-brexit-senior-mep/

How Americans Have Reshaped Language

Much of the chapter on Philadelphia is about the city’s use of German in the 18th century. It’s interesting to learn that Benjamin Franklin was as irritated about the prevalence of German as many today are about that of Spanish, but the chapter is concerned less with language than straight history — and the history of a language that, after all, isn’t English. In the Chicago chapter, Bailey mentions the dialect literature of Finley Peter Dunne and George Ade but gives us barely a look at what was in it, despite the fact that these were invaluable glimpses of otherwise rarely recorded speech.

Especially unsatisfying is how little we learn about the development of Southern English and its synergistic relationship with black English. Bailey gives a hint of the lay of the land in an impolite but indicative remark about Southern child rearing, made by a British traveler in 1746: “They suffer them too much to prowl amongst the young Negroes, which insensibly causes them to imbibe their Manners and broken Speech.” In fact, Southern English and the old plantation economy overlap almost perfectly: white and black Southerners taught one another how to talk. There is now a literature on the subject, barely described in the book.

On black English, Bailey is also too uncritical of a 1962 survey that documented black Chicagoans as talking like their white neighbors except for scattered vowel differences (as in “pin” for “pen”). People speak differently for interviewers than they do among themselves, and modern linguists have techniques for eliciting people’s casual language that did not exist in 1962. Surely the rich and distinct — and by no means “broken” — English of today’s black people in Chicago did not arise only in the 1970s.

Elsewhere, Bailey ventures peculiar conclusions that may be traceable to his having died last year, before he had the chance to polish his text. (The book’s editors say they have elected to leave untouched some cases of “potential ambiguity.”) If, as Bailey notes, only a handful of New Orleans’s expressions reach beyond Arkansas, then exactly how was it that New Orleans was nationally influential as the place “where the great cleansing of American English took place”?

And was 17th-century America really “unlike almost any other community in the world” because it was “a cluster of various ways of speaking”? This judgment would seem to neglect the dozens of colonized regions worldwide at the time, when legions of new languages and dialects had already developed and were continuing to evolve. Of the many ways America has been unique, the sheer existence of roiling linguistic diversity has not been one of them.

The history of American English has been presented in more detailed and precise fashion elsewhere — by J. L. Dillard, and even, for the 19th century, by Bailey himself, in his under­read ­“Nineteenth-Century English.” Still, his handy tour is useful in imprinting a lesson sadly obscure to too many: as Bailey puts it, “Those who seek stability in English seldom find it; those who wish for uniformity become laughingstocks.”

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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/books/review/speaking-american-a-history-of-english-in-the-united-states-by-richard-w-bailey-book-review.html?_r=0

Why is Pakistan swapping English for Urdu?

The government is set to make Urdu its official language, 68 years after the country achieved independence from Britain.

Pakistan is to abolish English as its official language in favour of Urdu.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is backing the move, which would mean a range of government documents - including passports, utility bills and websites - will be published in Urdu.

All speeches made at home and abroad, from the president down to state representatives, will also be conducted in Urdu.

The plan is to completely replace English with Urdu for official business within the next 10 to 15 years.

It follows concerns that many young Pakistanis are shunning their national dress and language to adopt a more Western point of view.

Is this part of a cultural and nationalist revival? Or will it lead to a breakdown in communications?

And how does this translate around the world?

Read more on:

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/insidestory/2015/07/pakistan-swapping-english-urdu-language-150715161454573.html

What Britain's county dialects can tell us about the national character

Take a linguistic tour – a holus-bolus fidge-fadge, if you will – around some of Britain's most charming forgotten words.

When I examined the wonderful collection of glossaries of county dialects I realised just how monastic was the zeal with which the Victorian lexicographers went about their compiling. Just as they collected the rocks, butterflies and ancient antiquities that now fill our museums, so (predominantly between 1850 and 1880) they went around collecting examples of local dialect from every county in England and several in Scotland – and even some specific industrial communities such as the mining villages of Yorkshire and Durham.

I learned much about the British character through the English language. One of the more interesting aspects of English is the love of identifying action and sound through semi-onomatopoeic phrases. These jolly, affectionate and inventive expressions are known in the linguistics community as "reduplicative rhyming compounds".

The following examples make them self-explanatory: winky-pinky a Yorkshire nursery word for sleepy; nibby-gibby (coined in Cornwall in 1854) for touch and go; hockerty-cockerty (Scottish 1742) with one leg on each shoulder; inchy-pinchy (Warwickshire) the boy's game of progressive leapfrog; fidge-fadge (Yorkshire) a motion between walking and trotting; boris-noris (Dorset) careless, reckless, happy-go-lucky;hozzy nozzy (Rutland) not quite drunk and most rustically: wiffle-waffle(Northamptonshire) to whet one's scythes together.

Shropshire is the most exuberant of all with: aunty-praunty (Ellesmere) high-spirited, proud; bang-swang (Clee Hills) without thought or headlong; hobbety-hoy – a youth between boyhood and manhood;holus-bolus – impulsively; without deliberation; cobble-nobble – to rap on the head with the knuckles and perhaps most charmingly of all opple-scopple (Clun) to scramble for sweetmeats as children do.

The country's light-hearted humour is also inventively demonstrated through rhyming slang and not just famously among the Cockneys of east London. Mostly it simply rhymes, but sometimes the expressions take it further with the meaning carried across: borrow and beg (late 19th century) an egg (the term enjoyed a fresh lease of life during the second world war food-rationing period); give and take for cake (no cake can be eaten that has not been given – if only by a shopkeeper – and taken; cake also means money – "a cake of notes": that too needs to be given and taken); army and navy (early 20th century) gravy (which was plentiful at mealtimes in both services) and, most touchingly, didn't ought (late 19th century) port (wine) (inspired by the simpering of ladies who, when asked to "have another", replied that they "didn't ought").

Another predilection is the use of euphemisms, a result of delicacy and manners: well suggested by the word continuations (1825) for trousers (since they continued a Victorian male's waistcoat in a direction too delicate to mention). Likewise the functions that we often try and pretend are not actually happening on our regular trips to the loo or restrooms, where we go and empty the ashtrays (Manchester) or the teapot to make room for the next cup of tea (Buckinghamshire); see what time it is on the market clock (Bedfordshire); shake the dew from one's orchid (Cumbria);turn one's bike round (Suffolk); water the horses (Cheshire); wring out one's socks (Kent) or most effacing of all: see the vicar and book a seat for evensong (Isle of Wight).

The final dying action of the body is also something that people prefer not to confront directly, as the following euphemisms for dying attest:stick one's spoon in the wall (1800s); go west (Cockney); go trumpet-cleaning (late 19th century: the trumpeter being the angel Gabriel); drop one's leaf (c1820) or take the everlasting knock (1889) although perhaps the most poetic is to faint away in this vale of tears (Brompton Cemetery, London 1896).

Other topics of semi-taboo expression involve the evil of the devil, who is thus better known provincially as author of evil, black gentleman, fallen angel, old scratch, old split-foot and the noseless one. Just in the north-east of England he's been Clootie, Awd Horney, Scrat, Auld Nick and theBad Man, while Yorkshire has had him as Dicky Devlin; Gloucestershire as Miffy; and Suffolk as Jack-a-Dells. And likewise the sinister or underhand notions (originating from the Latin word sinister for left hand) of left-handed people have been variously described as molly-dukered,corrie-fisted and skerry-handit (Scotland); car-handed, cack-handed andcowie-handed (north-east): kay-fisted, kibbo, key-pawed, high-'ammered, caggy-ont (Lancashire): cuddy-wifter (Northumbria) kay-neeaved or dolly-posh (Yorkshire); keggy (East Midlands) andMarlborough-handed (Wiltshire). Oldest of all is awk (1440), an old English word which means "with or from the left hand" and thus the wrong way, backhanded, perverse or clumsy (hence awkward).

On more omnipresent themes, in scouring these dialects, I have unearthed all sorts of characters – from the Midlands jaisy, a polite and effeminate man, the Yorkshire stridewallops, a tall and awkward woman or the dardledumdue (Norfolk 1893), a person without energy. The English language has never been short of slurs for the stupid and colourfully describes them as a clumperton (mid-16th century), a dull-pickle or a fopdoodle (late 17th century) or a goostrumnoodle (Cornish 1871).

The weather is another eternal feature and Sussex is rich in its local lingo, with port-boys – small low clouds in a clear sky; windogs – white clouds blown by the wind; eddenbite – a mass of cloud in the form of a loop; slatch – a brief respite or interval in the weather; swallocky – sultry weather; shucky – unsettled weather; truggy – dirty weather; egger-nogger – sleet and smither diddles – bright spots on either side of the sun.

On matters of climate, Scotland has the final say. Either there is more weather in the cold, wet places of the world or people have more time to think about and define it.

The Scots may not have as many words for snow as the Inuits, but they have a fine vocabulary for their generally cool and damp climate. Dreichis their highly evocative word for a miserably wet day. Gentle rain or smirrmight be falling, either in a dribble (drizzle) or a dreep (steady but light rainfall). Plowtery (showery) weather may shift to a gandiegow (squall), apish-oot (complete downpour) or a thunder-plump (sudden rainstorm accompanied by thunder and lightning). Any of these are likely to make the average walker feel dowie (downhearted) as they push on through the slaister (liquid bog) and glaur (mire), even if they're not yet drookit(soaked to the skin). The track in front of them will probably be covered with dubs (puddles), as the neighbouring burn (stream) grows into a fast-flowing linn (torrent). For a precious few fair days in summer, there may even be a simmer cowt (heat haze), though the more austere will be relieved that the likelihood of discomfort remains high on account of the fierce-biting mudges (midges).

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http://www.theguardian.com/education/mind-your-language/2014/apr/02/what-british-dialects-tell-us-about-national-character

How the French language circulated in Britain and medieval Europe

A 13th-century manuscript of Arthurian legend once owned by the Knights Templar is one of the star attractions of a new exhibition opening today at Cambridge University Library.

An important manuscript of the Lancelot-Grail, it lay forgotten and unopened for five centuries until its rediscovery in North Yorkshire and its sale in 1944. Detailing the search for the Holy Grail, it goes on public display for the first time alongside the only existing fragment of an episode from the earliest-known version of the Tristan and Isolde legend. Also on display is an early example of the kind of guide familiar to thousands of today’s holiday-makers: a French phrasebook.

A free exhibition, The Moving Word: French Medieval Manuscripts in Cambridge, looks at the enormous cultural and historic impact of the French language upon life in England, Europe, the Middle East and beyond at a time when French – like Latin before it and English today – was the global language of culture, commerce and politics.

The exhibition, curated by Bill Burgwinkle and Nicola Morato, is part of a wider AHRC-funded research project (http://www.medievalfrancophone.ac.uk) looking at the question of how knowledge travelled in manuscript form through the continent and into the Eastern Mediterranean world, freely crossing linguistic and cultural boundaries at a time when France was a much smaller political entity than it is today.

Burgwinkle, Professor of Medieval French and Occitan Literature at Cambridge, said: “French may have been brought to England by the Normans in 1066 but it was already here well before then as a language of knowledge and commerce. It served as the mother tongue of every English king for almost 400 years, from William the Conqueror to Richard II, and it was still in use as a language of royalty, politics and literature until the Tudor period, when we see Henry VIII writing love letters in French to Anne Boleyn.

“Cambridge University is home to one of the world’s finest collections of medieval manuscripts of this kind. This exhibition not only gives us a chance to display the Library’s treasures, but also reminds us how the French language has enriched our cultural past and left us with a legacy that continues to be felt in 21st century Britain.

“Medieval texts like the ones we have on display became the basis of European literature. The idea that post-classical Western literature really begins with the Renaissance is completely false. It begins right here, among the very manuscripts and fragments in this exhibition. People may not realise it, but many of the earliest and most beautiful versions of  the legends of Arthur, Lancelot and the Round Table were written in French; The Moving Word is a celebration of a period sometimes unfairly written out of literary history.”

The early phrasebook, a guide to French conversation for travellers, is the Manières de language (1396). Composed in Bury St Edmunds and one of four in existence, it provides a series of dialogues for those travelling in France that inform readers how to trade with merchants, haggle over prices, secure an inn for the night, stop a child crying, speak endearingly to your lover or insult them. It also has instructions for singing the ‘most gracious and amorous’ love song in the world.

Elsewhere, perhaps some of the most impressive exhibits on display are huge medieval manuscripts that acted as compendiums of knowledge. One such example is a multilingual encyclopaedia from the 1300s featuring more than fifty texts of historical, cosmographical, literary and devotional interest. A heavily decorated volume, it is unusual for its thickness, and deals with, among other subjects, the roundness of the Earth and the force of gravity – centuries before Newton defined its laws.

In contrast, the fragment of Thomas d’Angleterre’s Roman de Tristan (Tristan and Iseut) may appear small in comparison, but its size belies its importance to the Cambridge collections.  Thomas’s Tristan romance is the oldest known surviving version of the tragic love story. His work formed the basis of Gottfried von Strassburg’s German Tristan romance of the 13th century, which in turn provided the chief source for Wagner’s famous opera Tristan und Isolde. The fragment on display, detailing King Marc’s discovery of his wife Iseut and nephew Tristan sleeping together in a wood, is the sole witness of this scene from Thomas’s text to survive into the present.

Contributing Source : Cambridge University  
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