the future of English?!

[BobK]

Originally Posted by stuartnz

.... I would strongly recommend the following three books to anyone who thinks that there is one "proper English" and that anybody not speaking that one variant is just plain wrong:

Linguistics and Your Language — Robert A. Hall Jr.

Language Myths — edited by Laurie Bauer and Peter Trudgill.

The Unfolding of Language - Guy Deutscher.

--

I'd add this one: The Stories of English - David Crystal

b

[freezone13]

Originally Posted by banderas

I do not promote "one pure English", stewart.

Let me give you one exapmle. In London there is a big polish community. Most of these folks decided to find a better life here which is fine. They speak a poor English and the problem is they do not do much to improve it. Let's say these circumstances do not change for next 15 years and their level of English is remains the same.

Let's say they plan on getting back to their country, let's say they do not need to speak English fluently especially doing crappy jobs and let's just say that maybe you are better at speaking English than the rest of YOUR community and you want to stress it. If you are good at it you can help your community to get better and in 15 years' time nothing will have remained the same.

Good Luck,
Simon

[banderas]

Originally Posted by freezone13

Let's say they plan on getting back to their country, let's say they do not need to speak English fluently especially doing crappy jobs, you would be surprised how many do good jobs and their English is still average... and let's just say that maybe you are better at speaking English than the rest of YOUR community and you want to stress it. If you are good at it you can help your community to get better and in 15 years' time nothing will have remained the same. I do.
With all due respect, this thread is not about future of Polish community in London, right?
cheers

Good Luck,
Simon

k

[Vibovit]

He predicts English will become a family of languages, just as Latin did a thousand years ago.

But globalization has "killed distance" since... unlike a thousand years ago, we have the internet, cheap airlines etc., a global village is not very likely to follow the same pattern as the ancient or early medieval world. Will - say - pop stars from Singapore sing in incomprehensible creole?