Englishisation

Last updated

An amalgamation of the flags that represent America and Britain, the two countries at the forefront of spreading English across the world. English language.svg
An amalgamation of the flags that represent America and Britain, the two countries at the forefront of spreading English across the world.

Englishisation refers to the introduction of English-language influences into other languages. English, as a world language, has had a very significant impact on other languages, with many languages borrowing words or grammar from English or forming calques based on English words. [1] Englishisation is often paired with the introduction of Western culture into other cultures, [2] and has resulted in a significant degree of code-mixing of English with other languages as well as the appearance of new varieties of English. [3] [4] Other languages have also synthesised new literary genres through their contact with English, [5] and various forms of "language play" have emerged through this interaction. [6] Englishisation has also occurred in subtle ways because of the massive amount of English content that is translated into other languages. [7]

Contents

Englishisation first happened on a worldwide scale because of the spread of the British Empire and American cultural influence, as the English language historically played a major role in the administration of Britain's colonies and is highly relevant in the modern wave of globalisation. [8] [9] [10] One of the reasons for Englishisation is because other languages sometimes lacked vocabulary to talk about certain things, such as modern technologies or scientific concepts. [11] Another reason is that English is often considered a prestige language which symbolises or improves the educatedness or status of a speaker. [12]

In some cases, Englishisation clashes with linguistic purism or the influence of other prestige languages, [13] as is the case with the contested Hindustani language, [14] which in its Englishised form becomes Hinglish, but which some seek to instead Sanskritise or Persianise in part as a reaction to the colonial associations of the English language within South Asia. [5] [15]

Around the world

Africa

Pidgin Englishes are common throughout Africa, such as West African Pidgin English. [16] [17]

Swahili, which is common in the former British colonies of East Africa, has been intentionally Englishised in order to allow for more conversation around modern technologies and concepts. [18]

Americas

The Spanish language, which is widespread in the Americas, typically received loanwards from British English (often through French) until the 1950s, when American English's influence became more prominent. [19]

Northern America

A sign in Miami using the English word free instead of the Spanish gratis. Spanglish sign for mecanic.jpg
A sign in Miami using the English word free instead of the Spanish gratis.

Spanish as spoken in the United States has significant amounts of English influence, dating back to the early 19th century and America's southwestern territorial expansion into Mexico. [20]

Latin America and the Caribbean

English influences are common in Puerto Rican Spanish, due to the Americanisation of the island since the turn of the 20th century. [21]

Asia

East Asia

Pinyin, a Romanisation scheme, has aided Chinese speakers in learning English. Example of Chinese Pinyin.png
Pinyin, a Romanisation scheme, has aided Chinese speakers in learning English.

Both Japanese and Korean have borrowed many words from English. [23] In Japan, English words are often used in a "decorative" manner to make a message look more modern. [24]

In China, English vocabulary had a minimal influence on local languages, with new words often being coined to replace historical English loanwords. This is due in part to the Chinese writing system, which favours words which can be broken down into meaningful components. [25] An exception to this is Hong Kong Cantonese, which has many words from English due to British rule in the city until 1997. [26] Taiwan also tends to borrow more words directly from English. [25] However, English grammar did have an influence on Chinese due to the amount of material being translated between the two languages during the Westernisation of China. [27]

South Asia

A poster for the 1943 Bollywood film Kismet, which features the movie's name written in three different alphabets: Roman, Devanagari, and Urdu scripts. (in Hunterian: qismat) Kismet-1943-movie-poster.jpg
A poster for the 1943 Bollywood film Kismet, which features the movie's name written in three different alphabets: Roman, Devanagari, and Urdu scripts. (in Hunterian: qismat)

English has been accepted in South Asia to some extent because of its neutrality i.e. its lack of association with any ethnic group in the region. It has played a significant role in enabling migration within the Indian subcontinent, and contributes a major share of the vocabulary used in more technical fields; [28] [29] [30] [31] even when Sanskrit words have been created to replace English words, they are often calqued off of English words. [32] [33] [34]

Due to the nature and long duration of British rule in India, some of the English words used are of military origin or are now obscure in the rest of the English-speaking world. [35]

Southeast Asia

The English language has had a significant influence on Tagalog since the 1898 American acquisition of the Philippines. [36]

West Asia

English has had a growing presence in the Middle East due to the need for locals to interact with expatriate workers. [37] Modern Standard Arabic has been noted for incorporating new speech reporting styles (ways of quoting other people's words) due to Englishisation. [38] The Turkish language has become more open to English influences due to Turkey's Westernisation in the early 20th century and adoption of the Latin alphabet. [39]

Because English is among the most common languages in Israel, it has also influenced Modern Hebrew, [40] though it has less presence in the Arab areas. [41] English's role in Israel became more prevalent with the 1967 Six-Day War and later cultural Americanisation. [42]

Europe

The initial spread of the English language took place with continental Europeans who conquered England. England then spread the language through the rest of the British Isles, sometimes through conquest. [43]

Some languages in Europe, such as some of the Scandinavian languages, have been prone to significant Englishisation, while other languages, such as Icelandic, have tended towards linguistic purism. [44] The similarity and long-standing history of English having connections with Western European languages has played a role in its modern-day influence on them, [45] [46] [47] and has resulted in altered interpretations of English words in some cases. [48] Englishisation has occurred to some extent particularly in the business and finance-related vocabularies of various European languages. [49] Some impacts of Englishisation have worn off over time, as Englishisation sometimes takes place in a way that is too "trendy" and which does not become well-absorbed into a given language. [50]

There is also research around the increasing usage of English in European universities. [51]

Oceania

Several English-based creoles were formed in Oceania during the colonial period, with even the English spoken in British colonies such as Australia and New Zealand mixing with local languages. In modern times, the appeal of Australia and New Zealand has served to bolster the English language in the region. [52]

See also

Related Research Articles

International English is the concept of using the English language as a global means of communication similar to an international auxiliary language, and often refers to the movement towards an international standard for the language. Related and sometimes synonymous terms include: Global English, World English, Continental English, General English and Common English. These terms may describe the fact that English is spoken and used in numerous dialects around the world or refer to a desired standardisation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Urdu</span> Language spoken in South Asia

Urdu is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in South Asia. It is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan. In India, where Urdu arose, it is an Eighth Schedule language, the status and cultural heritage of which are recognised by the Constitution of India. It also has an official status in several Indian states.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hindustani language</span> Indo-Aryan language spoken in India and Pakistan

Hindustani is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in North India and Pakistan, and functioning as the lingua franca of the region. It is also spoken by the Deccani people. Hindustani is a pluricentric language with two standard registers, known as Hindi and Urdu which serve as official languages of India and Pakistan, respectively. Thus, it is also called Hindi–Urdu. Colloquial registers of the language fall on a spectrum between these standards. In modern times, a third variety of Hindustani with significant English influences has also appeared, which is sometimes called Hinglish or Urdish.

A pseudo-anglicism is a word in another language that is formed from English elements and may appear to be English, but that does not exist as an English word with the same meaning.

Hinglish is the macaronic hybrid use of English and the Hindustani language. Its name is a portmanteau of the words Hindi and English. In the context of spoken language, it involves code-switching or translanguaging between these languages whereby they are freely interchanged within a sentence or between sentences.

An anglicism is a word or construction borrowed from English by another language. With the rise in Anglophone media and the global spread of British and US colonialism in the 20th century and cultures in the 21st century, many English terms have become widespread in other languages. Technology-related English words like internet and computer are prevalent across the globe, as there are no pre-existing words for them. English words are sometimes imported verbatim and sometimes adapted to the importing language in a process similar to anglicisation. In languages with non-Latin alphabets, these borrowed words can be written in the Latin alphabet anyway, resulting in a text made up of a mixture of scripts; other times they are transliterated. Transliteration of English and other foreign words into Japanese generally uses the katakana script.

Swenglish is a colloquial term referring to the English language heavily influenced by Swedish in terms of vocabulary, grammar, or pronunciation.

South Asian English is the English accent of many modern-day South Asian countries, inherited from British English dialect. Also known as Anglo-Indian English during the British Raj, the English language was introduced to the Indian subcontinent in the early 17th century and reinforced by the long rule of the British Empire. Today it is spoken as a second language by about 350 million people, 20% of the total population.

Braj Bihari Kachru was an Indian-American linguist. He was Jubilee Professor of Linguistics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He published studies on the Kashmiri language.

Hindustani is one of the predominant languages of South Asia, with federal status in the republics of India and Pakistan in its standardized forms of Hindi and Urdu respectively. It is widely spoken and understood as a second language in Nepal, Bangladesh, and the Persian Gulf and as such is considered a lingua franca in the northern Indian subcontinent. It is also one of the most widely spoken languages in the world by total number of speakers. It developed in north India, principally during the Mughal Empire, when the Persian language exerted a strong influence on the Western Hindi languages of central India; this contact between the Hindu and Muslim cultures resulted in the core Indo-Aryan vocabulary of the Indian dialect of Hindi spoken in Delhi, whose earliest form is known as Old Hindi, being enriched with Persian loanwords. Rekhta, or "mixed" speech, which came to be known as Hindustani, Hindi, Hindavi, and Urdu, also locally known as Lashkari or Lashkari Zaban in long form, was thus created. This form was elevated to the status of a literary language, and after the partition of colonial India and independence this collection of dialects became the basis for modern standard Hindi and Urdu. Although these official languages are distinct registers with regards to their formal aspects, such as modern technical vocabulary, they continue to be all but indistinguishable in their vernacular form. From the colonial era onwards, Hindustani has also taken in many words from English, with an urban English-influenced variety emerging known as Hinglish.

Indian English has developed a number of dialects, distinct from the General/Standard Indian English that educators have attempted to establish and institutionalise, and it is possible to distinguish a person's sociolinguistic background from the dialect that they employ. These dialects are influenced by the different languages that different sections of the country also speak, side by side with English. The dialects can differ markedly in their phonology, to the point that two speakers using two different dialects can find each other's accents mutually unintelligible.

Sanskritism is a term used to indicate words that are coined out of Sanskrit for modern usage in India, in Sri Lanka and elsewhere or for neologisms. They are often formed as calques of English words. These terms are similar in nature to taxon terms coined from Latin and Greek.

World Englishes is a term for emerging localized or indigenized varieties of English, especially varieties that have developed in territories influenced by the United Kingdom or the United States. The study of World Englishes consists of identifying varieties of English used in diverse sociolinguistic contexts globally and analyzing how sociolinguistic histories, multicultural backgrounds and contexts of function influence the use of English in different regions of the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">English language</span> West Germanic language

English is a West Germanic language in the Indo-European language family, whose speakers, called Anglophones, originated in early medieval England on the island of Great Britain. The namesake of the language is the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to Britain. It is the most spoken language in the world, primarily due to the global influences of the former British Empire and the United States. English is the third-most spoken native language, after Standard Chinese and Spanish; it is also the most widely learned second language in the world, with more second-language speakers than native speakers.

Nativization is the process through which in the virtual absence of native speakers, a language undergoes new phonological, morphological, syntactical, semantic and stylistic changes, and gains new native speakers. This happens necessarily when a second language used by adult parents becomes the native language of their children. Nativization has been of particular interest to linguists, and to creolists more specifically, where the second language concerned is a pidgin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Translingualism</span> Aspects relevant across several languages

Translingual phenomena are words and other aspects of language that are relevant in more than one language. Thus "translingual" may mean "existing in multiple languages" or "having the same meaning in many languages"; and sometimes "containing words of multiple languages" or "operating between different languages". Translingualism is the phenomenon of translingually relevant aspects of language; a translingualism is an instance thereof. The word comes from trans-, meaning "across", and lingual, meaning "having to do with languages (tongues)"; thus, it means "across tongues", that is, "across languages". Internationalisms offer many examples of translingual vocabulary. For example, international scientific vocabulary comprises thousands of translingual words and combining forms.

Yamuna Kachru was Professor Emerita of Linguistics at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Henry R. Kahane was a Romance philologist and linguist. His father was the Berlin literary figure, Arthur Kahane, a close collaborator of Max Reinhardt. In 1931 he married Renée Toole, who he met when they were both PhD students in Berlin. She became his lifelong intellectual partner.

Renée Kahane was a Romance philologist and linguist.

Sanskritisation is the process of introducing features from Sanskrit, such as vocabulary and grammar, into other languages. It is sometimes associated with the "Hinduisation" of a linguistic community, or less commonly, with introducing a more upper-caste status into a community. Many languages throughout South Asia and Southeast Asia were greatly influenced by Sanskrit historically.

References

  1. ↑ Bolton, Kingsley; Kachru, Braj B. (2006). World Englishes: Critical Concepts in Linguistics. Taylor & Francis. ISBN   978-0-415-31509-8.
  2. ↑ Shibata, Ayako (2009). "Englishization in Asia: Language and Cultural Issues". Asian Englishes. 12 (2): 84–87. doi:10.1080/13488678.2009.10801262. ISSN   1348-8678. S2CID   154078463.
  3. ↑ Bolton, Kingsley; Kachru, Braj B. (2006). World Englishes: Critical Concepts in Linguistics. Taylor & Francis. ISBN   978-0-415-31509-8.
  4. ↑ Chapelle, Carol A., ed. (2013-01-30). The Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics (1 ed.). Wiley. doi:10.1002/9781405198431.wbeal0550.pub2. ISBN   978-1-4051-9473-0. S2CID   236410953.
  5. 1 2 Kachru, Yamuna; Nelson, Cecil L. (2006-04-01). World Englishes in Asian Contexts. Hong Kong University Press. ISBN   978-962-209-755-1.
  6. ↑ Rivlina, Alexandra A. (2019-11-27), Nelson, Cecil L.; Proshina, Zoya G.; Davis, Daniel R. (eds.), "Bilingual Language Play and World Englishes", The Handbook of World Englishes (1 ed.), Wiley, pp. 407–429, doi:10.1002/9781119147282.ch23, ISBN   978-1-119-16421-0, S2CID   213855655 , retrieved 2023-10-29
  7. ↑ Kruger, Alet; Wallmach, Kim; Munday, Jeremy (2011-06-16). Corpus-Based Translation Studies: Research and Applications. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN   978-1-4411-8919-6.
  8. ↑ Tam, Kwok-kan (2019), Tam, Kwok-kan (ed.), "Introduction: Englishization and the New Asian Subjectivity", The Englishized Subject: Postcolonial Writings in Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia, Singapore: Springer, pp. 1–13, doi:10.1007/978-981-13-2520-5_1, ISBN   978-981-13-2520-5, S2CID   159222176 , retrieved 2023-10-29
  9. ↑ Boussebaa, Mehdi; Brown, Andrew D. (2017). "Englishization, Identity Regulation and Imperialism". Organization Studies. 38 (1): 7–29. doi:10.1177/0170840616655494. ISSN   0170-8406. S2CID   148270845.
  10. ↑ Khan, Mansoor Ahmed. "The Future of English by David Graddol".{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  11. ↑ Schneider, Edgar W. (2014). "New reflections on the evolutionary dynamics of world Englishes". World Englishes. 33 (1): 9–32. doi:10.1111/weng.12069. ISSN   0883-2919.
  12. ↑ Kachru, Braj B. (1992). The Other Tongue: English Across Cultures. University of Illinois Press. ISBN   978-0-252-06200-1.
  13. ↑ Mikanowski, Jacob (2018-07-27). "Behemoth, bully, thief: how the English language is taking over the planet". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 2023-11-14.
  14. ↑ Yamuna Kachru. "Corpus planning for modernization: Sanskritization and Englishization of Hindi". Studies in the Linguistic Sciences, Vol. 19, No. 1, Spring 1989, pages 153-164
  15. ↑ Rauch, Irmengard; Carr, Gerald F. (2018-02-19). Linguistic Method: Essays in Honor of Herbert Penzl. Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. ISBN   978-3-11-081566-5.
  16. ↑ van Rooy, Bertus (2020), Schreier, Daniel; Schneider, Edgar W.; Hundt, Marianne (eds.), "English in Africa", The Cambridge Handbook of World Englishes, Cambridge Handbooks in Language and Linguistics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 210–235, ISBN   978-1-108-42595-7 , retrieved 2024-05-01
  17. ↑ Mesthrie, Rajend (2016-07-24). "How the Queen's English has had to defer to Africa's rich multilingualism". The Conversation. Retrieved 2024-05-01.
  18. ↑ Kishe, Anne J. (1994). "The Englishization of Tanzanian Kiswahili". World Englishes. 13 (2): 185–201. doi:10.1111/j.1467-971X.1994.tb00306.x. ISSN   0883-2919.
  19. ↑ Penny, Ralph John (2002-10-21). A History of the Spanish Language. Cambridge University Press. ISBN   978-0-521-01184-6.
  20. ↑ "The influence of English on U.S. Spanish: Introduction - ProQuest". www.proquest.com. Retrieved 2024-11-08.
  21. ↑ DesRochers, Aly. "Research Guides: Yo Soy (I am): The Historical Trajectory of Language in Puerto Rico: English Language Influence". guides.loc.gov. Retrieved 2024-11-08.
  22. ↑ Dong, Shuyang (2023-10-31). "The Influence of Pinyin on English Learning and the Way to Learn Phonetic Symbols Correctly to Avoid the Adverse Effect of Pinyin". Atlantis Press: 436–442. doi: 10.2991/978-2-38476-126-5_51 . ISBN   978-2-38476-126-5.{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  23. ↑ Yoneoka, Judy (2005). "The Striking Similarity between Korean and Japanese English Vocabulary: — historical and linguistic relationships —". Asian Englishes. 8 (1): 26–47. doi:10.1080/13488678.2005.10801153. ISSN   1348-8678.
  24. ↑ Jozuka, Emiko (2020-02-26). "When languages collide: How Japanese and English merged to create a new language". CNN. Retrieved 2024-05-01.
  25. 1 2 Zhang, Liulin (2024-01-03). "On the Chinese resistance to lexical borrowing: a writing-driven self-purification system". Humanities and Social Sciences Communications. 11 (1): 1–9. doi: 10.1057/s41599-023-02556-3 . ISSN   2662-9992.
  26. ↑ "Hongkongers mix English and Cantonese into new language, Kongish". South China Morning Post. 2016-01-21. Retrieved 2024-10-29.
  27. ↑ HSU, JIA‐LING (1994). "Englishization and language change in modern Chinese in Taiwan". World Englishes. 13 (2): 167–184. doi:10.1111/j.1467-971x.1994.tb00305.x. ISSN   0883-2919.
  28. ↑ Cheshire, Jenny (1991-04-26). English around the World: Sociolinguistic Perspectives. Cambridge University Press. ISBN   978-1-316-58235-0.
  29. ↑ Rauch, Irmengard; Carr, Gerald F. (2018-02-19). Linguistic Method: Essays in Honor of Herbert Penzl. Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. ISBN   978-3-11-081566-5.
  30. ↑ Hodges, Amy; Seawright, Leslie (2014-09-26). Going Global: Transnational Perspectives on Globalization, Language, and Education. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. ISBN   978-1-4438-6761-0.
  31. ↑ Kachru, Braj B. (1986). The Alchemy of English: The Spread, Functions, and Models of Non-native Englishes. University of Illinois Press. ISBN   978-0-252-06172-1.
  32. ↑ Hock, Hans Henrich (1992). "A note on English and modern Sanskrit". World Englishes. 11 (2–3): 163–171. doi:10.1111/j.1467-971X.1992.tb00061.x. ISSN   0883-2919.
  33. ↑ Revisiting the Making of Hindi as a ‘National’ Language Ganpat Teli, M.Phil.
  34. ↑ D'Souza, Jean (1987). "English in India's language modernization". World Englishes. 6 (1): 63–70. doi:10.1111/j.1467-971X.1987.tb00177.x. ISSN   0883-2919.
  35. ↑ "English explodes in India - and it's not just Hinglish". BBC News. 2014-06-30. Retrieved 2024-11-24.
  36. ↑ "On the Influence of English on the Tagalog Language | The Archive".{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  37. ↑ Hewish, Tim (2014). Old friends, new deals : the route to the UK's global prosperity through international networks. London : Institute of Economic Affairs. p. 67.
  38. ↑ Al-Wahy, Ahmed Seddik (2021-08-01). "The influence of English on Modern Standard Arabic speech reporting styles: A corpus-based study". Lingua. 259: 103084. doi:10.1016/j.lingua.2021.103084. ISSN   0024-3841.
  39. ↑ Zok, David (2010). "Turkey's Language Revolution and the Status of English Today". The English Languages: History, Diaspora, Culture. 1. ISSN   1929-5855.
  40. ↑ The Impact of English on Modern Hebrew Shabtai A. Teveth
  41. ↑ Shohamy, Elana (2014). "The Weight of English in Global Perspective: The Role of English in Israel". Review of Research in Education. 38: 273–289. ISSN   0091-732X.
  42. ↑ Foreign Influences on Modern Hebrew Angelika Adamczyk
  43. ↑ Northrup, David (2013), Northrup, David (ed.), "The Language of the British Isles", How English Became the Global Language, New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, pp. 27–47, doi:10.1057/9781137303073_2, ISBN   978-1-137-30307-3 , retrieved 2024-11-25
  44. ↑ Filipović, R. (1977-01-01). "English Words in European Mouths and Minds". Folia Linguistica. 11 (3–4): 195–206. doi:10.1515/flin.1977.11.3-4.195. ISSN   1614-7308. S2CID   145280920.
  45. ↑ Furiassi, Cristiano (2012). "The Anglicization of European Lexis": 1–366.{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  46. ↑ Rosenhouse, Judith; Kowner, Rotem (2008-05-22). Globally Speaking: Motives for Adopting English Vocabulary in Other Languages. Multilingual Matters. ISBN   978-1-78309-153-9.
  47. ↑ Görlach, Manfred (2001). A Dictionary of European Anglicisms: A Usage Dictionary of Anglicisms in Sixteen European Languages. Oxford University Press. ISBN   978-0-19-823519-4.
  48. ↑ Görlach, Manfred (2002-05-23). English in Europe. OUP Oxford. ISBN   978-0-19-158069-7.
  49. ↑ Anglemark, Linnéa; John, Andrew (2018). "The Use of English-Language Business and Finance Terms in European Languages". International Journal of Business Communication. 55 (3): 406–440. doi:10.1177/2329488418768698. ISSN   2329-4884. S2CID   158407633.
  50. ↑ Görlach, Manfred (2002-05-23). English in Europe. OUP Oxford. ISBN   978-0-19-158069-7.
  51. ↑ Hultgren, Anna Kristina (2014-06-01). "English language use at the internationalised universities of Northern Europe: Is there a correlation between englishisation and world rank?". Multilingua - Journal of Cross-Cultural and Interlanguage Communication. 33 (3–4): 389–411. doi:10.1515/multi-2014-0018. ISSN   1613-3684.
  52. ↑ Da Silva, Diego Barbosa 1 1 National Archives of Brazil (AN) (2019). "Language Policy in Oceania: In the Frontiers of Colonization and Globalization": 327–356. doi: 10.1590/1981-5794-1909-4 .{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
    This page is based on this Wikipedia article
    Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
    Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.