28th March 2013
Spoken English
Last week, I was a judge in an English speaking competition in Minsk, as part of a world-wide competition organised by the English Speaking Union. And then I gave a speech in English at Friendship House (Дом Дружбы).
It was a humbling experience to listen to 12 young people from Belarus speaking English fluently – far better than I can speak Russian. Their range of vocabulary and the sophistication of their sentences were very impressive.
One of the issues I raised with them was speed. I suggested they could be slower, so their audience could keep up. Despite my own advice, I probably spoke too quickly when I gave my speech. That often happens when the adrenalin is pumping, and you get nervous. The excitement of the event forces you to speak faster. But without nerves, you probably won’t perform.
I subsequently did a quick internet search for some advice on speaking. I had told the competitors that I thought Barack Obama spoke at 60 words a minute. In fact, according to my internet search, when he gave his acceptance speech in Chicago immediately after the 2008 Presidential election, President Obama spoke at 90 words a minute. It was slow because he used all the tricks of “pitch, pace and pause” to maximum effect.
While pace may have been a problem for me, I didn’t really notice the pronunciation of the competitors. They had a range of accents and a few words were spoken that didn’t sound right. But none of their performances was affected or undermined by their pronunciation.
There are still marked differences in the accents and pronunciations in the various regions of Britain. A thick Glaswegian accent is still a complete mystery to anyone who lives in southern England. And of course, there are a lot of, differences in grammar, as well as pronunciation, between British English and American English.
I’m not sure whether the lack of a standard pronunciation is a cause or effect of English not being a phonetic language. But pronunciation has changed. Many academics believe that the American pronunciation, especially their elongated vowels, is closer to how English was spoken in Shakespeare’s time, than the English spoken in Britain today.
When Samuel Johnson was working on his great dictionary, he wrote that he hoped to produce a dictionary
“… by which the pronunciation of our language may be fixed and its purity preserved”. By the time he finally published it in 1755, he admitted he had failed. In typically florid prose, he wrote: “Those who have been persuaded to think well of my design, require that it should fix our language and put a stop to those alterations which time and chance have hitherto been suffered to make in it without opposition. With this consequence I will confess that I flattered myself for a while; but now begin to fear that I have indulged expectation which neither reason nor experience can justify.”
All languages change over time. Other nations set up academies to establish rules for their language. We, the British, have never bothered.
Before I began writing this blog and reflecting on my own language, I hadn’t realised that we used to have genders for all nouns, just like other Indo-European languages. But at some point between the 11th and 14th centuries, when Old English was merging with the French brought in by the Normans, my forebears dropped gender.
It is as if we opted for having a wider vocabulary, instead of complicated grammar. Or another example of English pragmatism?
Hi Bruce,
You mention one of the best features of English – that ‘gender follows sex’ – so being determined according to biological reality (where that is known) and therefore, most nouns are ascribed neutral gender. Use of English as a ‘global lingo’ avoids having to determine the gender of new objects, such as the French Academy choosing masculine gender for computers (intelligent things!) while giving feminine gender to rubbish/trash bins. It also saves having linguistic wars re gender, eg, between Germany and France as to the sun and the moon. An English speaker will normally speak of sun or moon as neutral (‘it’) but they are also free in poetry to give them masculine or feminine gender. This mental freedom is valuable.
Sadly, English and other European languages, though rich in nouns, are very poor in pronouns. Perhaps this is because Europeans are less interested in personal relationships and much more focused on physical things (which they can control, own, sell, mortgage, steal, etc.) I find the paucity of pronouns in English is the biggest limitation on its facility for highly competent native speakers.
My questions – Didn’t the English attempt an official guardian body of the language which was abandoned as ‘impossible’ long before the French established their Academy – so allowing English to be an ‘open’ language that belongs to its users;
and wasn’t Samuel Johnson part of that move?
Surely the existence of a guardian Academy in France disqualified French from ever becoming a global ‘lingo’;
but surely also, English suffers badly, being ‘dumbed down’ by its use by so many people in the world who don’t know it (except superficially) but who think they do?
You mention British English and American English but I assume you accept that Oz English is the best of them all?? :))
David of Oz: Thank you for your questions, and good to meet you last week.
Guardian body of the English language: I don’t know whether one was conceived, but the Academie Francaise was first estabhlished first in 1635, long before Johnson was born.
So many users: I don’t think English suffers from “dumbing down”. Its advantage is precisely because it has relatively simple grammar and is constantly evolving.
Oz English? I couldn’t comment. Good luck for the rest of the Ashes.
Diolch Eschn yn ol at y canlyniadau. Noson bonnie o Stuttgart.
Noswaith dda, Bruce – eich adrodiadd ´Siaradodd erwyn cysylltu a hrn “English siarad” anhygoel ac rwyf o´r galon ! Fy parck. Rwyn mawr obeitho fy mod darf. Auch ay ´n ysgrifennu yn y Gyrniag Eich illuniau yn syml ´grossaertig ´. Mae ´r del weddau hefyd yu wunderschn. Aber Kaitel am eich gem gerddoriaeth. Llawer o gariad a ´r Pasg hapüs, best wishes and a “happy good Friday”, peaceful Easterdays and oin schöner Osterhase ond grosse Eier, Ingo-Steven Wais, Stutengarten/Cardiff
Diolch i chi am eich sylwadau.
Dear Bruce, pls. allow to start my lines by interpreting your last chapter. For it ´s very interesting to raed , that at some point the OLD ENGLISH merged with the French. One fact which is absolutely new to me. And so was also Samuel Johnson ´s grat and new English dictionary of 1755. So , in my way of thinking, he also used already French in his outstanding work. But until today I only can agree to you, that they are still marked differences between the various areas of the United Kingdom. I mean, I could esily write an entire report in Welsh but outside of Wales/Cymru- no one would understand me.
By the way : Is sthg. like a Welsh comment or article allowed at all ?
To conclude : It ´s quite funny to read, that these 12 young people of Belarus spoke faster English- as you spoke in Russian.
Best wishes + a “HAPPY EASTER”!, Hawyl faur ond ein frohes Ostern aus Stutengarten and Caerdydd. Ingo-Steven Wais