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 Sanskritize or Persianize 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]

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. [18]

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. [19]

Latin America and the Caribbean

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

Asia

East Asia

Both Japanese and Korean have borrowed many words from English. [21] In Japan, English words are often used in a "decorative" manner to make a message look more modern. [22]

Hong Kong Cantonese has many words from English, due to British rule in the city until the late 20th century. [23]

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 within South Asia. It has played a significant role in enabling migration within India, and contributes a major share of the vocabulary used in more technical fields; [24] [25] [26] [27] even when Sanskrit words have been created to replace English words, they are often calqued off of English words. [28] [29] [30]

Southeast Asia

Europe

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. [31] 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, [32] [33] [34] and has resulted in altered interpretations of English words in some cases. [35] Englishisation has occurred to some extent particularly in the business and finance-related vocabularies of various European languages. [36] 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. [37]

There is also research around the increasing usage of English in European universities. [38]

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, Common English, Continental English, General English, and Engas. Sometimes, these terms refer to the actuality of the situation, where English is spoken and used in numerous dialects around the world. These terms may acknowledge the diversity and varieties of English spoken throughout the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Urdu</span> Language spoken in India and Pakistan

Urdu is a Persianised register of the Hindustani language, an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in South Asia. It is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan, where it is also an official language alongside English. In India, Urdu is an Eighth Schedule language, the status and cultural heritage of which are recognised by the Constitution of India; and it also has an official status in several Indian states. In Nepal, Urdu is a registered regional dialect and in South Africa, it is a protected language in the constitution. It is also spoken as a minority language in Afghanistan and Bangladesh, with no official status.

<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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Languages of Pakistan</span>

Pakistan is a multilingual country with over 70 languages spoken as first languages. The majority of Pakistan's languages belong to the Indo-Iranian group of the Indo-European language family.

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.

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.

Sri Lankan English (SLE) is the English language as it is used in Sri Lanka, a term dating from 1972. Sri Lankan English is principally categorised as the Standard Variety and the Nonstandard Variety, which is called as "Not Pot English". The classification of SLE as a separate dialect of English is controversial. English in Sri Lanka is spoken by approximately 23.8% of the population, and widely used for official and commercial purposes. Sri Lankan English being the native language of approximately 5,400 people thus challenges Braj Kachru's placement of it in the Outer Circle. Furthermore, it is taught as a compulsory second language in local schools from grade one to thirteen, and Sri Lankans pay special attention on learning English both as children and adults. It is considered even today that access and exposure to English from one's childhood in Sri Lanka is to be born with a silver spoon in one's mouth.

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.

World Englishes is a term for emerging localised or indigenised 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">Languages of South Asia</span>

South Asia is home to several hundred languages, spanning the countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. It is home to the fourth most spoken language in the world, Hindi–Urdu; and the sixth most spoken language, Bengali. Languages like Bengali, Tamil and Nepali have official/national status in more than one country of this region. The languages in the region mostly comprise Indo-Iranic and Dravidian languages, and further members of other language families like Austroasiatic, and Tibeto-Burman languages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Persian language in the Indian subcontinent</span>

Before British colonisation, the Persian language was the lingua franca of the Indian subcontinent and a widely used official language in North India. The language was brought into South Asia by various Turkics and Afghans and was preserved and patronized by Local Indian dynasties from the 11th century onwards, notable of which were the Ghaznavids, Sayyid Dynasty, Tughlaq dynasty, Khilji dynasty, Mughal Dynasty, Gujarat Sultanate, Bengal sultanate etc. Initially it was used by Muslim dynasties of India but later started being used by Non-Muslim empires too, For example the Sikh empire, Persian held official status in the court and the administration within these empires. It largely replaced Sanskrit as the language of politics, literature, education, and social status in the subcontinent.

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

Zangskari dialect is an endangered Tibetic language. It is a dialect of Ladakhi language. It is mostly spoken in the Zanskar region of the Kargil district of Ladakh, India and also by Buddhists in the upper reaches of Lahaul, Himachal Pradesh, and Paddar, Jammu and Kashmir. It is written using the Tibetan script.

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. ↑ Penny, Ralph John (2002-10-21). A History of the Spanish Language. Cambridge University Press. ISBN   978-0-521-01184-6.
  19. ↑ "The influence of English on U.S. Spanish: Introduction - ProQuest". www.proquest.com. Retrieved 2024-11-08.
  20. ↑ 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.
  21. ↑ 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.
  22. ↑ Jozuka, Emiko (2020-02-26). "When languages collide: How Japanese and English merged to create a new language". CNN. Retrieved 2024-05-01.
  23. ↑ "Hongkongers mix English and Cantonese into new language, Kongish". South China Morning Post. 2016-01-21. Retrieved 2024-10-29.
  24. ↑ Cheshire, Jenny (1991-04-26). English around the World: Sociolinguistic Perspectives. Cambridge University Press. ISBN   978-1-316-58235-0.
  25. ↑ 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.
  26. ↑ 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.
  27. ↑ 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.
  28. ↑ 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.
  29. ↑ Revisiting the Making of Hindi as a ‘National’ Language Ganpat Teli, M.Phil.
  30. ↑ 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.
  31. ↑ 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.
  32. ↑ Furiassi, Cristiano (2012). "The Anglicization of European Lexis": 1–366.{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  33. ↑ 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.
  34. ↑ 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.
  35. ↑ Görlach, Manfred (2002-05-23). English in Europe. OUP Oxford. ISBN   978-0-19-158069-7.
  36. ↑ 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.
  37. ↑ Görlach, Manfred (2002-05-23). English in Europe. OUP Oxford. ISBN   978-0-19-158069-7.
  38. ↑ 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.
    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.