McCrum - Globish: how the English language became the worlds language

For certainly our language now used varyeth far from that which was used and spoken when I was born. For we Englishmen have been born under the domination of the moon, which is never steadfast, but ever wavering and waxing one season.

WILLIAM CAXTON, PROLOGUE TO ENYDOS

In all pointed sentences, some degree of accuracy must be sacrificed to conciseness.

SAMUEL JOHNSON ,
THE BRAVERY OF THE COMMON ENGLISH SOLDIER

The English language is not an abstract construction of dictionary makers. It is the powerful language of resistance; it is the dialect of common sense. It is the speech of the proud and melancholy races and of all who aspire; it has its basis broad and low, close to the ground.

WALT WHITMAN, PREFACE TO LEAVES OF GRASS

The Renmin University of China, also known as the Peoples University, in Beijing, has about 36,000 students, studying everything from politics to social anthropology. The university, one of several in the capital, is based to the north-west of the city, on Zhongguancan street in Haidian district. Its alumni are typical of the postMao Zedong generation. Every Friday evening, quite informally, several hundred gather in the so-called English Corner to hold English conversation. This extraordinary scene, reiterated on campuses across China today, is a popular routine that says a lot about the aspirations of contemporary Chineseand the state of the nation. This is, after all, an authoritarian, one-party regime in which dissent is ruthlessly crushed, and its enemies imprisoned, beaten up, or sent into exile. However, here in the twilight, on a cool March Friday, under the shady pine trees of a little square, there are hundreds of young Chinese in running shoes, jeans and puffa jackets chatting together, in English, about anything and everything, including asides about Tiananmen Square. I remember the Soviet Union before glasnost and perestroika in which the atmosphere was menacing and fearful; surveillance everywhere; and the state inflexibly vigilant. This feels different. Perhaps these Chinese have been cunningly infiltrated by informers, or perhaps everyone is exercising heroic self-censorship about the topics that matter, but the mood is unquenchably relaxed, friendly and inspired by a common purpose, which is to learn better English.

As a tall westerner, I stand out in this crowd like Gulliver, and it is not difficult to start up a conversation. When I begin with Im from London, about a dozen students crowd round at once. Everyones interested, theres a murmur of London across the group. One brave soul strikes up with Where in Lon-don? I explain that my home is near Notting Hill. Oh yes, they have all heard of Notting Hill . Now the conversation, initially a stilted Q & A, goes quickly forward: movies, film stars, Hollywood, AmericaSo then, I ask: Has anyone been to Americaor London? No, not yet; but they all seem to want to. I hand out Chinese business cards with an email address. We get onto the US presidential race. Hillary is a hard name for the locals to get their tongues round, but apart from a few stumbles, the level of conversation is remarkably high. The groups interest is really to ask about the UK, about soccer, Victoria Beckham, BBC television and so forth. Eventually, I move on to another circle, which is learning basic language skills by rote.

The instructor stands by a blackboard, as much like a bookie at a racetrack as a foreign language teacher, and reads out a line of English: Im sorry I misjudged you, Mr Prescott. The group repeats it: Im sorry I misjudged you, Mr Prescott . Someone hands me a flyer with some Chinese characters beneath the slogan Never Let Spoken English Become Your Limitation. The teacher intones another line: If you hate this job, why dont you quit? If you hate this job , repeats the group with the furrowed concentration of a prayer meeting, why dont you quit? Jobs arent that easy to come by, says the teacher. Jobs arent that easy to come by , repeats the class. Less than a conversation, this seems more like boot camp, but no ones complaining. They are here to join the English-speaking world, and will submit to whatever extraordinary adjustment it takes. After all, Mandarin (more than 1,000 million speakers) outnumbers the global figure for English by more than two to one, and the marketing of Chinas quest for English suggests that even the Chinese recognize it as slightly eccentric. One of the more popular ways of learning English in China is through a course entitled Crazy English, where the emphasis is on learning to speak the language before writing it down: To shout loud, you learn. But the process is not as bizarre as one might think and the way that the English language has travelled and changed through time and space throws up many examples of contemporary craziness.