LANGUAGE by SARAH PRESANT COLLINS
SPEAKER DANIEL FRANCIS
ANGLOPOLIS
How English Went Global Durante el reinado de la reina Victoria, entre 1837 y 1901, el Imperio británico llegó a gobernar sobre una cuarta parte de la población mundial y el número de angloparlantes aumentó en más de cien millones. ADVANCED
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GLOSSARY 1 to set (sun): ponerse (el sol) 2 spread out: esparcidas 3 West Indies: Indias Occidentales (Antillas y Bahamas) 4 to challenge: cuestionar, poner en duda 5 to highlight: destacar 6 to carry out: llevar a cabo 7 Raj: gobierno (en hindi)
T
he sun never set1 on the British Empire” was an expression used to emphasise the fact that during the Victorian era there were British colonies spread out2 all around the globe. These included Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, the West Indies3 and parts of Africa, including South Africa. It was said that under Victoria a quarter of the map was pink. This referred to the pink colour typically used on world maps to denote British territories. For many British people, the power and extent of the British Empire under Victoria was a source of national pride. The empire was regarded as a success story in spreading both British values and the English language around the world. But, since the mid-20th century, historians have increasingly challenged4 the idea that the British Empire was a positive force and have highlighted5
NEW VARIANTS OF ENGLISH Another fascinating phenomenon that linguists have been focusing on in recent years is the appearance of new variants of English in former British colonies. Hinglish, for example, is a variant of English with Hindi words mixed in. Hinglish has been popularised by Bollywood movies and is becoming trendy, especially among young people, in India. Sometimes, Hinglish includes so many Hindi words and structures that it would be incomprehensible to an English speaker who didn’t also know Hindi. And variants of English are thriving16 in other former British colonies, too. For example: Ninglish, better known as Nigerian Standard English, has developed in Nigeria, and Singlish is widely spoken in Singapore.
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the many atrocities carried out6 against colonised people in its name. THE LANGUAGE OF POWER In British colonies around the world, English became the language of power, the official language used for administration. But English coexisted, to varying degrees, with local languages. For example, India was under direct British rule from 1858 to 1947, a period known as the British Raj7, and during this time both English and Hindustani were used for government business. And, of course, the vast majority of people across the Indian subcontinent were still using their mother tongues of Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Tamil, etc. In South Africa, too, although English was used for administration, local people continued to speak their mother tongues of Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans and many more. THE POWER OF LANGUAGE Not surprisingly, when English was imposed on colonised people, local languages began to absorb English words. There are numerous examples of this: Kiswahili8, spoken in the British colonies
