TheLanguages of Nation: Attitudes and Norms 9781847697813

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The Languages of Nation

MULTILINGUAL MATTERS Series Editor: John Edwards, St. Francis Xavier University, Canada Multilingual Matters series publishes books on bilingualism, bilingual education, immersion education, second language learning, language policy, multiculturalism. The editor is particularly interested in ‘macro’ level studies of language policies, language maintenance, language shift, language revival and language planning. Books in the series discuss the relationship between language in a broad sense and larger cultural issues, particularly identity related ones. Full details of all the books in this series and of all our other publications can be found on http://www.multilingual-matters.com, or by writing to Multilingual Matters, St Nicholas House, 31–34 High Street, Bristol BS1 2AW, UK.

The Languages of Nation Attitudes and Norms

Edited by Carol Percy and Mary Catherine Davidson

MULTILINGUAL MATTERS Bristol • Buffalo • Toronto

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data The Languages of Nation: Attitudes and Norms/Edited by Carol Percy and Mary Catherine Davidson. Multilingual Matters: 148 Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Linguistic minorities—Education—Social aspects—Cross-cultural studies. 2. Multicultural education—Cross-cultural studies. 3. Education, Bilingual—Crosscultural studies. I. Percy, Carol. II. Davidson, Mary Catherine. P119.315.L364 2012 306.44089–dc23 2012022106 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue entry for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN-13: 978-1-84769-780-6 (hbk) Multilingual Matters UK: St Nicholas House, 31–34 High Street, Bristol BS1 2AW, UK. USA: UTP, 2250 Military Road, Tonawanda, NY 14150, USA. Canada: UTP, 5201 Dufferin Street, North York, Ontario M3H 5T8, Canada. Copyright © 2012 Carol Percy, Mary Catherine Davidson and the authors of individual chapters. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher. The policy of Multilingual Matters/Channel View Publications is to use papers that are natural, renewable and recyclable products, made from wood grown in sustainable forests. In the manufacturing process of our books, and to further support our policy, preference is given to printers that have FSC and PEFC Chain of Custody certification. The FSC and/or PEFC logos will appear on those books where full certification has been granted to the printer concerned. Typeset by Techset Composition Ltd, Salisbury, UK Printed and bound in Great Britain by the MPG Books Group

Contents

Acknowledgements Contributors

xi xiii

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Introduction: Multidisciplinary and Multilingual Perspectives on ‘Patriotic’ Prescriptivism Carol Percy and Mary Catherine Davidson

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Foreword: Language, Prescriptivism, Nationalism – and Identity John Edwards Introduction Prescriptivism in Theory and Practice Modified Prescriptivism Conclusion

1 11 11 14 18 24

Part 1: Managing Language Policies 3

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William Cecil and the Rectification of English Ian Lancashire Introduction Hard Words The Cambridge Doctrine and Cecil’s Market-based Language Economy Manuscript Evidence of Cecil’s Cambridge Doctrine Cecil’s Men Cecil’s Patronage of Books Prescribing Pastoral and Pragmatic Orientations: Challenges for Language Policy Lionel Wee Introduction v

39 39 40 41 45 47 51 63 63

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South Korea, Malaysia and Singapore South Korea: Debating English as an Official Language Malaysia: The Bumiputra Policy Singapore: Multiracialism and Pragmatism Concluding Discussion

65 67 70 73 75

Part 2: Colonialism and Literary Canons 5

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Mutual Preservation of Standard Language and National Identity in Early Modern Wales John D. Phillips Introduction Medieval Welsh The Act of Union, 1536 Religion in England Act for a Welsh Translation of the Bible and Book of Common Prayer, 1563 The 1588 Bible The Effect of the 1563 Act Conclusion ‘A Highly Poetical Language’? Scots, Burns, Patriotism and Evaluative Language in 19th-century Literary Reviews and Articles Marina Dossena Introduction Views of Scots in Late Modern Times Burns and His Critics Burns and the Scots Language in North American Literary Reviews and Articles of the 19th Century Concluding Remarks Appendix

83 83 84 88 89 90 91 92 95

99 99 101 103 105 114 118

Part 3: Transmarine and Transatlantic Allegiances 7

Language and National Identity in 17th- and 18th-century England Linda C. Mitchell Introduction Aims of Grammarians and Lexicographers Directed at Foreigners Conclusion

123 123 124 136

Content s

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‘À la Mode de Paris’: Linguistic Patriotism and Francophobia in 18th-century Britain Joan C. Beal The Language of the Enemy Language à la Mode: French, Fashion and Effeminacy Words of War: Attitudes to French Military Terms Loanwords from French: Perception versus Reality Conclusion Pronouncing Dictionaries between Patriotism and Prescriptivism: Perspectives on Provincialism in Webster’s America Massimo Sturiale Introduction From Purism to Prescriptivism: The British Background Standard Ideology and 18th-century Pronouncing Dictionaries Standards of English in an Independent America Provincialism and American Prescriptivism: Perry in America The American Democratic Approach

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141 141 143 147 151 153 155 155 156 157 159 163 166

Part 4: Re-defining Boundaries: Ideology and Language Norms 10 Patriotism, Empire and Cultural Prescriptivism: Images of Anglicity in the OED Lynda Mugglestone Dictionaries and Dictionary-making: Patriotism and Philology The OED: Patriotism and National Pride Describing the World of Words Cultural Prescriptivism and the ‘Core of Anglicity’ ‘Us’ and ‘Them’ in OED1 The Empire and the World of English Words 11 You Say Nucular; I Say Yourstupid: Popular Prescriptivism in the Politics of the United States Don Chapman

175 175 177 178 180 183 186 192

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Part 5: Identifying Norms and Attitudes in Postcolonial Contexts 12 English and Pidgin in Cameroon: Peaceful or Conflicting Coexistence? Jean-Paul Kouega The Development of Pidgin and English in Cameroon Method of Data Collection Survey Results Discussion Conclusion Appendix 13 Susu not Sousou: Nationalism, Prescriptivism and Etymology in a Postcolonial Creole Language Orthography Lise Winer Introduction Language Ideology and Ascription of Etymology Language Sources in TEC Case Studies Conclusion

211 212 214 215 219 220 221 223 223 225 228 230 240

Part 6: Prescribing Norms Beyond Borders: Foreign Language Teaching 14 Rules for the Neighbours: Prescriptions of the German Language for British Learners Nicola McLelland Introduction: What Can Materials for Non-native Speakers Tell Us? Grammatical Description and Prescription of German in 20th-century Textbooks Conclusion 15 Nativeness, Authority, Authenticity: The Construction of Belonging and Exclusion in Debates about English Language Proficiency and Immigration in Britain Martin Gill Authenticity Authenticity and Exclusion A Brief History of Authenticity

245 245 253 264

271 271 272 273

Content s

Authenticity and the Nature of Language in Linguistics and Sociolinguistics The Native Speaker of English Displacing the Native Speaker ‘Have Your Say’ Conclusion Index

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275 278 282 284 288 292

Acknowledgements

The chapters in this book were selected from English-language papers presented at the conference on ‘Prescriptivisme & Patriotisme: Language norms and identities from nationalism to globalization/Normes linguistiques et identitaires du nationalisme à la mondialisation’, held in August 2009 at New College, University of Toronto, Canada. For its generous support of the conference and thus of this publication, we are especially grateful to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada/Conseil de recherches en sciences humaines du Canada (grant 646–2008–1115), and to the Jackman Humanities Institute, University of Toronto. We also gratefully acknowledge the support of the Offices of the Principal at New College and at Glendon, York University/Université York, and of many other units at the University of Toronto. A full list of sponsors and more information about the conference can be found on its website (http://projects.chass.utoronto. ca/prescrip/). The peer review process is central to academic publication, but anonymous external reviewers sometimes don’t get acknowledged. We are happy to take this public opportunity to thank all of them – the few who declined to be identified, and Eric A. Anchimbe, Phil Benson, Sean Bowerman, Michèle Cohen, Václav Cvrček, Alan Davies, Dagmar Deuber, Paulin Djite, Ed Finegan, Anthea Fraser Gupta, John Joseph, Robert B. (Bob) Kaplan, David Klausner, Nils Langer, Jack Lynch, Lynne Magnusson, Rod McConchie, Robert McColl Millar, Jiri Nekvapil, John R. Perry, María Esther RodríguezGil, Mario Saraceni, Barbara Schmenk, Mark Sebba, Janet Sorensen, Colin Williams, Eddie Williams and Nuria Yáñez-Bouza. Finally, this publication could not have been prepared without the support of Anna Roderick, Laura Longworth, Sarah Williams, Elinor Robertson and Tommi Grover at Multilingual Matters, John Edwards in his role as General Editor, our copy-editor and indexer Soon-Ai (Vicki) Low, Hannah Turner and the Techset team, postgraduate Arden Hegele in her capacity as administrative and editorial assistant, and calm computer gurus Philippa Matheson, Yves Bourque and Marguerite Perry. Thank you! xi

Contributors

Joan C. Beal is Professor of English Language at the University of Sheffield (UK). Her previous publications include English in Modern Times 1700–1945 (2006), English Pronunciation in the Eighteenth Century (1999) and (co-edited with Massimo Sturiale and Carmela Nocera) Perspectives on Prescriptivism (2008). Don Chapman is Associate Professor of Linguistics and English Language at Brigham Young University (USA). His main research interest in prescriptivism is in developing methods for evaluating the usefulness of particular prescriptive rules in English. Previous publications on prescriptivism include articles on ‘The eighteenth-century grammarians as language experts’ and on ‘Bad ideas in the history of English usage’, the ways that new prescriptive rules are proposed. Mary Catherine Davidson is Associate Professor of English at Glendon, York University (Canada). Her recent monograph, Medievalism, Multilingualism, and Chaucer (2010), explores monolingual biases in the field of the history of the English language. Stemming from approaches in this book and from recent presentations, her current book project examines the changing status of American English in the cinematic representation and popular reception of English dialects and second languages in Hollywood film in the 1940s and 1950s. Her articles on code-switching and style-shifting have appeared in Studies in Medievalism (2006), Modern Philology (2005), Early Modern Literary Studies (1997) and in Opening Windows on Texts and Discourses of the Past (2005). Marina Dossena is Professor of English Language and Head of the Department of Comparative Languages, Literatures and Cultures at the University of Bergamo (Italy). Her research interests focus on historical pragmatics, historical dialectology, especially in relation to the history of Scots and English in Scotland, and the history of specialized discourse. A member of xiii

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the International Committee of the Association for Scottish Literary Studies, she is currently compiling a corpus of 19th-century Scottish correspondence. John Edwards is Professor of Psychology at St Francis Xavier University and Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. He has lectured and published widely on language, identity and the many ramifications of their relationship. The editor of the Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development and of the Multilingual Matters book series, his own books include The Irish Language (1983), Language, Society and Identity (1985), Multilingualism (1995) and Language in Canada (1998). More recent volumes include Un mundo de lenguas (2009), Language and Identity (2009), Language Diversity in the Classroom (2010), Minority Languages and Group Identity (2010) and Challenges in the Social Life of Language (2011). Forthcoming books include Sociolinguistics (Oxford University Press) and Multilingualism: Understanding Linguistic Diversity (Continuum). Martin Gill is Associate Professor in the department of English Language and Literature at Åbo Akademi University, Finland, where he teaches sociolinguistics, applied linguistics and cultural studies. His current research is concerned with questions of language and authenticity/authentication, and multilingual communities. Recent publications include ‘Authenticity’ in Pragmatics in Practice (J. Verschueren and J-O. Östman (eds) John Benjamins, 2011), and ‘Authentication and Nigerian letters’, in the Handbook of the Pragmatics of Computer-Mediated Communication (S. Herring, D. Stein and T. Virtanen (eds) De Gruyter Mouton, to appear 2012). Jean-Paul Kouega is Professor of English Linguistics at the University of Yaounde I (Cameroon). His research interest is in the fields of New Englishes and sociolinguistics. His most recent publications include A Dictionary of Cameroon English Usage (2007), ‘The language situation in Cameroon’ (2007), A Dictionary of Cameroon Pidgin Usage: Pronunciation, Grammar and Vocabulary (2008) and ‘Language, religion and cosmopolitanism: Language use in the Catholic Church in Yaounde – Cameroon’ (2008) published in the International Journal of Multilingualism, where a structural-functional model for the analysis of language use in religion is proposed. Ian Lancashire, Professor of English, University of Toronto, and Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, has published Two Tudor Interludes (1980), Dramatic Texts and Records of Britain (1984), The Humanities Computing Yearbook (1991), Using TACT with Electronic Texts (1996), Teaching Literature and Language Online (2009) and Forgetful Muses: Reading the Author in the Text (2010). He edits two databases, Representative Poetry Online (1994–) and Lexicons of Early

Contr ibutors

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Modern English (2006–), and does research on Early Modern English vocabulary. Forthcoming is the five-volume Ashgate Critical Essays on Early English Lexicographers of which he is General Editor. Nicola McLelland is Associate Professor in German at the University of Nottingham (UK), where she specializes in linguistics and in the history of linguistic ideas. She has published on topics from 13th-century German literature to 21st-century spelling reform, but has a particular interest in the history of German grammars. Her book on the 17th-century German language theoretician Schottelius appeared in 2011: J.G. Schottelius’s Ausführliche Arbeit von der Teutschen Haubtsprache (1663) and its Place in Early Modern European Vernacular Language Study. She is editor of the journal Language & History. Linda C. Mitchell is Professor of English at San Jose State University (USA). She is the author of Grammar Wars: Language as Cultural Battleground in 17th- and 18th-century England (2001) and is currently writing A Cultural History of English Lexicography, 1600–1800: The Authoritative Word (Ashgate) and an annotated edition of Milton’s Grammar for The Complete Works of John Milton (Oxford University Press). She is also co-editor of collections about letter-writing (2007 and forthcoming), and has published articles in the Huntington Library Quarterly, International Journal of Lexicography, Handbook of World Englishes and Studies in Early Modern Philosophy. Lynda Mugglestone is Professor of History of English at the University of Oxford, and a Fellow and Tutor in English at Pembroke College, Oxford (UK). She has published widely on language (including the history and social and cultural roles of dictionaries), with a particular focus on the 18th and 19th centuries. Recent work includes: Lexicography and the OED: Pioneers in the Untrodden Forest (Oxford University Press, 2000, 2002), ‘Talking Proper’: The Rise of Accent as Social Symbol (Oxford University Press, 2nd edn, 2003; revised paperback edn, 2007), Lost for Words: The Hidden History of the Oxford English Dictionary (Yale University Press, 2005) and Dictionaries: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2011). She is editor of the Oxford History of English (Oxford University Press, 2006, 2007, 2012) and, with Freya Johnston, of Samuel Johnson: the Arc of the Pendulum. (Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2012). She is currently at work on a further book on Johnson and his dictionary. Carol Percy is Associate Professor of English at the University of Toronto (Canada). Her recent articles on 18th-century English prescriptivism have

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appeared in Eighteenth-century English: Ideology and Change (2010), Social Roles and Language Practices in Late Modern English (2010), Educating the Child in Enlightenment Britain (2009) and Grammars, Grammarians and Grammar-Writing in Eighteenth-century England (2008). With Anne-Marie Brousseau, she coorganized the 2009 conference on ‘Prescriptivisme & Patriotisme: Language norms and identities from nationalism to globalization/Normes linguistiques et identitaires du nationalisme à la mondialisation’. John D. Phillips is Senior Lecturer in Linguistics at Yamaguchi University (Japan). His research interests include computational and descriptive linguistics, and the Celtic languages, particularly Welsh. Recent publications include studies of change in the grammar of Welsh, and a linguistic description of Manx as it was spoken by its last native speakers. Massimo Sturiale is Researcher of English Language at the University of Catania (Italy). His published and current research focuses on English historical linguistics, Elizabethan translations from Italian, 18th-century English lexicography (mainly pronouncing dictionaries) and Received Pronunciation. In 2006, he organized the Colloquium ‘Perspectives on Prescriptivism’ (20–22 April) and, along with Joan C. Beal and Carmela Nocera, co-edited its selected proceedings, Perspectives on Prescriptivism (2008). Lionel Wee is Professor and Head of the Department of English Language & Literature at the National University of Singapore. His research interests include language policy, pragmatics and sociolinguistics. His publications have appeared in Applied Linguistics, Journal of Sociolinguistics, and Language in Society. His books include Language Without Rights (2011) and English in Singapore: Modernity and Management (co-edited with Lisa Lim and Anne Pakir, 2010). Lise Winer is Professor in the Department of Integrated Studies in Education at McGill University (Canada); her interests include second language education, sociolinguistics, lexicography and literature. As editor and annotator, she helps restore ‘lost’ cultural works: these include the novels Warner Arundell (1838) and Rupert Gray (1907); and recordings from the 1930s, The Music of the Spiritual Baptists of Trinidad and West Indian Rhythm: Trinidad Calypsos. Her books include Badjohns, Bhaaji and Banknote Blue: Essays on the Social History of Language in Trinidad & Tobago (2007) and the Dictionary of the English/Creole of Trinidad & Tobago (2009)

1 Introduction: Multidisciplinary and Multilingual Perspectives on ‘Patriotic’ Prescriptivism Carol Percy and Mary Catherine Davidson

Research in the area of language prescriptivism is often discussed in a monolingual context and ‘has generally focused on prescriptions aimed . . . at native speakers’ (McLelland, this volume). The Languages of Nation: Attitudes and Norms offers a rich overview of the breadth of approaches currently engaged by established scholars internationally for considering the mechanisms by which language norms more generally emerge, especially in contexts of contact and cross-cultural awareness. Our introduction summarizes the collection’s key themes, documenting the historical and geographical persistence of prescriptivisms while revealing their contextual specificity. John Edwards’ Foreword further surveys approaches to identity and language norms. By showing that the collective enforcement of norms was as much a key feature of language and belonging in the past as the national maintenance of ‘correct’ language usage remains today, he (like other authors in this collection) contests scholarly assumptions about nationalism as an exclusively modern phenomenon. This collection, while contributing to debates over the origins of nationalism and the nature of group identity, introduces readers to approaches from a range of disciplines, periods and languages on the question of what constitute attitudes and norms in many frameworks of collective identity. International in scope and illustratively wide ranging in approach, contributions from scholars both specialist and interdisciplinary explore the roles of 1

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cross-cultural contacts in shaping language norms, offer comparisons in language planning across southeast Asian nations and early modern Wales, track popular attitudes toward contact languages in Africa and the Caribbean, and trace the ideological forces at work as much in present-day American bipartisan politics as in the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. By drawing on an interdisciplinary range of contemporary anglophone scholarship, this collection aims to introduce its readers to the ways in which linguistic prescriptivism, broadly defined, has reflected multiple identities in a multilingual world. For instance, in ‘Susu not Sousou: Nationalism, prescriptivism and etymology in a postcolonial Creole language orthography’, lexicographer Lise Winer describes how conflicts among national, anticolonial and ethnic sentiments intensify the dilemmas of standardizing spelling in the Dictionary of the English/Creole of Trinidad & Tobago. The ethnolinguistic diversity of postcolonial nations points up the politics of codifying any standard. Traditional prescriptivism has often centred on codifying texts to explore the means by which writers and readers select and enforce national language norms. This collection is indeed anchored within historical studies of standardization and codification, which such historians as Benedict Anderson have linked with the rise of print culture, nationalism and colonialism in early modern Europe. However, some of our contributors implicitly challenge scholarly notions of the enforcement of language norms through widespread literacy as a characteristic of nationhood. Surveying the ‘Mutual preservation of standard language and national identity in early modern Wales’, John D. Phillips reminds us that medieval manuscripts could also mediate written standards. His is one of several chapters in this collection demonstrating that religious affiliations complicate simple correspondences between language and nation. As shown by both Phillips and Marina Dossena, in her chapter on diasporic Scots, religious disputes played an important part in the dissemination or maintenance of specific varieties: for instance, the desire to disseminate Protestant doctrine led English politicians like Queen Elizabeth I’s Secretary of State William Cecil implicitly to encourage the maintenance of Standard Welsh, and Scottish clerics like John Knox to use English norms for published writings. Reconceptualizing themes from her account of the early modern Grammar Wars, Linda C. Mitchell notes how northern European Protestantism was one criterion of Englishness for the Swiss codifier of English, Guy Miège. Connections between language(s) and identities are often complex. In his Foreword defining this volume’s key concepts of ‘Language, prescriptivism, nationalism – and identity’, psychologist John Edwards contextualizes the contributions of lexicographers and academicians. In this

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cross-linguistic survey, Edwards demonstrates that English is distinctive in not having a state-sponsored language academy. A new piece of this old puzzle is presented by Ian Lancashire in his argument about ‘William Cecil and the rectification of English’. Whereas the Italian Accademia della Crusca (founded in 1582–1583) published an Italian Vocabolario in 1612, Cecil – by passively accepting dedications in multilingual dictionaries – thereby let the market regulate the extent to which ‘hard’ Latinate words elaborated Early Modern English. The dedication to Cecil of multilingual dictionaries exposes the principally mythical status of the ‘monolingual’ nation. Monolingual dictionaries create and perpetuate an image of language as uniting a nation and stably conveying its values across time and space, an attitude called ‘pastoral’ in Lionel Wee’s chapter, and analyzed by him in contemporary Southeast Asia. Such myths are historicized in Martin Gill’s analysis of linguistic authenticity, and illustrated for English by the patriotic receptions of both Samuel Johnson’s dictionary (1755), and of what was originally called the New English Dictionary (1884–1928), set out in Mugglestone’s introduction to ‘Patriotism, empire and cultural prescriptivism: Images of anglicity in the OED’. In some respects, the spread of empire intensified connections between language and nation: Mugglestone’s study of the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary explores the ways in which an overt agenda of descriptive empiricism could be undermined by ideologically charged configurations of ‘civilization’ and ‘savagery’, as well as by particular images of ‘anglicity’ which served to influence the representation of global varieties – and colonial discourse – in significant ways. Opposition to foreigners is one way of forging unity. Many of our contributors confirm the function of the French language in defining the social boundary of who was truly English. Samuel Johnson’s gallophobia is reported by both Mugglestone and by Joan C. Beal in her account of ‘Linguistic patriotism and Francophobia in 18th-century Britain’. This discourse of opposition was vehemently deployed within national boundaries: the francophobia Beal describes was often directed at francophilic Britons. The role of multilingualism in shaping national attitudes and norms is further underscored by recurrent policing of immigrants’ English, here attested to in the present day by Gill and for the 17th and 18th centuries by Mitchell. Interpreting grammarians’ high expectations of immigrants, Mitchell shows how language norms are often used to exclude or marginalize non-natives within national boundaries. In contrast, Nicola McLelland’s study of grammars of German for learners in Britain reveals that variants stigmatized as errors or provincialisms in texts for native German speakers are more likely to be codified neutrally for speakers ‘untroubled by historical loyalties to a non-standard variety’. Finding a more relaxed and a more accurate treatment of variation

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in grammars for non-resident learners, McLelland confirms the conventional connections between national boundaries and standard languages. Similarly prejudicial attitudes – in this case against ‘provincial’ varieties of English and their speakers – are sketched in Massimo Sturiale’s reception history of some 18th-century ‘Pronouncing dictionaries between patriotism and prescriptivism’. In the context of England’s colonization of its Celtic neighbours, the co-existence of regional and standard norms invited contrast yet provoked conflicting attitudes. Non-native codifiers like the Irish Thomas Sheridan, discussed by both Mitchell and Sturiale, promoted standard English and its unifying function, and (as Mitchell argues of Miège) ‘assume[d] a national identity in England’ by codifying norms of English. Yet especially for nostalgic commentators, ‘provincial’ norms had a kind of purity. Dossena documents a typical late modern sentiment that Scots was closer to the ‘Saxon original’ than standard English, less corrupted by ‘Norman invaders and tyrants’. Many of our contributors show how both languages and codifying texts have crossed borders – from Europe to England, from Scotland to England and America, from Britain to India. Stable borders can change in nature, as former nations become colonies or provinces. And provincial norms can change in status beyond national boundaries, as Dossena and Sturiale confirm in their studies of Scots in America. Researching the reception in America of William Perry’s pronouncing dictionaries, Sturiale explains how ‘provincial’ language could be interpreted as either corrupting or pure. Dossena shows how for nostalgic emigrants, the non-standard language of Scots poetry might index such qualities as purity or freedom. As a former national language, Scots in the 19th century had perhaps more perceived poetical potential than such ‘barbarous’ dialects as Devon or Yorkshire. From Sturiale’s account of the American reception of British codifying works, we see that in a postcolonial world the connections between language(s) and identity are particularly complex. In newly independent America, not everyone repudiated the idea of British linguistic standards. A London-based linguistic standard was upheld by the lexicographer Joseph Worcester, although his competitor Noah Webster’s linguistic reforms and professedly democratic attitude to the Scottish codifier Perry influentially expressed the new nation’s political self-definition in opposition to Britain. Standard English was no longer just a national language, and new Englishes indigenized in colonial contexts. Winer reminds us that, in the often multilingual contexts of former colonial countries, languages like Trinidad & Tobago English Creole can still gain status through ‘alliance’ with standard English or other languages as well as through ‘distance’ from English. These strategies are in particular tension when standardizing spelling.

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These examples cumulatively show that ‘foreign’ norms can acquire identity functions beyond their original contexts. Codifying the English/Creole orthography of the former British colony Trinidad & Tobago, Winer observes that French spellings here convey both prestige and resistance to English. For descendants of slaves or indentured labourers in the postcolonial Caribbean, African languages or Hindi can positively index ethnic affiliations. Yet in postcolonial contexts, indigenized varieties of English can also acquire identity functions that are said to transcend ethnic differences. For the anglophone Cameroonians surveyed by Kouega, Pidgin English signals group solidarity and patriotism, transcending ethnic boundaries. In multiracial Singapore, as an unintended consequence of that nation’s language policy, English is not only the intended ‘inter-ethnic lingua franca and . . . a language for engaging with the global economy’, but seems to be serving identity and cultural functions. In his contrastive account of language policies in Singapore, Malaysia and South Korea, Lionel Wee has explored the consequences of ‘the perceived importance [of English] as a language of modernization and economic success’. In South Korea, the connection of English with socio-economic mobility has led ‘Koreans who are perceived to be too enthusiastic in their pursuit of English [to have] their “Korean-ness” questioned’. When foreign norms index an individual’s education and/or class, they can mark or even create group divisions. South Korea is, in Wee’s words, ‘a relatively monolingual society’, but as a consequence of the international prestige of English ‘there may well emerge a class divide amongst Koreans themselves: those who speak English well and those who don’t or not at all’. In contemporary Cameroon, access to standard English marks similar internal boundaries, as Jean-Paul Kouega acknowledges in his account of ‘English and Pidgin in Cameroon’. In 16th-century England, Ian Lancashire argues that the influx of Latinate loanwords created two Englishes, one similarly inaccessible to the un(der)educated. Eighteenth-century Britons’ use of French (as described by Beal) or Scots’ use of Standard English might have asserted a similar educated status, in addition to being a political act. Considering the stereotype of Scots as spoken by porters and ploughmen, Dossena indeed notes that the opposition between regionally marked and standard varieties of English has become increasingly associated with class. Of course, since language use is an index of a person’s social identity, even educated speakers may sometimes choose to use variants or varieties that convey a more covert prestige. As Dossena demonstrates, the Scottish poet Robert Burns chose to pose as an unlettered peasant, despite his ‘thorough grounding in English’. Sometimes such a choice has pragmatically political motives. In his account of ‘Popular prescriptivism in the politics of

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the United States’, Don Chapman argues that the deployment of the ‘uneducated style’ by some Republican politicians is one cause of the seemingly paradoxical phenomenon of left-wing prescriptivism. Analyzing perceived connections between education and language, Chapman explains why some professedly liberal citizens claim that other individuals’ use of language indexes their inability to govern a nation. Different norms are often context dependent: surveying the attitudes of anglophone Cameroonians to Pidgin and Standard English and analyzing the results, Kouega argues that standard and vernacular norms coexist peaceably because their distribution is complementary. Yet conflicts between norms – written and oral, for instance – are attested throughout our collection. Considering popular proscriptions of American politicians’ public language, Chapman observes that it is difficult to impose the rules for written usage on extempore speech. This tension is particularly tricky for authors of codifying texts. McLelland notes the difficulties for the authors of any language textbook attempting to codify variable speech for foreign learners. Winer demonstrates the difficulty of lemmatizing dictionary headwords from a primarily (though by no means exclusively) oral language with input from many cultures. In postcolonial contexts, more ‘oral’ norms of writing may signal symbolic distance from Standard English and thus from Britain. Winer describes how such publicly popular symbolic spellings do not accurately reflect the etymologies revealed by scholarly research. Many of the chapters in our collection contrast the linguistic attitudes of professional academics and the public. Edwards charts the changing roles of scholars and exposes their assumptions in both forming and challenging language norms: for instance, while Mugglestone shows that even descriptive icons such as the Oxford English Dictionary can reveal the consequences of cultural prescriptivism (and naturalized ideologies) in a range of ways, it is clear that modern scholars are far more likely now to champion ‘descriptive’ norms of usage. Contextualizing conceptions of linguistic authenticity, Gill explains how linguists have shifted from privileging the standardized writing of native speakers to the natural and variable speech of learners. Yet prescriptive norms remain popular with the public: as both Gill and Chapman demonstrate, the internet is a very popular medium for their expression of prescriptive attitudes. In his Foreword, Edwards makes the disconcerting observation that, while linguists distance themselves from prescriptivism, they often engage in language planning: both activities, he observes, involve managing language in an ideological framework. Our collection, by widening the topic of prescriptivism to include different disciplinary perspectives and language norms more generally, demonstrates the ongoing presence of norms

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in work and at work in disciplines in ways which their various fields typically do not or cannot question. Representing such disciplines as language studies, historical linguistics, psychology and literary studies, our contributors find norms across languages, periods and continents. However, more than illustrating a seemingly universal enforcement of norms, these papers, we also argue, constitute a significant scholarly contribution: by juxtaposing disciplinary perspectives, our collection’s structure uniquely reveals historical, political, cultural and disciplinary contexts and mechanisms of prescriptivism. Reflecting the complexity of the subject, the collection is organized thematically. Sub-sections are by no means restrictive in arrangement but constitute an introduction to approaches which are arranged less by methodology than by cultural perspective. By linking colonial as well as national forces to literate practices, contributions to Part 3, ‘Transmarine and Transatlantic Allegiances’ can equally reveal language biases implicit in projects of dictionary making regardless of period or location. A contribution on variation and standardization in early modern Wales in Part 2, ‘Colonialism and Literary Canons’, considers the quotidian roles of literary language and invites a postcolonial assessment which is not restricted to English and European colonial expansion in Africa, Asia or the Caribbean. In Part 1, ‘Managing Language Policies’, our contributors engage distinct methods from linguistics and literary studies for considering formulations of national language identity in situations of language contact over a very wide range of centuries. In the first contribution, Ian Lancashire situates conceptions of the nation in language attitudes at the royal court as early as the Early Modern period. In the second, Lionel Wee comparatively analyzes the means by which state language policies in Singapore, Malaysia and South Korea uniquely address the status of English. Showing the attraction and value of foreign, unpatriotic language norms for some privileged citizens, this opening section also reveals how prescriptive practices have long contrasted literate and popular formulations of the nation and of native-ness. It also presents contrasting strategies of pragmatism for involving scholars in managing language attitudes. While Lancashire claims that Queen Elizabeth I’s Secretary of State left the standardization of Early Modern English to the market, the fate of redundant Latinisms or ‘inkhorn terms’ being sealed at least temporarily by the popularity of works by Cambridge men like Thomas Wilson, Wee suggests that some Southeast Asian national language authorities could use ‘discourse planning’ to discuss and even determine citizens’ attitudes and practices. Parts 2 and 3 analyze how cross-cultural contact can serve to shape such behaviour. Examining norms enforced within the nation in Part 2, ‘Colonialism

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and Literary Canons’, John D. Phillips and Marina Dossena analyze how the literary conscription of language varieties fashions texts themselves as borders. As media for sacred and poetical texts, regional varieties of language both symbolically index and sometimes practically facilitate the proud freedom and distinctness from England that Acts of Union with Wales (1536) and then Scotland (1707) had politically effaced. Interpreting North American reviews of Scots poetry, Dossena argues that it was especially in diasporic contexts that the merely ‘provincial’ dialect became ‘crucially distinctive’ and also a symbol of increasingly multiple loyalties and new and complex identities. These studies illustrate how literary reviews as well as sacred texts renew metropolitan norms from beyond. What happens when speakers and norms cross borders is the topic of Part 3, ‘Transmarine and Transatlantic Allegiances’. This section demonstrates the strength of the ideology that nations are ethnically and linguistically homogeneous and that language can index national identity. Linda C. Mitchell’s survey of 17th- and 18th-century English grammars shows how long language has been an instrument and index of conformity for nonnative immigrants, and the assiduous ascertainment of standards by ‘provincials’ like the Irish Thomas Sheridan is reported by both her and Sturiale. However, Mitchell argues that, by writing dictionaries and grammars, nonnatives like Sheridan and the Swiss Protestant Guy Miège could nevertheless ‘assume a national identity in England’. Indeed, our contributors show that the long 18th century saw conflicting attitudes toward foreign norms during the emergence of the republics of France and the United States. Focusing respectively on attitudes to French in 18th-century Britain and to the London standard in the new American republic, Joan C. Beal and Massimo Sturiale both emphasize the complex interrelationships among linguistic, cultural and political orientations. While ‘affected’ and even (in times of war) seditious gallicisms outraged some Britons, for others French maintained its cultural prestige. And not every American concurred with Noah Webster in his rejection of a London standard for English: even in republican America, it took time to entrench endonormative standards. These chapters also attest to the rising status of English internationally in this period. The relative prestige of French remains clear, although Britain’s cultural and economic power are signalled by some grammarians’ assumptions that foreigners abroad are motivated to learn the language, and by some Americans’ attachment to London linguistic standards. Part 4, ‘Re-defining Boundaries: Ideology and Language Norms’, offers a critical discussion on national prescriptive discourses in the last centuries which have circumscribed language and belonging in overlapping categories of identity – national, political, educational, ethnic, linguistic. Situating

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constructions of native inclusion and non-native exclusion, Lynda Mugglestone reveals how ethnicity as linguistic prescription informed lexicographical practices in the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, despite the editors’ intentionally inclusive aims. In linking ‘correct’ language to participatory democracy, Don Chapman examines how popular prescriptivisms constitute the platform for bipartisan attacks from both national parties in the United States. In both chapters, observers self-identifying as cultivated or educated assume that their norms are the nation’s – or the empire’s. Chapman observes that many ‘errors’ are ‘not good indexes of a person’s ability or even the person’s education’, and are simply common characteristics of spoken language. Extending the discussion of nationalist prescriptivisms, Part 5, ‘Identifying Norms and Attitudes in Postcolonial Contexts’, describes attitudes towards postcolonial norms in the post-independent nations of Cameroon and Trinidad & Tobago. A particular issue is the status of the former colonizer’s Standard English. In his fieldwork in Cameroon, Jean-Paul Kouega traces the institutionalized forces at work in speakers’ assessments of their own prescriptions on Standard English and Pidgin usage. For Kouega’s informants, these varieties coexist in a distribution that is complementary and that broadly corresponds to literate versus oral. Yet when selecting headwords from among existing variants in her Dictionary of the English/Creole of Trinidad & Tobago (TEC), lexicographer Lise Winer could not easily reconcile competing phonemic and historical-etymological principles. Both Kouega and Winer compare popular and scholarly attitudes to language norms, Winer observing that laypeople’s desire to distance a spelling from Standard English or to ally it with other languages has sometimes resulted in obscured or distorted etymologies. This chapter also shows the challenges facing codifiers of newly codified norms: the great variation shown in her 11 case studies suggests that the acceptance of her headwords will not be automatic. The final Part 6, ‘Prescribing Norms beyond Borders: Foreign Language Teaching’, reveals how studies of second language acquisition can so acutely underline – and undermine – modern nationalist notions of language as participation and belonging. Showing that grammatical variation is judged more harshly in textbooks for natives than for British learners of German, and that ‘British codifications of German are arguably closer to majority contemporary native speaker usage than are those of the native speaker tradition’, McLelland demonstrates the clear connections between standardization and nationalism. Engaging post-structural models, Martin Gill shows why constructions of native-ness have been central to such disciplines as second language learning and teaching, as well as to linguistics and to sociology. Contrasting scholarly and public perspectives on language and community

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membership, Gill’s concluding chapter returns to some of the key concepts introduced by Edwards in his Foreword. In accordance with publishers’ norms, we have standardized the spelling and punctuation in this collection. Exploiting the liberality of our British publisher’s guidelines, as Canadians we have chosen to impose Canadian norms on our international contributors: for spelling, we have used the Canadian Oxford Dictionary. The contributions gathered here stem from English language scholarship around the world, as our list of contributors indicates, but the languages with which they deal in comparative analysis and language contact itself include African and Amerindian languages, French and French Creole, German, Hindi, Korean, Latin, Malay, Mandarin, Spanish, Tamil and Welsh, as well as Cameroon Pidgin English, Trinidad & Tobago English/Creole and other national, social and historical varieties of English. By offering up language contact and confluence as a challenge to the construction of speakers as monolingual or mono-dialectal, these diverse contributions on prescriptivism reconsider belonging instead as a product of contact and cultural self-awareness in both oral and literate articulations of inclusion and exclusion. We thus uniquely expand on the proliferation of mechanisms by which norms, both oral and written, in past and contemporary global cultures have prescribed and continue to enforce language choice. By involving scholars from different disciplines and cultural traditions, we aim to introduce new readers to prescriptivism and invite them to apply the working questions of the field to new cultural and linguistic contexts.

2 Foreword: Language, Prescriptivism, Nationalism – and Identity1 John Edwards

Introduction The essence of the relationship that unites the four terms in my title lies in ‘groupness’, in the sense of belonging that has always been the strongest pillar of human life – always important, and sometimes central to survival itself. Even in stable and comfortable contexts, daily life involves an uninterrupted, passive and generally implicit acknowledgement of our basic social nature. Acknowledgement becomes more explicit, and ramifications of it can translate passivity into action, however, when the ties that bind become strained. This is true whether we consider the ‘nuclear family’ or any other group to which we belong (or, indeed, towards which we feel some allegiance). For our purposes here, the most relevant collectivity is the cultural family, comprising our ethnonational identity.2 It is also, of course, the variety that has provided most of the active demonstrations on behalf of sustained membership. The historical importance of language as a marker of group identity hardly needs explanation: our group memberships are typically and immediately revealed when we speak, and there has always been a commonly held (if less than wholly accurate) equation of linguistic with cultural continuity. This holds for all varieties, even those of subaltern status, even those in retreat from larger linguistic neighbours; perhaps, in fact, we should replace the word ‘even’ with ‘particularly’. A modern example – if one needed a specific manifestation among a very great many instances – is provided by 11

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Abd-el-Jawad (2006). Within languages, too, there are variations – of dialect, pronunciation, style, register, and so on – that brand us in the ears of listeners and, indeed, in our own ears. An important article (Ryan, 1979) once asked why low-status variants persist, especially in contexts in which it seems possible for speakers of those variants to shift or, at least, to become bidialectal. The answer is at least two-fold: first, a given variety may be of low social prestige and its use may hinder social and material mobility, but it nevertheless remains a marker of community, binding us to family and earliest friends; relatedly, attempts to move can be tricky and may result in a species of marginalization. If we attempt to swim from one group shore to another, it is important that we reach the other side and, having arrived, that we are accepted there. If not, there may be considerable difficulty in attempting to return – psychological difficulty, to be sure, but also social impediments: in earlier days, the Quebec francophone who tried to move towards English risked being called a vendu, the Spanish speaker (in America) a vendido. Ethnonational identity is obviously marked by language in its ordinary instrumental sense, but we should bear in mind the powerful symbolic value possessed by language, too. The two facets are often united, but they can be separated. Anglophones in England or the United States use English across all domains: it is at once the language of grocery shopping and the language of myth, poetry and literature. Members of smaller communities, however, may come to speak a new language while, at the same time, retaining some allegiance to the ancestral or original variety. Ireland provides a good example. A large-scale survey (Committee on Irish Language Attitudes Research, 1975) revealed that only about 3% of the overall population used Irish on any regular basis, that there was little interest in attempts at vernacular restoration and that many were pessimistic about the maintenance of the little Irish still used. At the same time, there was broad agreement for the teaching of Irish, for the encouragement of Irish-medium education and for the retention of the language in certain areas of official and public life. The symbolic value of a medium that provides group distinctiveness – if only at a perceptual level – as well as access, when desired, to a rich literary and cultural heritage, is undeniable (see also Edwards, 2009, 2010). Attending to the importance of the symbolism and affect with which language is freighted in its identity-marking role clarifies the connection often made between ethnonationalism and religion – or, at least, the idea that ethnonationalism is a sort of secular religion, a closed system of belief and belonging that rests upon a bedrock of faith. The idea is an old and, I think, powerful one (Edwards, 2009). Abley (2010) has recently reminded us of a relevant instance: the appreciation of Webster’s dictionary as a ‘moral’ effort.

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The Irish example is of a indigenous minority-language group, but the matter is equally clear in immigrant-minority contexts. In her American work, Eastman (1984) discussed what she termed an ‘associated’ language – one that immigrant-group members no longer spoke, knew or were interested in learning, but which continued to be part of their psychological and social sense of identity.3 Some have suggested that when language operates only at an ‘associated’ level, it is no longer really language. Certainly, the symbolic function of language that co-exists with the communicative is not quite the same thing as symbolism divorced from communication (Irish for most Irish people, Polish for most fourth-generation Polish-Americans, and so on). However, unlike other purely emblematic markers, language is a complex system that is at least theoretically capable of regaining instrumental status. There is one further proviso: although the functions are separable, and although the symbolic aspects can long outlast communicative-language shift, these aspects are first given life by a vernacular – not the other way around. The implication is that the loss or abandonment of a language in its ordinary communicative role must eventually lead to the dilution or, indeed, the disappearance of its ‘associational’ capacity. Finally here, what is linguistic prescriptivism and how does it figure in ethnonational identity? Understood as a contemporary phenomenon – leaving aside, that is, biblical descriptions of shibboleths, of Gileadites and Ephraimites, of Greeks, stammerers and ‘barbarians’ – prescriptivism is an unsurprising consequence of the decline of Latin and the rise of European ‘national’ languages. With the latter came the association between cultural and linguistic specificity, and from this there inexorably arose the desire to preserve and ‘protect’ what was increasingly seen as an important boundary marker. The important, if somewhat neglected, work of Thomas (1991) reveals that prescriptivism is a universal characteristic of standard (and standardizing) languages.4 Further, while prescriptivism is often activated by unwanted external influences (think of French attempts to keep English at bay), ‘internal’ prescriptivism is even more common: virtually all socially stratified language communities display dialectal variation and, more importantly, dialectal hierarchization; see also Wee (this volume) and Winer (this volume). Our notions of ‘standard’ and ‘non-standard’ dialects rest upon foundations of social convention, and not – as many continue to think – upon any intrinsic differentiations in ‘goodness’. 5 And finally here, linguistic prescriptivism and purism have traditionally figured importantly in the work of academicians and lexicographers. This seems very obvious: who better, after all, to be charged with linguistic regularization of one sort or another? In fact, however, any enlightened prescriptivist impulse

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immediately creates tension. On the one hand, a standardizing variety, especially in the age of print, stands in need of some ‘normalization’; on the other, this means making choices that will inevitably strengthen the hand of some speakers and weaken that of others – the process that separates standard from non-standard dialects, in other words. Furthermore, there are always questions about the extent of prescriptivism, about the degree to which it should be allowed to orchestrate matters. Such questions have come very much to the fore in modern society, intertwined as they are with those conceptions of standard and non-standard just noted, and with the broader sense that, ultimately, ‘ordinary’ usage should and must rule. In fact, these are very old matters, too. In his Ars Poetica, Horace encouraged careful and direct writing, the avoidance of ‘purple prose’ – and suggested that words come and go as ordinary usage dictates (Sisson, 1975). Just over a century later, Quintilian wrote in the Institutio Oratoria (c. AD 100) that linguistic ‘correctness’ was ultimately linked to public usage. At first blush, then, Quintilian seemed to agree with Horace, apparently advocating descriptivism rather than prescriptivism. In fact, however, he had a somewhat limited ‘public’ in mind: We must not accept as a rule of language any bad habits which have become ingrained in many people. To say nothing of the language of the uneducated, we know that whole theatres and the entire circus crowd often commit Barbarisms in the shouting they make. I shall therefore define Usage in speech as the consensus of the educated, just as Usage in life is the consensus of the good.6 (Book I, chap. 6: 45; see Russell, 2001: 185) Reliance upon this rather more select provenance remained dominant among most later commentators and authorities on language. For example, in his Remarques sur la langue françoise (1647), Vaugelas wrote that ‘l’usage est demeuré le maistre; communis error facit jus, disent les jurisconsultes’ (usage reigns and, as the lawyers tell us, what is commonly held becomes right). Like Quintilian, however, Vaugelas made clear that usage standards are to be found among la plus saine partie de la Cour who, themselves, draw upon la plus saine partie des Auteurs du temps (Hall, 1974: 176).

Prescriptivism in Theory and Practice The clearest examples of language protection are found in the existence and the works of academies, the most well known of these being, of course,

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the Académie française. Here, Cardinal Richelieu’s 40 ‘immortals’ were given ‘absolute power . . . over literature and language’ (Hall, 1974: 180). The efforts of the French academy and other similar institutions have not always been very successful, either in their grammatical and lexical productions or, more specifically, in their attempts to intervene in the dynamics of language use. But this hardly detracts from their importance as manifestations of will and intent, nor does it vitiate their sociological and political role as protectors of group identity (if often self-appointed). In fact, lack of success may indirectly tell us much about the power of the ‘natural tide of language’ (as Thomas put it) to resist direction. He went on to point out that ‘it has become fashionable to lampoon language academies for their stuffiness, their smugness and their otherworldliness’ (Thomas, 1991: 111), but he was quite aware of their powerful symbolism. The academicians may constitute a very non-random sample of the broader public, and their productions may remain distant from most members of that public, but their protectionist impulses rest upon strong popular foundations. The ‘perpetual secretaries’ of the Académie française are traditionally just that: they remain in their post until translated to another plane. So, when Maurice Druon announced his retirement in 1999, it came as a considerable surprise – perhaps more surprising, in fact, since Druon (who died in 2009, aged 91) had been a particularly active secrétaire perpétuel. He was a great champion of the sentiment to be found on the official website of the academy: the strength of English constitutes ‘une réelle menace pour le français’ and ‘les importations anglo-américaines dans notre lexique’ have become too great. And, at an ‘internal’ level, Druon gave his powerful endorsement to the academy’s fight – ultimately unsuccessful – against the introduction of feminized job titles (so that, for example, female deputies, lawyers and researchers may now be styled as députées, avocates and chercheuses). He railed against the ministerial initiative here, arguing in 1998 that cabinet office does not ‘confer the right to modify the use of the French language’. This ‘venomous, arch-conservative octogenarian’ (as Druon was described by Henley, 2004: 7) continued to press, suggesting that: nous n’avons pas seulement perdu notre imperium linguistique sur la diplomatie, les sciences, les techniques, l’économie mais, parallèlement ou consécutivement, nous sommes descendus, dans l’oral comme dans l’écrit, de plusieurs niveaux de langage. (Druon, 2004: 21) Where, he continued, is Quintilian now? What has happened to his valuable linguistic strictures? The decay happened, Druon argued, because the French have lost pride in themselves, their country, and the instrument of their

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national glory. Consequently, he called for a national effort to make language protection a high priority, for linguistic watchdogs to be revived or created, and for English ‘borrowings’ to be rejected.7 I do not suggest that Druon’s opinions are unchallenged in French intellectual circles: he engaged in a vitriolic exchange, for example, with the literary journalist and broadcaster, Bernard Pivot, whose descriptivist view of language is regularly expressed and applauded. I do mean to suggest, however, that the sentiments of the ‘arch-conservative’ Druon have been very widely endorsed for a long time, and remain potent in the general imagination, in many popular and often highly successful style manuals, handbooks and vade-mecums, and – of course – in the press. And not only in France: Sturiale (this volume) reminds us of Prince Charles weighing in against the corrupting influence of Americanisms (see also Ager, 2003). Consider the perennial popularity of usage guides, most of which are directed internally, advising readers against ‘incorrect’ grammar and vocabulary, horrific provincialisms, slang, inappropriate or unnecessary foreign borrowings, and so on. Kibbee (2009) provides several examples from 18thcentury France, making clear that the most general impulse was a desire for standardization and the accompanying sense that regionalisms are threats to linguistic unity and (of course) ‘correctness’. When the authors of these guides condemned ‘non-French’ usages, they were looking more at gasconismes, flandricismes and provençalismes than across la Manche. Tieken-Boon van Ostade (2009) discusses English-usage handbooks, referring to their unflagging popularity and, as well, to the varieties of ‘depth’ on offer. Indeed, the serious undertakings of Fowler, Gowers, Burchfield and others are matched in our own time by the altogether lighter and more ‘personal’ treatments of Amis, Winchester, Bryson and Aitchison. Whatever the level of intellectual respectability, however, all such efforts have linguistic axes to grind. The letters pages of newspapers everywhere regularly print feverish responses to linguistic barbarisms and bastardizations. A recent Canadian illustration is provided by Smith (2007), writing in The Globe and Mail. He had earlier noted that American pronunciations, like ‘nooz’ for news or ‘zee’ for zed, are variants, and not necessarily inferior to British versions (or, touching an interesting regional vein, to Canadian usage). His observations prompted a flurry of responses from readers who generally made stout assertions that pronunciations like ‘nooz’ reveal laziness, or perhaps too much exposure to American television. ‘It is sad to see our language deteriorate to almost slang’, one wrote. The ‘logic’ card was played, too: we spell pews like news and nobody (not even Americans) pronounces the former as ‘pooze’ or says ‘pook’ for puke. Smith points out that this sort of ‘logic’ just doesn’t

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work in language, particularly in a notoriously irregular medium like English. Finally, he tells us that the reader who equated American usage with slang and decay went on to cite Churchill’s famous wartime speeches as ‘well spoken’: I am guessing [Smith wrote] she means not only elegantly written but spoken in a British [sic] accent. The implication, I think, is that this accent saved us from nazism and that this accent is therefore the language of valour and virtue, and one we should all emulate. This is what I mean about the conflation of usage and morality. Smith’s newspaper piece is interesting in two main ways. First, it points to the interesting Canadian positioning – in language and other things – somewhere between Britain and America; this always has implications for the much-discussed Canadian identity.8 Second, Smith is undoubtedly correct to suggest that, lurking behind anguished complaints about falling standards and linguistic decay, there are usually deeper worries about moral and social decline, about unwanted foreign influences and, therefore, about group identity. Influential writers and public figures have for a long time written about linguistic decline and decay, identified the chief malefactors, and suggested what ought to be done. As Quirk (1982: 99) once pointed out, there has never been a shortage of ‘amateur do gooding missionaries’ in this area. But not every critic has been animated by religious zeal. One thinks immediately, I suppose, of Orwell’s several essays on language, but there are many other thoughtful discussions – not narrow and inaccurate treatments of decay and decline, but more measured criticism of deliberate or ignorant misuse, of unnecessary neologism, of jargon and propaganda; the several works of Steiner (1967, 1972, 1978) can serve as examples here. At more rarefied levels, prescriptivism has become a four-letter word, with scholars arguing that it is neither desirable nor feasible to attempt to intervene in the ‘natural’ social life of language. Milroy and Milroy (1985: 5) thus observed that ‘mainstream’ linguists ‘have generally claimed that prescription is not a central part of their discipline and even that it is irrelevant to linguistics’. A deliberate renunciation of prescriptivism, of course, is more like atheism than agnosticism: a conscious non-belief is itself a belief and, as Hohenhaus (2005) observed, a refusal to intervene is essentially prescriptivism in reverse (see also Crystal, 2006). In any event, it is arguable that, in their rush away from prescriptivism, linguists may have abdicated a useful role as arbiters, and may have left much of the field open to those termed ‘language shamans’ by Bolinger (1980).9 He was one of the few

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contemporary linguists willing to participate in debates about the ‘public life’ of language: he rightly criticized the obvious crank elements, but he also understood the desire for standards, the frustration with perceived ‘decay’ and ‘incorrectness’, the onslaught of weasel words and jargon. In my view, there remains a need for much more illumination of that persistent no man’s land between academic linguistics and public language.10

Modified Prescriptivism Formal prescriptivist interventions by academicians and lexicographers typically arose to deal with problems of language regularization created by advances in printing, increasing literacy and swelling conceptions of national ‘groupness’. Matters here did not simply arise in the minds of some nationalist elite aiming to create or reinforce those linguistic variants that they themselves endorsed. As always, the views and postures of the privileged were important – but they did not reflect the only forces in play nor, more particularly, were they much concerned with vulgar usage. Consider Caxton, however, having to make a selection from varying English dialects because of the imperatives of printing. Or better, perhaps, consider Samuel Johnson, who was (or, at least, became – in the years between the appearance of his Plan for a dictionary and the dictionary itself) contemptuous of any attempt at linguistic ‘embalming’, while remaining hopeful that his dictionary might somehow ‘ascertain’ an English that he saw as degenerating. The tension between a prescriptivism arising from narrow and often unfair conceptions of social inclusion and exclusion, and desires and needs for at least some standardization is, I believe, a permanent one. It continues to figure importantly in lexicographic decision making and, much more broadly, in the work of all language planners in all contexts.11 Contemporary debates about what (if anything) ought to be done on behalf of ‘endangered’ varieties provide an excellent example here. Any desire to intervene on behalf of beleaguered varieties – a desire that has become attractive to many, both within and without the academy – involves a willingness to engage in prescriptivist exercises: an interesting conundrum, to be sure, for those whose liberal impulses generally embrace both a concern for the ‘small’, the ‘authentic’ and the ‘threatened’, and a dislike of ‘interfering’ in other cultures. In general, however, a permanent ambivalence or tension is in fact highly desirable. On the one hand, the steadily growing scholarly belief in the ‘naturalness’ of descriptivism is legitimately erected on the foundations of ‘ordinary’ usage: usus est magister optimus may be logically unprovable, but it has the considerable weight of history behind it – not least exemplified by

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language change and evolution. On the other, linguistic choices continue to be necessary, and any route followed means another road not taken. There is, then, an ongoing need for what we might style a ‘modified’ prescriptivism, for minimalist intervention.12 An argument made by Tony Crowley (2003: 11) is relevant here; he contends that the alleged shift to objective and descriptive linguistics never really occurred (in Britain, at any rate). He makes the reasonable point that the ‘social and rhetorical concerns’ of earlier periods have not abated and cites evidence to show a continuity here to the present day. It is certainly easy to cite the prescriptive sentiments of prominent 20th-century linguists like Daniel Jones and Henry Wyld, but their distaste for provincial dialects and their belief that Received Pronunciation possessed intrinsic linguistic merits were dying postures. The famous treatises on English usage by Fowler, Gowers, Burchfield and others – whose intellectual credentials were various but never insignificant – are perhaps best understood as the natural successors to those earlier sentiments, best considered as examples of a ‘modified’ prescriptivism – generally reasonable, usually plausible, but open to informed debate. We think of them most appropriately, perhaps, as commentators on usage rather than arbiters. They certainly have seen their task as providing informed opinion and discouraging woolly, jargon-ridden and incomprehensible language. Their campaigns are hardly over. The website of the Queen’s English Society (established in 1972) acknowledges a prescriptivist intent – indeed, it makes the reasonable point that the organisation would have no purpose if it were wholly ‘descriptive’ – but denies a policing or governing role; ‘The fact, nevertheless, remains that there are people who speak [English] and write it in a clear and elegant way and others who are imprecise and unclear’. While ‘anyone who knows the rules and can use English correctly is entitled to ‘play’ with the language . . . there is all the difference between such a person saying “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” and a person who says that believing it to be correct English’. Putting aside scholarly concerns about the society’s sense of rules or correctness, these sorts of citations illustrate very well a contemporary face of prescriptivism: a reluctance to be branded authoritative which is nevertheless coupled with strong attitudes about language. The current president of the Queen’s English Society is Bernard Lamb, a geneticist by trade, and his recent book can be consulted for further convolutions here; much of it, it must be said, takes the form of a guide to grammar, spelling and pronunciation – a sort of scaled-down Fowler (Lamb, 2010). Perhaps it is only painting the lily to cite ‘JC’ (2010), who reflected on Lamb and his society in the Times Literary Supplement – because he rather nicely remade the point that some level or type of prescriptivism appeals even

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to those who are linguistically enlightened. Lamb and those who agree with him may be ‘spitting against the wind . . . [but] we find ourselves in sneaky sympathy’. Comments by Feldman (2010) and Attwood (2010) provide further relevant gilding here. The existence of the Queen’s English Society, as well as many other similarly minded bodies, reflects the long-standing interest in at least some level of prescriptivist authority. It is perhaps a testament to the Dickensian ‘Circumlocution Office’ that officialdom itself, in the shape of the Treasury, commissioned Ernest Gowers to help them in their campaign for clearer English. In response, he produced Plain Words (1948) and The ABC of Plain Words (1951). Three years later, these booklets were issued together, as The Complete Plain Words, and in this combined form have remained in print ever since.13 Campaigns for ‘plain’ language have surfaced on both sides of the Atlantic and, indeed, in many non-anglophone countries as well. It would be a great mistake, of course, to imagine that prescriptivist concerns for English were a mid-20th-century development. As I point out elsewhere (Edwards, in press), we can find them emerging at least as early as the late 16th century.14 While there were many advocates of an English equivalent to the Académie française – among the most well known were Richard Verstegan, in his Restitution of Decayed Intelligence (1605), and Richard Carew, whose Epistle Concerning the Excellencies of the English Tongue appeared in the same year – most of the later and more famous arguments can reasonably be put under the heading I have given to this section, can reasonably be seen as exemplifying the descriptivist–prescriptivist tension already alluded to here. In his Proposal for Correcting, Improving and Ascertaining the English Tongue (1712), Jonathan Swift rebelled against the ‘Infusion of Enthusiastick Jargon’ in English, against the ‘licentiousness’ of the Restoration that had corrupted the language. The language had become corrupt and barbarous and, addressing himself to the Earl of Oxford, Swift called for ‘eminent persons’ to form a society under official aegis (Bolton, 1966). Hardly had his ink dried than Swift found himself criticized by John Oldmixon (1712). As part of a political and personal assault, Oldmixon suggested that ‘the Doctor may as well set up a Society to find out the Grand Elixir . . . as to fix our Language beyond their own Times’ (Oldmixon, 1712: 25) – and, besides, ‘what Law of ours Impowers any body to order our Language to be Inspected, and who is there that wou’d think himself oblig’d to obey him in it?’ (Oldmixon, 1712: 30). Opinions for and against a prescriptivist institution continued but, as we know, no government-sponsored English-language academy has ever appeared: not in England, not in America, not in any other anglophone

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country – with the single exception of the English Academy of Southern Africa (established in 1961), a non-governmental advisory body. This is clearly a global anomaly: as Mackey (1991: 55) has noted, ‘there is hardly any country in the world that does not have some sort of public or private language planning body’. Any internet search with ‘language academies’ as keywords will bear out Mackey’s observation, and will provide a list of about 100 current bodies – this total not counting some important subcategories (the eight or nine Arabic academies, for instance, or the 20 or so Spanish-language bodies). So, it is quite obvious that – while not resulting in some equivalent to the many bodies found elsewhere – anglophone prescriptivist impulses have remained, and remain, strong in some quarters. It is also apposite to recall at this point that such impulses relate to much more than linguistic regularity alone. If instrumental and communicative efficiency were all that were at stake, the age-old arguments against foreign incursions and for ‘purity’ – the latter providing frequent occasions for social and political criticism (or worse) of ‘out-groups’ – would be rather more muted, and would simply not find such broad expression as they continue to do. When, however, we realize the important psychological role that language has as a boundary marker, things become rather more clear. All this being so, the emergence of one-man academies in England and America becomes almost entirely predictable. The appearance of Johnson’s dictionary (in 1755) and Webster’s (in 1828) are lexicographical landmarks. Additionally, they both illustrate something of the ambivalence or tension that I am sketching here; as well, both tell us something of the perception of language–identity linkage. As noted already, Johnson had supported the ‘purity’ function of his work in the Plan for his dictionary (1747) but he became more descriptivist – if sometimes grudgingly – rejecting any attempt at ‘embalming’ a language, and implied that academies could not, in any case, prevent linguistic change. He did not agree with the sentiments of the Earl of Chesterfield, his rather tepid patron, who wished him to be an ‘absolute dictator of standards’. Indeed, in the preface to the dictionary itself, Johnson wrote that he hoped that the ‘spirit of English liberty’ would hamper or ruin any academy that did arise. He thus represents quite well that English ambivalence which, I am trying to suggest, exemplifies rather well the historical and ongoing tension between descriptivism and prescriptivism.15,16 As for identity: all the English lexicographers knew of the work of the continental academies, and many of them – not least Johnson himself – considered their individual efforts as quite equivalent. The Doctor’s own work was cheered by his friend and former pupil, David Garrick. In a short poem entitled On Johnson’s Dictionary, Garrick

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lauded the triumphs of the English over the French in soldiery, science, and literature, ending with the lines: And Johnson, well arm’d like a hero of yore, Has beat forty French, and will beat forty more!17 Johnson agreed with the sentiment. In late 1747, the theologian William Adams asked him how he expected to complete his great work in three years (which, of course, he failed to do), when ‘the French Academy, which consists of forty members, took forty years to compile their Dictionary’. Johnson replied: Sir, thus it is. This is the proportion. Let me see; forty times forty is sixteen hundred. As three to sixteen hundred, so is the proportion of an Englishman to a Frenchman.18 Furthermore, in the (unpaginated) preface to his dictionary, Johnson wrote that he devotes his work, ‘the labour of years, to the honour of my country, that we may no longer yield the palm of philology to the nations of the continent’. More generally, Mugglestone (this volume) reminds us of the 18th-century English opinion – one that hardened, indeed, as the century moved towards its close, and as cross-channel developments concentrated minds wonderfully – that ‘a good language . . . is both an Honour and of great Use to a Nation’. There you have it: language as both instrument and symbol. Johnson’s rather muscular sense of English national pride was repeated when James Murray’s Oxford English Dictionary appeared in the late 19th century. As Mugglestone (this volume) tells us, it was seen as a ‘patriotic endeavour’ in which the ‘“national honour” of England was engaged’, and the great work highlighted ‘international rivalries’ with the dictionaries of France, Germany and the United States. Mugglestone argues that Murray’s stated commitment to the ‘English-speaking and English-reading peoples’ revealed itself in a lexicographical ‘anglicity’ – particularly in the first edition – which tended to cast other societies into a rather uncultured shade. In other words, Murray fell short of his stated aim of inclusivity and descriptivism.19 Inheriting the British linguistic tradition, the newly independent United States inherited an ambivalent attitude towards prescriptivism. As well, the continental academies were redolent of those ‘crowned heads and royal courts’ which the Americans rejected (Heath, 1977). As in Britain, there was interest, in some important quarters, in an academy: John Adams, for example, felt the need for an institution to stem linguistic ‘degeneration’. He also

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believed that, since England had no academy, there was an opportunity here for his country to put its official stamp on linguistic purity and preservation. But Adams, often suspected of monarchist sympathies, had no success in moving Congress.20 The solution to the ‘tension’, then, was another one-man academy, the American Johnson being, of course, Noah Webster. Webster shared both Johnson’s pragmatic perspective on linguistic change, and his modesty about the work of the lexicographer. Drake (1977: 9) quotes from an 1826 letter in which Webster wrote, approvingly, that ‘the force of common usage cannot be resisted’. Still, enamoured as he was of a new ‘people’s language’, Webster also saw part of his task as the removal of ‘improprieties and vulgarisms’, as well as the ‘odious distinctions of provincial dialects’ (Quirk, 1982: 65). Another facet of his prescriptivism was driven by nationalist sentiments. Webster was a believer in the linkage between language and group identity – ‘a national language is a bond of national union’, he said (Quirk, 1982: 65) – but his task was not to standardize or ‘improve’ a medium unique to his New World speech community. It was, rather, to take a shared language and provide it with American clothing, and his dictionary was meant as a contribution to the linguistic independence of the country.21 His twin goals were for an American simplicity and directness (in opposition to the pedantic irregularities and corruptions found in Britain), and the establishment of indigenous linguistic foundations. Some of his innovations took root: color for ‘colour’, center for ‘centre’, traveling for ‘travelling’, and so on; other suggestions fared less well (tung and thum, for example).22 He also made careful room in his lexicon for native words (skunk, moose, succotash). Webster thought it likely that England and the United States would become more and more linguistically separate, and approved of the possibility that entirely different languages might eventually result. More than that, he believed that American English could become the better language and was glad to observe that, already, Americans spoke the purest English (Drake, 1977).23 A final point here is that these famous dictionaries did not spell the end of ‘academic’ sentiment. It is true that, after Swift’s 1712 proposal came to naught, that sentiment abated, particularly as Johnson’s great work came to be seen as the equivalent of an academy.24 The position of Robert Nares – theologian, philologist, orthoepist – is illustrative here.25 He praised the efforts of Johnson and other lexicographers, but suggested that more might have been accomplished had they ‘united themselves into a Society’ (Nares, 1781: 4). Nares was well aware of the traditional anti-academy arguments, and attempted to refute them. The ‘inflexibility and natural harshness’ (Nares, 1781: 5) of English would defend it, he thought, against too much academical ‘refinement’. As to suitable sponsorship, Nares felt that, even in

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the absence of a desirable royal seal of approval, the careful and useful deliberations of an appropriate assembly of scholars would need no external buttressing; ‘by their fruits ye shall know them’, he might have said. Finishing with a rather Johnsonian flourish, Nares extolled the virtues of a learned association ‘whose censure would expunge error, whose judgement would remove scruple, and whose approbation would confirm that which is right’ (Nares, 1781: 5–6). Nares’s response to a third argument is also worth noting here. Echoing Oldmixon’s views half a century before, Joseph Priestley (1768) – something of an early anti-prescriptivist – had summarized the commonly held view that an authoritative (perhaps authoritarian) academy was inappropriate for the ‘genius’ of a free people.26 In response, Nares wrote: ‘who then shall decide, whether a deviation from approved rules be a symptom of ignorance, or a mark of independence?’ In other words, it is at least arguable whether the determinations of an academy should be viewed as oppressive to the liberal mind, or as a useful check on a linguistic freedom that is essentially ‘wanton and capricious opposition’ (Nares, 1781: 5). This is an extremely interesting statement of the powerful prescriptivist– descriptivist tension that prevailed then, and that continues now. In a later work, Nares continued on this admirably cautious line: ‘an academy like that of Paris has been wished for; whether judiciously or not, will bear an argument’ (Nares, 1784: 269). Bearing in mind the 18th-century views of Oldmixon, Nares and others who asked about the most reasonable provenance of prescriptivist authority, and also bearing in mind the patriotic lexicography of Webster, we should realize that the current global scope of English has complicated the issue in very interesting ways. We live in a world of ‘Englishes’, with many regional varieties and local standards, in which old perceptions of the ‘owners’ of English are rapidly changing. If, as Gill (this volume) points out, ‘until the late 20th century, the authority of the NS [native speaker] was rarely questioned’, it is now very much open to question – the presence of millions of English native speakers well beyond the borders of England, America and, indeed, the old anglophone dominions means that contemporary prescriptivist intervention becomes a multi-faceted entity.

Conclusion Linguistic purism and prescriptivism, patriotism, nationalism: all are partners in a continuing – and continuingly important – drama. Furthermore, the players are drawn from all levels of society: there is room here for both

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laymen and scholars. It is true enough that, today, the latter are less likely than the former to adopt prescriptivist postures. In earlier times – and animated by different motives, of course – it was the scholars who were the prescriptivists, charged as they so often were with language-management activities of one sort or another. The lower orders, on the other hand, tended to care rather less when virtually all of them were, in any event, illiterate. In our age, most professional scholars find puristic impulses silly, distasteful and somehow undemocratic; it is the man or woman in the street – or in the public prints – who is most likely to rail against decay, degeneration and unwanted influence, to argue for the maintenance of ‘standards’. Prescriptivist stances are not wholly foreign to the contemporary scholarly community, of course: how could they be in a world where issues of language ‘management’ are always important? All such types of management – from the formal efforts of academicians and lexicographers to the many and varied undertakings of language planners (Kaplan & Baldauf, 1997) – are necessarily prescriptivist to some degree, since all presuppose intentions and desired outcomes. An obvious corollary – given what has gone before here – is that all planning must also touch upon matters of identity. Planning is inevitably coloured by ideological imperatives; any ‘theoretical’ pretensions can only remain value-free at the most abstract levels: any application immediately involves opinion and preference. More bluntly, what appears as desirable progress to some may be persecution to others – every linguistic route chosen, after all, means another road not taken. Some of the most dramatic instances here are those in which the demands of identity are allowed to trump simple intelligibility, where the symbolic linguistic contribution to ‘belonging’ becomes more important than communication. Once upon a time in the former Yugoslavia, there was a language called Serbo-Croatian, a common variety among not just Serbs and Croats, but also Bosnians and Montenegrins. It was, to be sure, not identical in all its regional and dialectal variants, and – as might be expected in that troubled part of Europe – many historical, orthographical and grammatical points were contentious ones, and formal agreements about the language – going back to the middle of the 19th century – were often rather fragile. Still, a slightly uneasy peace prevailed until the break-up of Yugoslavia: SerboCroatian, with two standard pronunciations and two alphabets (Latin and Cyrillic), was the dominant medium (and, indeed, considerable room was also made for the languages of other national groups). Now, however, SerboCroatian no longer has an official existence, having been replaced by Bosnian, Serbian and Croatian – and, particularly in Croatia, various declarations have been accompanied by ‘a campaign to actually make the language as different from Serbian (or Serbo-Croatian) as possible, and as quickly as possible’

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(Bugarski, 2001: 84). This sorry story makes abundantly clear the political place of language in group identity, and its value – its non-instrumental value – in boundary construction. On a more general note, Kaplan and Baldauf (1997: 302) suggest that ‘language planners’ are inevitably caught somewhere between linguistic description and prescriptivism. On the one hand, they are now largely drawn from the scholarly ranks, and this implies (or should imply) a disinterested and dispassionate stance. On the other, their work ‘contains a kernel of prescriptivism by definition’. Kaplan and Baldauf try to make the case that language planning is descriptive in its data-gathering mode but, beyond that, becomes prescriptive. This, I think, is already an admission of the heavy prescriptive weighting overall, since the activities that come after fact finding (recommendations for action, selection of policies, implementation, review, and so on) consume by far the greatest amounts of time and energy. Even the initial survey work, however, even the assembling of the necessary data, is initiated for reasons that are rarely dispassionate or apolitical. Cameron (1995) makes the apposite point that, for at least some scholars, ‘prescriptivism’ is an undesirable activity undertaken by others; language ‘planning’, on the other hand, represents their own expertise in operation. This arbitrary and incorrect distinction is maintained, as she notes, by the distinction maintained in the literature between the two terms. It might seem that we have come a long way from Quintilian, the 1stcentury Roman rhetorician whose prescriptivist views underpinned much scholarly opinion until the 18th century, and whose reference group for linguistic felicity was, as already noted, ‘the consensus of the educated’. There are some provisions, however. First, Quintilian himself revealed something of the tensions that I have attempted to highlight here: before he equated good usage with the language of the educated, he wrote that ‘usage is the surest teacher of speaking, and we should treat language like money marked with the public stamp’ (Book I, chap. 6: 3; see Russell, 2001: 163). The suggestion is of a nagging sense of an undesirable but ultimate triumph of language rising from the most public and the most widespread of roots; indeed, Russell footnotes a reference to Horace’s Ars Poetica at this point in his translation. Second – and, again, as I have tried to show – prescriptivism did not, could not and ought not to have come to an end with the advent of modern linguistic insight. As Thomas (1991: 13) wrote, purism and prescriptivism are, quite simply, ‘coterminous with language’. We may justifiably rail against some exercises in linguistic cleansing, but certainly not all of them. ‘Not necessarily prescriptivism, but prescriptivism if necessary’ might be a reasonable motto here.27

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Dollinger and Percy (2009) have pointed to ‘a deep misunderstanding and a lack of knowledge transfer between scholarly debates on language and the topics considered of interest to the (North American) public’, a state of affairs that cries out for more scholarly involvement in the ‘public life of language’. Likewise, Curzan (2009), Chapman (this volume) and Kibbee (2009) have all argued that the study of prescriptivism should have much greater prominence within linguistic studies. Reference is often made in this connection to Cameron (1995), who also lends her support to a more fully fleshed and embedded study of prescriptivism. Here, she has suggested that ‘verbal hygiene’ is a better and more inclusive term than ‘prescriptivism’, since the latter has now taken on indelibly negative connotations within the academic community, which sees it as wrong on both moral and scholarly grounds28 (although, as Cameron notes and as I have suggested above, an antiprescriptivist stance is hardly value- or ‘prescription’-free itself). ‘Verbal hygiene’, on the other hand, is meant to cover all activities that arise from the ‘urge to meddle’ (Cameron, 1995: 237) in language, and these could include the sorts of interventions that I have described here as ‘modified’ – as well, of course, as refusals to act: after all, informed decisions not to intervene still reflect active assessment. Cameron thus suggests great breadth here, arguing that any critical or evaluative reflections on any aspect of language can reasonably be placed under the verbal-hygiene rubric, and that not all of them are ill judged or inappropriately authoritarian. She provides a long list of ‘hygienic’ practices, noting that the potential for verbal hygiene is: latent in every communicative act, and the impulse behind it pervades our habits of thought and behaviour. I have never met anyone who did not subscribe, in one way or another, to the belief that language can be ‘right’ or ‘wrong’, ‘good’ or ‘bad’, more or less ‘elegant’ or ‘effective’ or ‘appropriate’ . . . it is rare to find anyone rejecting altogether the idea that there is some legitimate authority in language. We are all of us closet prescriptivists – or, as I prefer to put it, verbal hygienists.29 (Cameron, 1995: 9) I provide this lengthy citation because it clearly lays out what I believe to be the essential underpinning to any reasonable and comprehensive approach to prescriptivism. Having nailed these colours to the mast, Cameron then devotes her book to an examination of prescriptivist practices – both objectionable and defensible. It is this breadth of approach that I endorse, and I am sure that those scholars cited here who have argued for more attention to prescriptivism and its ramifications also endorse this breadth, this Cameronian hygiene. My final point is simply the reminder that, in all of

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this, we are essentially dealing with the social life of language rather than linguistics per se. More specifically, studies of intervention in language are, at the deepest level, studies of group identity. As Romaine (1997: 424) points out, ‘verbal hygiene is not really about language, but about what language stands for. Arguments about usage are really debates about the values held by opposing groups in society’. Just so.

Notes (1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

(5)

(6)

It will become quite obvious in this piece that I owe a great deal to papers given at the conference entitled Prescriptivism and Patriotism: Language Norms and Identities from Nationalism to Globalization, held at New College, University of Toronto, August 2009. I have also drawn upon contributions to the June 2010 conference on English Dictionaries in Global and Historical Context, hosted by Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. I prescind here from consideration of so-called ‘civic nationalism’, and restrict myself to the ‘ethnic’ variety. In fact, I believe that the former is an unnecessary coinage for which existing terms (patriotism, citizenship) remain adequate. It has achieved popularity, however, because – if nothing else – it allows the attractive notion of the ‘nation-state’ to be much more broadly conceived. I would argue, however, that ‘ethnic nationalism’ is the only nationalism. We need accept no substitutes. Groups that have shifted, in communicative terms, from their ancestral variety to another may retain a distinctiveness at the level of accent or dialect. Such ‘marking’ – as in the case, say, of the English-speaking Irish, Welsh or Scots, of Portuguesespeaking Brazilians, of Spanish-speaking Peruvians or of German-speaking Austrians – can obviously come to be a very powerful agent of identity indeed. The relative neglect of Thomas’s work reflects what has been a broad scholarly distaste for prescriptivism, an area that – as Milroy and Milroy (1985: 6) have observed – is often seen as ‘not quite respectable’. This is based upon the entirely fallacious notion that to study something is to endorse it – although it must of course be admitted that, in the often inbred publishing-and-perishing world of academia, alleged disreputability may rightly be considered a cautionary signal. Similar dynamics have undercut the study of ‘constructed’ languages – a most interesting, and very long-standing, sociological and sociolinguistic phenomenon. It is always worth mentioning that the related notion of ‘sub-standard’ language or dialect has no validity at all. Only within the last few decades has this become the received scholarly wisdom, and it is blindingly obvious that it has failed to penetrate very deeply in society at large. In one important sense, of course, the man or woman on the Clapham omnibus (or the Toronto streetcar) is right: social convention can certainly change linguistic difference into linguistic deficiency. A little earlier in this same passage, Quintilian observes that it would be ‘dangerous’ to equate usage simply with ‘what most people do’. He continues: For where can we be lucky enough to find a situation in which the majority like what is right? Plucking the hairs of the legs or armpits, arranging one’s coiffure in tiers, getting dead drunk at the baths – however universal these things have become in our society, they cannot be Usage, because they are all open to censure. (Book I, chap. 6: 45; see Russell, 2001: 183–185)

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(7) Druon had been the French Minister of Culture himself, and during his tenure was not averse to linguistic pronouncements. Besides the references to Henley (2004) and Druon (2004), I have also drawn here upon a leader in the Times Higher Education Supplement (1999) and an anonymous article in The Economist (1998). (8) As many scholars and more casual observers have noted, Canadian English reflects both American and British influences. Chambers (1998: 263) thus refers to a ‘double standard in many matters of spelling and pronunciation’. There are variations (by age and region, for instance), such that Ontarians are more likely to write colour and Albertans color. There are historical reasons, having to do with waves of immigration, but there are also important attitudinal factors: Canadians came to regard British standards as superior, whether or not they were the ones we ourselves practised . . . at many points in our history, being patriotically Canadian has defined itself as being anti-American. (Chambers, 1998: 264)

(9)

(10)

(11) (12)

(13)

See also the recent contribution by Dollinger and Percy (2009), who place their discussion of Canadian English usage in the broader context of scholarly involvement in the ‘public life of language’. See Edwards (1994; 2006); also Bruthiaux (1992) for some further notes on the role that linguists ought to play. It can be an exciting one, even tragic. Heap (2007) and Moller (2007) discuss the activities of Aníbal Otero, whose linguistic work in Galicia and Portugal brought him to the attention of the Fascists in 1936. His death sentence was commuted to one of life imprisonment, and he ended up spending five years in jail for the ‘crime’ of language study; something to point out to aspiring linguistic fieldworkers, perhaps. Labov’s pioneering work on American Black English is a good example here. He provided compelling arguments for the ‘goodness’ of Black English and, by extension, of all dialects. Despite, however, his influence within linguistic circles and – more importantly – despite the fact that his arguments can be easily understood by anyone of reasonable intelligence (and goodwill), there is ample evidence that ‘street’ prejudice against non-standard dialects remains strong. See Labov (1994) and Edwards (2010) for further discussion. The outcry over the publication of ‘Webster’s Third’ – more particularly, over what was seen as its abandonment of a desirable prescriptivist expertise – is illustrative of continuing public concerns; see Morton (1994) for a comprehensive overview. The idea that prescriptivist intervention, while sometimes necessary, should always be kept to a minimum and should always follow more or less utilitarian lines, may be understood as a specific instance of a broader principle applied to all official intervention. In this sense, it is a reflection of democratic tendencies and, more particularly, of American democratic tendencies: although variously attributed to Paine, Jefferson and others – it was obviously repeated by many – the aphorism that the least government is the best government was popularized by Thoreau, who made the observation in the opening line of his essay on ‘civil disobedience’ (Thoreau, 1849: 189). (He did not use the latter term, however, nor did he coin the aphorism – it was the motto of the short-lived United States Magazine and Democratic Review.) ‘As if plain words, useful and intelligible instructions, were not as good for an esquire, or one that is in commission from the King, as for him that holds the plough’ – this citation appears on the title page of Gowers (1954). It is taken from a satirical piece by Eachard (1670).

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(14) Lancashire (this volume) discusses the interesting idea – not fully developed as yet – that William Cecil, Elizabeth’s secretary and principal advisor, was a powerful advocate of ‘plain’ English (see note 17). This, coupled with a rather laissez-faire and instrumentalist attitude towards usage, meant (according to Lancashire) that he was an important force opposed to the establishment of an English academy. (15) Wooldridge (2009; see also Kirchner, 2010) remarks upon both the inevitable prescriptivism of the Dictionnaire de l’Académie française and the necessary economies of space imposed upon it – and all subsequent print dictionaries. He goes on to suggest that the greatest advantage of modern online works is that limitations of size, weight and even alphabetization can be removed. It may well be that although electronic ‘publication’ will be able to lessen prescriptivism through such removal, unreserved moves in that direction may not always be indicated. Pershai (2010) and Winer (2010) have pointed out how important print remains, how it continues to serve important national and symbolic purposes – particularly in societies where literacy is limited, interestingly (but, on a little reflection, not surprisingly) enough. In Edwards (2004b), I touched upon research undertaken in the Solomon Islands, where a dictionary of Lavukaleve was well received because it was seen as tangible proof of linguistic validity; after all, neighbouring islanders had a dictionary, too, and such a production – preferably by an outsider, a foreign expert – is obviously necessary for any ‘respectable’ language. The value of a dictionary in this setting, Terrill (2002: 215) points out, ‘has less to do with its content, and more to do with its very existence’. And the more of that content, the better: ‘the most frequent response to the dictionary, when I presented the first version, was disappointment that it was not as big as people were expecting’ (Terrill, 2002: 214). This might at first blush seem a trivial point, and perhaps a rather condescending one: for these simple people, the bigger the better. But if we accept a central theme of this chapter – that language has a powerful symbolic value for group identity – then Terrill’s observation that ‘written materials have an emblematic function far beyond their intrinsic content’ (Terrill, 2002: 216) seems a reasonable corollary. She cites a common contemporary view regarding endangered languages, expressed here by Nettle and Romaine (2000: 179): ‘grammars and dictionaries are artificial environments for languages’. An implication is that attention paid to ‘preservation’ is misplaced when vernacular usage continues to decline. Some, indeed, have gone further, arguing that ‘foreign’ lexicographers dangerously trespass upon local linguistic ecologies, and may actually facilitate language shift via a sort of extended linguistic colonialism (see Mühlhäusler, 1996). But Terrill suggests that this ‘emblematic’ function of written material may, after all, have its part to play in encouraging the maintenance of ‘small’ varieties. (The late Terry Crowley [1999; 2000] had made a number of related points, based upon his extensive experience in Oceania.) (16) Post-Soviet activity on behalf of a language seen to be in a bad way after a long ‘sterile’ period is discussed by Archaimbault (2009). The summary text by Savel’eva (2000) provides a particularly interesting example of the strong ‘identity’ component in such linguistic activity: she writes of the ‘ethnic’ view of the world that is attainable only through Russian, of the cultural necessity of ‘breathing the air’ of one’s mother tongue, of Russian as one of the great ‘branches’ on the human language tree, and so on. (17) The work is actually styled an epigram – which, indeed, can mean a short piece of verse leading to a clever or satirical point. The ‘forty French’ are, of course, the

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quarante immortels of the Académie française, and the implication is that one English lexicographer can do the work of several dozen foreign scholars. Boswell reproduces Garrick’s encomium as part of a long, mid-1755 entry in his Life of Johnson. The epigram first appeared in the Public Advertiser (22 April 1755) and, a little later, in The Gentleman’s Magazine of the same month – the latter being the periodical in which Johnson’s writing had appeared since 1738. Beal (this volume) provides some telling illustrations of the fraught relations between France and Britain in the 18th century; indeed, by the end of that century, the use of French might be considered seditious, and would almost certainly seem unpatriotic. Mitchell (this volume) concurs, adding that learning English was a way for foreigners to prove a new-found loyalty; she provides several examples of manuals written to assist them in becoming ‘masters of our language’. Even earlier, indeed, Howell’s New English Grammar (1662) was the first ESL textbook. Earlier still – from about the mid-16th century, the rumblings that were to usher in the ‘new science’ with the Royal Society as its central pillar – concerns were increasingly expressed about the need for plain and unadorned language (see Edwards, in preparation). One recalls here, of course, John Cheke’s famous observation that ‘our own tung shold be written cleane and pure, vnmixt and vnmangeled with borowing of other tunges’ (Cheke, 1954 [1557]: 538), as well as Thomas Wilson’s (1553) caution to ‘neuer affect any straunge ynkehorne termes’ (see Hüllen, 2004: 129). In the 18th century, again, some (but neither Johnson nor Garrick, of course!) thought that the establishment of an English academy should be reconsidered; some looked to Paris for fashionable speech, while others rejected French loans and pronunciations as affected, and so on. Preferences for economy cropped up even in manuals of penmanship, in which the English were encouraged towards ‘plainness’ and away from French ornamentation (Kay, 2009). We should remember, of course, that French–English tensions predated Johnson’s century – Reynolds (2009) describes the English sense of their own workmanlike style, as opposed to French ‘over-dressing’ in Shakespeare’s time – and it has of course persisted in varying degrees ever since. Beal reminds us of the zeal and rapidity with which anti-French sentiments in America hardened after the tragedy of 11 September 2001. The translation of ‘French fries’ into ‘freedom fries’ was one trivial – but telling, given its provenance and support – manifestation here (Edwards, 2004a). (18) A whimsical note, to be sure – but not without interest. Incidentally, Johnson failed to remind Dr Adams that the Académie française had actually taken almost 60 years to produce their dictionary. (19) Mugglestone does not disagree, however, with Ogilvie’s (2010) observation that – insofar as citations are concerned – Murray did in fact make room for non-British entries. Mugglestone’s emphasis here is upon his definitions and their framework. The two positions are not, therefore, in opposition. Willinsky (1994) and Benson (2001) may be consulted as witnesses for the ‘ethnocentric’ side – although this does not mean that their views are those of Mugglestone. This is a rich area for further investigation – with implications for lexicographical practice per se, as well as for the language–identity linkage. Like all enlightened approaches to this topic, a considerable amount of disciplinary border crossing is required. (20) Straaijer (2009) provides useful notes on the varying linguistic views of Adams, Franklin and Jefferson.

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(21) This is a common enough phenomenon. The Irish, the Austrians, the inhabitants of Latin America and others have all developed distinctive dialectal variants of English, German, Spanish and Portuguese. The boundary-marking intent is obvious. The same thing happens, of course, at the dialectal level within as well as across countries; here, the ‘marking’ is generally of class rather than citizenship tout court. (22) Webster would have read with approval this little exchange in Kingsley Amis’s One Fat Englishman (1966: 60): Roger saw that Arthur had put down niter. ‘Niter? What’s that supposed to mean?’ ‘You know, like a one-nighter’. ‘No such word’. ‘Challenge me?’ ‘Most certainly I challenge you’. ‘All right’. Arthur opened what was evidently a dictionary and soon said: ‘Here we are. Niter: potassium nitrate. A supposed nitrous element . . .’ ‘Rubbish, that’s n, i, t, r, e’. ‘Mm-mm’. Arthur shook his gleaming head. ‘See for yourself’. ‘I . . . but this is a bloody American dictionary’. ‘This is bloody America’. (23) Webster’s sentiments were not universally shared in America. After the 1828 appearance of his dictionary, he employed Joseph Worcester to help in the preparation of a more marketable one-volume abridgement. Worcester soon produced his own work (in 1830), however: its rejection of Websterian innovations was perhaps to be expected from one whose initial dictionary was an edition of Johnson’s famous book (1827). The Webster–Worcester rivalry was to continue for several decades. (24) It is important to remember that Johnson’s influence derived virtually entirely from the dictionary itself: he did not have any great pre-existing authorial reputation (O’Kill, 1990). (25) Isaac D’Israeli – the father of Benjamin Disraeli – commended Robert Nares: his book on orthoepy is one ‘with which every writer, ambitious of unviolated analogy in the English language, should become familiarised’ (1796: 410–411). D’Israeli goes on to comment on exactly that ‘Naresian’ expression of the descriptivist–prescriptivist tension that is the subject of this chapter. (26) Straaijer (2009) presents the interesting idea that Priestley’s correspondence with several of the American ‘founding fathers’ may have influenced the attitudes of those concerned with the emerging American identity – particularly Jefferson, perhaps, who was supportive of national ‘neology’ (see also Milroy, 1987). (27) I am of course altering what Mackenzie King said in the conscription crisis of the 1940s: ‘not necessarily conscription, but conscription if necessary’. It is interesting that the famous phrase is often re-ordered when reproduced (as ‘conscription if necessary, but . . .’) – to my ear, a more mellifluous arrangement than the prime minister’s original. (28) She makes reference to Robert Hall’s (1950) book, whose title – Leave Your Language Alone! – captures the position (or, at least, the academically ‘correct’ position) adopted by most contemporary linguists. Joshua Fishman (2006) has published a slim volume called Do Not Leave Your Language Alone, which is clearly based upon the ‘planning good, prescriptivism bad’ dichotomy. Fishman deals here only with corpus planning – that is, with language development, modernization, and so on. A more general reservation, one that should be kept in mind with all of Fishman’s

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work, relates to his clear commitment to the preservation of ‘small’ languages. Of course, there is nothing wrong with such a stance per se, but (as I have argued elsewhere – in Edwards [2009], for example) the combination of scholarship with advocacy is not always a felicitous one. (29) Romaine (1997: 424) writes that Cameron’s position here is equivalent to saying that ‘there is no escape from normativity’; see also Curzan (2009).

References Abd-el-Jawad, H. (2006) Why do minority languages persist? The case of Circassian in Jordan. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 9, 51–74. Abley, M. (2010) Expecting disorder. Paper presented at the Conference on English Dictionaries in Global and Historical Context, Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada. Ager, D. (2003) Ideology and Image: Britain and Language. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Amis, K. (1966) One Fat Englishman. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Archaimbault, S. (2009) New Russian patriotism and the Russian Language Law of 2005. Paper presented at the Conference on Prescriptivism and Patriotism: Language Norms and Identities from Nationalism to Globalization, University of Toronto. Attwood, R. (2010) Gobbledegook and ghastly grammar cast a murky spell on coherence. Times Higher Education, 2 September, 11. Benson, P. (2001) Ethnocentrism and the English Dictionary. London: Routledge. Bolinger, D. (1980) Language – The Loaded Weapon. London: Longman. Bolton, W.F. (1966) The English Language: Essays by English and American Men of Letters, 1490–1839. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bruthiaux, P. (1992) Language description, language prescription and language planning. Language Problems and Language Planning 16, 221–234. Bugarski, R. (2001) Language, nationalism and war in Yugoslavia. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 151, 69–87. Cameron, D. (1995) Verbal Hygiene. London: Routledge. Carew, R. (1605) An Epistle Concerning the Excellencies of the English Tongue. London: John Jaggard. Chambers, J.K. (1998) English: Canadian varieties. In J. Edwards (ed.) Language in Canada. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cheke, J. (1954 [1557]) A letter of Sir John Cheke’s to his loving friend, Maister Thomas Hoby. In H. Rollins and H. Baker (eds) The Renaissance in England. Boston: Heath. [Cheke’s letter, written in 1557, was first published in Hoby (1561).] Committee on Irish Language Attitudes Research (1975) Report, as submitted to the Minister for the Gaeltacht. Dublin: Government Stationery Office. Crowley, T. (1999) The socially responsible lexicographer in Oceania. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 20, 1–12. Crowley, T. (2000) The consequences of vernacular (il)literacy in the Pacific. Current Issues in Language Planning 1, 368–387. Crowley, T. (2003) Standard English and the Politics of Language. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Crystal, D. (2006) Language and the Internet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Curzan, A. (2009) Re-evaluating the effects of prescriptivism in the history of English. Paper presented at the Conference on Prescriptivism and Patriotism: Language Norms and Identities from Nationalism to Globalization, University of Toronto. Dollinger, S. and Percy, C. (2009) The ‘standard’ in scholarly research and in public debate: Thoughts on present-day Canadian English. Paper presented at the Conference on

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Prescriptivism and Patriotism: Language Norms and Identities from Nationalism to Globalization, University of Toronto. D’Israeli, I. (1796) On French and English poetry, and on some French words. In Miscellanies; or, Literary Recreations. London: Cadell & Davies. Drake, G. (1977) The Role of Prescriptivism in American Linguistics, 1820–1970. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Druon, M. (2004) Le franc-parler: Non-assistance à langue en danger. Le Figaro, 24 February. Eachard, J. (1670) The Grounds and Occasions of the Contempt of the Clergy and Religion Enquir’d Into. London: Brooke. Eastman, C. (1984) Language, ethnic identity and change. In J. Edwards (ed.) Linguistic Minorities, Policies and Pluralism. London: Academic Press. Economist (1998) Feminism meets gender in France. The Economist, 2 July. Edwards, J. (1994) What can (or should) linguists do in the face of language decline? In M. Harry (ed.) Papers from the Seventeenth Annual Meeting of the Atlantic Provinces Linguistic Association. Halifax: Saint Mary’s University. Edwards, J. (2004a) After the fall. Discourse and Society 15, 155–184. Edwards, J. (2004b) Should literacy be encouraged in contexts of linguistic endangerment? In S. Clarke (ed.) Proceedings of the Twenty-Sixth Annual Meeting of the Atlantic Provinces Linguistic Association. St John’s, NL: Memorial University. Edwards, J. (2006) Players and power in minority-group settings. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 27, 4–21. Edwards, J. (2009) Language and Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Edwards, J. (2010) Minority Languages and Group Identity. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Edwards, J. (in press) The idea of an English language academy, past and present. In A. Riehl and G. Dujardin (eds) English Lexicography: Form, Culture, Content. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Edwards, J. (in preparation) A Language for All the World: From Eden to Esperanto. Feldman, S. (2010) Pesky pedant . . . moi? Times Higher Education, 16 September, 31. Fishman, J. (2006) Do Not Leave Your Language Alone. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Gowers, E. (1948) Plain Words: A Guide to the Use of English. London: HMSO. Gowers, E. (1951) The ABC of Plain Words. London: HMSO. Gowers, E. (1954) The Complete Plain Words. London: HMSO. Hall, R. (1950) Leave Your Language Alone! Ithaca, NY: Linguistica. Hall, R. (1974) External History of the Romance Languages. New York: Elsevier. Heap, D. (2007) The Linguistic Atlas of the Iberian Peninsula (ALPI): A geolinguistic treasure ‘lost’ and found. Toronto Working Papers in Linguistics 27, 83–92. Heath, S.B. (1977) A national language academy? Debate in the new nation. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 11, 9–43. Henley, J. (2004) Gloves come off in a very French row over defence of the language. The Guardian, 6 March. Hoby, T. (1561) The Courtyer of Count Baldessar Castilio diuided into foure books . . . London: Seres. Hohenhaus, P. (2005) Elements of traditional and ‘reverse’ purism in relation to computer-mediated communication. In N. Langer and W. Davies (eds) Linguistic Purism in the Germanic Languages. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Howell, J. (1662) A New English Grammar: Prescribing as Certain Rules as the Languages Will Bear, for Forreners to Learn English: Ther is also Another Grammar of the Spanish or Castilian Toung . . . London: Williams, Brome & Marsh. Hüllen, W. (2004) A History of Roget’s Thesaurus. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ‘JC’ (2010) As she is spoke. Times Literary Supplement, 20/27 August, 36.

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Kaplan, R. and Baldauf, R. (1997) Language Planning: From Practice to Theory. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Kay, A. (2009) ‘To serve or grace the counter or the throne’: Patriotic pens and writing subjects in eighteenth-century Britain. Paper presented at the Conference on Prescriptivism and Patriotism: Language Norms and Identities from Nationalism to Globalization, University of Toronto. Kibbee, D. (2009) Patriotic roots of prescriptivism. Paper presented at the Conference on Prescriptivism and Patriotism: Language Norms and Identities from Nationalism to Globalization, University of Toronto. Kirchner, C. (2010) Contesting authority over language: A critical sociological study of online dictionaries. Paper presented at the Conference on English Dictionaries in Global and Historical Context, Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada. Labov, W. (1994) Principles of Linguistic Change (2 vols). Oxford: Blackwell. Lamb, B. (2010) The Queen’s English. London: Michael O’Mara. Mackey, W. (1991) Language diversity, language policy and the sovereign state. History of European Ideas 13, 51–61. Milroy, J. and Milroy, L. (1985) Authority in Language: Investigating Language Prescription and Standardisation. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Milroy, L. (1987) Language and Social Networks. Oxford: Blackwell. Moller, H. (2007) Valuable work of imprisoned linguist recovered. Alumni Gazette [University of Western Ontario], Summer, 30. Morton, H. (1994) The Story of Webster’s Third: Philip Gove’s Controversial Dictionary and Its Critics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mühlhäusler, P. (1996) Linguistic Ecology. London: Routledge. Nares, R. (1781) Periodical Essay (No. 10: 3rd February). London: Wilkie. Nares, R. (1784). Elements of Orthoepy. London: Payne. Nettle, D. and Romaine, S. (2000) Vanishing Voices: The Extinction of the World’s Languages. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ogilvie, S. (2010) Race, language and culture: The quest for the local in a global dictionary. Paper presented at the Conference on English Dictionaries in Global and Historical Context, Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada. O’Kill, B. (1990) The Lexicographic Achievement of Johnson. London: Longman. Oldmixon, J. (1712) Reflections on Dr Swift’s Letter to the Earl of Oxford about the English Tongue. London: Baldwin. Pershai, A. (2010) The myth of literacy: English dictionaries in relation to indigenous cultures. Paper presented at the Conference on English Dictionaries in Global and Historical Context, Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada. Priestley, J. (1768) The Rudiments of English Grammar. London: Becket, de Hondt and Johnson. Quirk, R. (1982) Style and Communication in the English Language. London: Edward Arnold. Reynolds, E. (2009) ‘Because he could not speak English in the native garb’: Fashioning English as Englishness in Shakespeare’s Henry V. Paper presented at the Conference on Prescriptivism and Patriotism: Language Norms and Identities from Nationalism to Globalization, University of Toronto. Romaine, S. (1997) Review of Verbal Hygiene (D. Cameron). Language in Society 26, 423–426. Russell, D. (2001) Quintilian: The Orator’s Education (4 vols). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Ryan, E.B. (1979) Why do low-prestige varieties persist? In H. Giles and R. St Clair (eds) Language and Social Psychology. Oxford: Blackwell.

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Savel’eva, L. (2000) Russkoe slovo: konec XX veka [The Russian Vocabulary at the End of the Twentieth Century]. St Petersburg: Logos. Sisson, C. (1975) The Poetic Art: A Translation of Horace’s Ars Poetica. Cheadle Hulme: Carcanet. Smith, R. (2007) Who knew ‘nooz’ was about morality? Globe & Mail, 20 December. Steiner, G. (1967) Language and Silence. London: Faber & Faber. Steiner, G. (1972) Extraterritorial. London: Faber & Faber. Steiner, G. (1978) On Difficulty. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Straaijer, R. (2009) Joseph Priestley and the Founding Fathers: Social networks, normative influence and the ‘metropolitan standard’. Paper presented at the Conference on Prescriptivism and Patriotism: Language Norms and Identities from Nationalism to Globalization, University of Toronto. Swift, J. (1712) Proposal for Correcting, Improving and Ascertaining the English Tongue. London: Tooke. Terrill, A. (2002) Why make books for people who don’t read? International Journal of the Sociology of Language 155/156, 205–219. Thomas, G. (1991) Linguistic Purism. London: Longman. Thoreau, H.D. (1849) Resistance to civil government. In E. Peabody (ed.) Æsthetic Papers. New York: Putnam. Tieken-Boon van Ostade, I. (2009) Usage guides and usage problems. Paper presented at the Conference on Prescriptivism and Patriotism: Language Norms and Identities from Nationalism to Globalization, University of Toronto. Times Higher Education Supplement (1999) Editorial, 15 October, 26. Vaugelas, C.F. de (1647) Remarques sur la langue françoise: utiles à ceux qui veulent bien parler et bien escrire. Paris: Courbé. Verstegan, R. (1605) A Restitution of Decayed Intelligence, in Antiquities: Concerning the most Noble and Renowned English Nation . . . London: Norton & Bill. Willinsky, J. (1994) Empire of Words: The Reign of the OED. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Wilson, T. (1553) The Arte of Rhetorique: for the vse of all suche as are studious of Eloquence, sette forth in English. London: Grafton. Winer, L. (2010) Why a foreigner? Some popular reactions to the publication of an English Creole dictionary. Paper presented at the Conference on English Dictionaries in Global and Historical Context, Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada. Wooldridge, R. (2009) Dictionary prescriptivism. Paper presented at the Conference on Prescriptivism and Patriotism: Language Norms and Identities from Nationalism to Globalization, University of Toronto. Worcester, J. (1827) Johnson’s English Dictionary, as Improved by Todd, and Abridged by Chalmers; with Walker’s Pronouncing Dictionary, Combined . . . Boston: Ewer & Carter. Worcester, J. (1830) Comprehensive Pronouncing and Explanatory Dictionary of the English Language. New York: Collins & Hannay.

Part 1 Managing Language Policies

3 William Cecil and the Rectification of English Ian Lancashire

Introduction William Cecil, Lord Burghley (1520–1598), as Elizabeth I’s chief minister, powerfully influenced the growth of English in the 16th century. In partnership with another Cambridge man, Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, Cecil acted as patron for Old English dictionaries, revisionist spelling systems, and the cautious mining of classical languages for terms of art to supply gaps in English. Shunning Oxfordians, he accepted the Cambridge doctrine of plain English associated with John Cheke, Roger Ascham and Thomas Smith, and despised inkhorn terms and the undisciplined copiousness of lexicographers such as Thomas Cooper. Correspondence, accounts of Cecil’s language preferences by men whose dedications of books he accepted (normally in Greek and Latin, and preferentially about herbs, surveying and mathematics), a personal manuscript notebook (Lambeth Palace MS 302) and an annotated copy of Cooper’s revision of an early re-edition of Sir Thomas Elyot’s Latin– English dictionary in the British Library give insights into Cecil’s understanding of the state of English. Although he saw plenty to rectify in it, Elizabeth’s loyal protector did not establish new standards, as the Tudor Henries and Edward did. Cecil trusted in the market economy to make English great. William Cecil was Elizabeth’s principal minister for 35 years, first as her secretary of state, then in 1571 as her lord high treasurer. William’s younger son, Robert, succeeded him from 1590 to 1612 in both positions. Together, for half a century, they steered governmental business policy.1 Neither until now has been associated with the history of the English language. Because Elizabeth’s administration did not legislate any standards for English, Cecil might be mistakenly viewed as being indifferent to his mother 39

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tongue. Personally, however, Cecil père exerted considerable influence on the language through his patronage and his close associates, who favoured John Cheke’s Cambridge doctrine of plain English and promoted the acquisition of a class of hard words, terms of art, which filled genuine gaps in the language. The Cambridge doctrine opposed the making of inkhorn words, which were Latinate synonyms that bulked up Early Modern English, adding copiousness without new significance. Scientific terminology from Latin and Greek bloomed; words for the sake of words, synonyms from vernacular languages and copiousness without matter felt the cold. English enjoyed a great influx of terms of art in the reign of Elizabeth, unlike other European languages in this period. Letters, personal notes, gossip by his associates about his views, and Cecil’s management of the dictionary monopoly in the book trade offer tantalizing evidence of how he affected this phenomenon and changed the history of the language.

Hard Words Novel hard words2 surged during Elizabeth’s reign. In his Early Modern English Lexicography (1989), Jürgen Schäfer surveyed 55 hard-word glossaries from 1558 to 1598 (the year of Cecil’s death): they include 6585 word entries and document the addition of hundreds of new words into English. The technical vocabularies in a subset of those, two dozen glossaries (1558–1582) that Schäfer analyzed, come from many subject areas: Middle English, medicine, law, classical history and poetry, canting or thieves’ argot, biblical controversy, mathematics, logic, sea navigation, fauna, rhetoric and exploration. Roderick McConchie observes that nothing of this kind characterizes other European languages of the time (McConchie, 1992: 51). John Florio’s first dialogues for the teaching of Italian explain that visiting foreigners, hearing all these borrowed terms, thought the English language was ‘woorth nothing’ beyond Dover (Florio, 1578: n2r): it is a language confused, bepeesed3 with many tongues: it taketh many words of the latine, & mo from the French, & mo from the Italian, & many mo from the Duitch, some also from the Greeke, & from the Britaine, so that if euery language had his owne wordes againe, there woulde but a fewe remaine for English men, and yet euery day they adde. (Florio, 1578: n2v) Lexicons of Early Modern English documents some 180 works with lexical information during these years.4 The hard-word stream that became a river rivalled the mother tongue in size by the mid-17th century. Edmund Coote

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(1596), Robert Cawdrey (1604), John Bullokar (1616), Henry Cockeram (1623) and Sir Thomas Blount (1656) brought out hard-word lexicons long before a dictionary of the entire English language existed. These new words had the effect of rapidly expanding the size of English vocabulary. Terttu Nevalainen (1999: 336) thus describes the Early Modern English period as having ‘the fastest vocabulary growth in the history of English in proportion to the vocabulary size of the time’. In Ordered Profusion (1973), Thomas Finkenstaedt, Dieter Wolff, Joachim Neuhaus and Winfried Herget used the first-occurrence dates of OED headwords in the Chronological English Dictionary (Finkenstaedt et al., 1970) to identify 1560–1660 as the peak period of our language’s vocabulary growth. Totals of new words increase over a century, from 1490–1509 to 1590–1609, by 75% (according to CED, based on the OED; and according to Lexicons of Early Modern English (LEME) [Lancashire, 2006–], 95.7% of whose texts is not used by the OED) or by 78% (according to OED Online). In 1500, English had just over 36,100 different word-forms, and 64,300 by 1600 (Lancashire, 2010: 14–16).

The Cambridge Doctrine and Cecil’s Market-based Language Economy If we are to trust a contemporary anonymous biography of Cecil, he ‘never read any Books or Praiers, but in Lattin, French, or Italian: very seldome in English’ ([Hickes], 1732: 55). Roger Ascham, Elizabeth’s tutor-to-be, gave young William advice that he ignored all his life: I hope you will devote some of your time to cultivate the English tongue, so that men might understand that even our language allows a man to write in it with beauty and eloquence. (Ascham, 1865: li–lii) When Cecil had the means, he put his money into two libraries, one on the ground floor and a more private one on the upper floor of Cecil House in the Strand (Husselby & Henderson, 2002: 173, 182). A record of his book purchases from bookseller William Seres from January 1554 to December 1555 includes Greek or Latin authors only, notably Plato and Cicero (Read, 1955: 121). The later catalogue of the Cecil library, published 16 years after his death (Read, 1956: 347), has, among its pre-1600 books, only continental lexicons, with the exception of John Florio’s Italian–English dictionary of 1598, the year of Cecil’s death (Ailesbury, 1687: 18, 72).5 Cecil wrote correspondence and position papers indefatigably, and his English was graceful, to judge from the amusing anecdote that Roger Ascham told, at the beginning of The Scholemaster, about

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one of Cecil’s dinners (Ascham, 1570: b1r–v). William Camden, in an obituary of Cecil, compliments him for a ‘fluent and eloquent Speech (and that not affected, but plaine and easie)’ that marks him out as the disciple, in language matters, of John Cheke, Roger Ascham, Thomas Smith and Thomas Wilson (cited in Graves, 1998: 8).6 Yet his second wife and royal mistress were ladies learned in Greek. After spending six years at Cambridge, instead of taking his undergraduate degree, Cecil married Mary, sister to John Cheke, the first Regius professor of Greek there. When she died two years later, Cecil quickly wed Mildred, daughter of Sir Anthony Cooke, former tutor to Edward VI, a woman who spoke and studied Greek and had one of the finest libraries in England at Hatfield House at her death in 1589 (Bowden, 2005). William Cecil’s language opinions were informed by the mid-Tudor Cambridge doctrine of plain English. This advised countrymen to use plain English words unless new vocabulary, particularly terms of art, were needed and, if so, then to define those words logically, as Thomas Wilson indicated in his mid-century book on rhetoric, The Art of Rhetorique.7 The standard English grammar by William Lily and John Colet taught that nouns denoted things, and verbs actions; a logical definition described the denoted thing rather than the signifier. It was not until the 18th century, well after Samuel Johnson, that the word ‘definition’ developed a lexical sense (Lancashire, 2002: 135). Bilingual dictionaries and most glossaries glossed words by equivalent or synonym. Little was explained. To read that English rabbit is in Latin cuniculus and in English also coney does not give much information about the animal, and the mainstream Latin–English dictionaries of Sir Thomas Elyot and Thomas Cooper epitomized that approach. The originators of the Cambridge doctrine who prized logical clarity and plainness in language were three humanist professors from the University of Cambridge. They were: John Cheke, first Regius professor of Greek; Thomas Smith, Regius professor of civil law and author of De Rectae Emendata Linguae Anglicanae Scriptione (1568), a work on spelling reform; and Roger Ascham, public orator, Elizabeth’s tutor, and author of The Scholemaster (1570). Students of theirs at Cambridge included: Thomas Wilson; Thomas Chaloner, the first English translator of Erasmus’ Praise of Folly (1549); Sir Thomas Hoby, translator of Castiglione’s The Courtier; and, of course, William Cecil. Just before his death, on 16 July 1557, John Cheke wrote to Thomas Hoby to praise his translation of Castiglione and lay down the Cambridge doctrine that he had used in his unpublished translation of the New Testament in about 1551–1553: I am of this opinion that our own tung shold be written cleane and pure, vnmixt and vnmangeled with borowing of other tunges, wherin if we

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take not heed bi tijm, euer borowing and neuer payeng, she shall be fain to keep her house as bankrupt. For then doth our tung naturallie and praisablie vtter her meaning, whan she bouroweth no conterfeitness of other tunges to attire her self withall, but vseth plainlie her own, with such shift, as nature, craft, experiens and folowing of other excellent doth lead her vnto, and if she want at ani tijm (as being vnperfight she must) yet let her borow with suche bashfulnes, that it mai appeer, that if either the mould of our own tung could serue vs to falcion a woord of our own, or if the old denisoned wordes could content and ease this neede, we wold not boldly venture of vnknowen wordes. (Castiglione, 1561: zz5r–v) Roger Ascham hints at this lexically conservative position in his preface to Toxophilus, dedicated to Henry VIII, in which he complains that many English writers use ‘straunge wordes as latin, french and Italian’ and ‘do make all thinges darke and harde’ (Ascham, 1545: a1r). Ascham especially mocked the lexical inkhorn style of Edward Hall’s chronicle of Henry VIII (Hall, 1548).8 Another enthusiast for unbridled word-invention was the playwright-polemicist Nicholas Udall, author of Rafe Roister Doister. The original teachers of the Cambridge doctrine butted heads with scholars who liked all foreign imports, but the student who popularized their views, Thomas Wilson, made an essential distinction between inkhorn words and terms of art. Wilson allowed borrowed words as long as they were plainly explained in context. The prologue to his translation from Greek into English of Demosthenes’ orations, dedicated to Cecil, pointedly recollects Cecil’s first father-in-law, Sir John Cheke, as his own teacher in framing ‘bare Englysh’ as the best style in which to ‘speake simply and plainly to the common peoples vnderstanding’ (Demosthenes, 1570: *4v). The popularity of Wilson’s Reason and Rhetorique sealed the fate of inkhorn terms. Reason requires that any logical definition ‘be plaine, and open, without ambiguitie, not hauynge anye obscure or far fetched wordes’ (Wilson, 1551: d6r). Rhetorique bases elocution on plain diction, not on ‘straunge [that is, alien] ynkehorne termes’, ‘outlandishe Englishe’, or such ‘ouersea language’ like ‘Frenche English’ and ‘Angleso Italiano’. Wilson mocks the ‘fine Courtier’ who talks nothing but Chaucer, the ‘misticall wise menne, and Poeticall Clerkes’ who cannot be understood, and the unlearned who ‘latine their tongues’ (Wilson, 1553: p2r–v). Inkhorn style fails because it cannot be understood. Wilson recommends rejecting all ‘affected’ terms, for to allow them is to live with two languages, ‘learned Englishe’ or ‘courte talke’, and ‘rude Englishe’ or ‘countrey speache’ (Wilson, 1553: y3r). He proposes that England embrace only

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such new ‘wordes as are commonly receiued’, only those French, Latin and Greek terms that, for ‘lacke of store’ (Wilson, 1553: y3v), people generally receive to ‘enriche the language’. His accepted Latinisms include the words ‘letters patent’ (where ‘patent’ means ‘open’), ‘Communion’ and the ‘Kynges prerogatiue’, and Wilson uses freely words like exornation, intellection, metaphor, panion, transumption and trope. He explains a newish word like whisht as ‘when we bid them holde their peace that haue least cause to speake, and can do litle good with their talkyng’ (Wilson, 1553: dd2r).9 Cecil could have implemented the Cambridge mid-Tudor doctrine of plain English by establishing a national language academy or patronizing the making of a monolingual dictionary. The Accademia della Crusca, founded in 1582–1583, published an Italian Vocabolario in 1612, and the Dictionnaire de l’Académie française came out in 1694 (Brede, 1937: 567). Although possibly aware of the role of the Accademia in the Italian language, and certainly alive to the activities of the Society of Antiquaries led by William Camden (and assisted by Cecil himself), Elizabeth’s chief minister chose to exercise a market-based patronage. He encouraged architecture, botany, history and mathematics – sciences with a solid claim to usefulness. Henry VIII had gloried in the French and Latin lexicons of John Palsgrave (1530) and Sir Thomas Elyot (1538), but Cecil chose to support only those industries that looked to be profitable. He used two stimuli: the provision of monopolies, and direct support for select entrepreneurs (Heal & Holmes, 2002). For example, his administration created a self-funding mechanism to finance court revels (Streitberger, 2007: 34, 51). The master of the revels licensed public acting companies and theatres – in effect, establishing monopolies – so that the court itself would not have to pay for its entertainments. Cecil likewise delivered lexicography over to for-profit printers. In 1580, Henry Bynneman acquired a monopoly for printing all dictionaries, but it never proved profitable and so could not finance the writing of an English monolingual dictionary, even should he have wanted to publish one (Calendar of the Patent Rolls, 1986, 8: 201–202; Eccles, 1957: 81–82). The 17th century paid a price for this market-based policy when two Englishes diverged: the mother tongue, and a huge, unruly body of hard words (Lancashire, 2007). Personally, Cecil used his influence to set in motion a rectification of his native tongue, amplifying technical words of art, but he did not see a need to invest money in English or to legislate language standards. At bottom, Cecil cared more about classical languages, the bearers of new knowledge, than about English. One anecdote is telling. In 1564, Elizabeth I spent a week at Cambridge University, seeing plays and hearing sermons and disputations. When the time came to express her thanks, on 7 August, she

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proposed to make a speech in English. Elizabeth’s education had gifted her with half a dozen languages – Latin, Greek, French, Italian and some Spanish – but her wish to address her countrymen in English, the chosen tongue of the nation’s scripture, liturgy and statutes, makes her a child of Henry VIII. However, Cecil, the Duke of Norfolk, Robert Dudley and Richard Cox, Bishop of Ely, told her that ‘nothing might be said openly to the University in English’. She would have to address the assembled body, about 1800 people, in Latin (Rice, 1951: 71; Smith, 1929: 500–501).

Manuscript Evidence of Cecil’s Cambridge Doctrine We know that Cecil valued well-explained, that is, plain words, because two books from his early private study survive. They reveal the self-training of a man who acted as royal secretary to both Edward VI and Elizabeth. One book is Cecil’s signed copy of Thomas Cooper’s Bibliotheca Eliotae or Eliotis Librarie (1548), a revision of Sir Thomas Elyot’s Latin– English dictionary.10 This has a sprinkling of Cecil’s annotations and, on the last page, rhetorical terms excerpted from the dictionary. The second is Lambeth Palace Library MS 302, a parchment-wrapped paper book in 185 folios that has a fragmentary legal glossary. This also includes a list of the places or loci in logical invention copied from Sir Thomas Wilson’s The Rvle of Reason (1551). Cecil stopped work on the manuscript legal glossary quickly, possibly because he happened on one of John and William Rastell’s law glossaries, or because Edward VI, for whom he acted as secretary, died. Cecil annotated Eliotis Librarie sparingly, with unconcealed dislike. Part of the long entry for ‘Albion’ reads, ‘they wonderyng and reioysyng at theyr good and fortunate arriuayle, named this yle in greeke, Olbion, whiche in englyshe signifieth Happy’ (Cooper, 1548: d3r). This leads Cecil to write, a little sharply, the plain word ‘England’ in the right margin. While I cannot tell whether Cecil was responsible for all the annotations in the dictionary, some highlight herbs and medical entries, one of his interests. For example, he takes exception to Elyot’s explanation of Radicula (which he does not gloss as the common English radish) by adding a Latin–English gloss in the margin, ‘apud Collumella est quod Græci Raphana appellant a radisshe’ (Cooper, 1548: kkk7v).11 On the last page, Cecil copies seven entries from earlier in the dictionary that bear on rhetoric: metaphora, metamorphosis, synecdoche, syncopa, syllogismus, metonomia and syllepsis (Cooper, 1548: llll3v).12 Cecil had a choice of reasons to disdain Thomas Cooper’s lexicon: Cooper was an Oxfordian; he dedicated his Thesaurus (1565) to Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, a rival

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for Elizabeth’s favour; and Cooper used synonyms rather than definitions. (This bias will also appear in Cecil’s choice of writers to patronize.) Lambeth Palace Library MS 302, the notebook, is more encyclopedic than glossarial. It consists of four unfinished fragments. Three are alphabetical collections: a compilation of Latin and Greek entries under subject headwords (18r ff.), glossarial entries on English and French legal terms (8v–10r, 137v–147v), and a short list of English towns (13v). The fourth consists of genealogical trees. They cover pages that have intermittent alphabetical letter headings and show that Cecil gave up indexing terms not far into the task.13 The glossarial legal entries have a table of contents (fols. 8v–9r), leaving additional space between groups of hard-word entries so that other words might be added later. The multilingual table begins with Abbe and Abbettor and ends, in the middle of a page, with Ex graui querela (fol. 10r). It consists of Old English terms such as Bloodwite, Burghbreke and Chyldwit, Latin phrases like Corpus cum causa, law-French words (e.g. Discontinuance del proces) and current English words like Ambasadge, Bastardy and Chantery. There are full entries for only seven terms in the table of contents: accord (147v), administrators and addition (146v), admensurement (146r), aide de roy (138v–139v), amercement (138r) and amendment (137v–138r).14 The post-lemmatic parts of all entries are sentences in French, not English. Towards the end of the manuscript (179v), Cecil copies from Thomas Wilson’s Rvle of Reason (1551) ‘The diuision of the places’, 24 in number, which constitute the ‘store house . . . wherin argumentes rest’ (I4v, I7r). Both of Wilson’s books, The Rvle of Reason (1551) and The Art of Rhetorique (1553), analyze these places. Each work was seminal in its time, going through many editions well into Elizabeth’s reign because they first described two classical sciences, logic and rhetoric, in the mother tongue.15 They reflected what was taught at Cambridge when both Wilson and Cecil were there as students. Gabriel Harvey wrote in 1570 that the Inns of Court regarded Wilson’s works as ‘the dailie bread of owr common pleaders & discoursers’ (cited in Stern, 1979: 239). Terms for the places anatomize the parts of logical invention, of which there are two kinds. Some, called loci interni, describe aspects of the internal substance of the thing about which an argument turns. The first of these seven places is Definitio, or definition, which is ‘a perfect sentence whereby the very nature of the thyng it self, is sette furthe and expounded’ (I7v). (Note that this is not a lexical definition; nothing Wilson says implies that words themselves can be defined.)16 Loci externi are three ‘outward places’ that are not of the nature of a thing: Locus (‘The place’), Tempus (‘The tyme’) and Connexa (‘Thinges annexed, or knitte together’, as a man who

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is rich has riches; L8v–M1r). Internal and external places or loci were fivefinger exercises in logic. They were useful for distinguishing different aspects of a thing at the beginning of formulating propositions. Cecil copies only the Latin names of the 24 places. The list seems to have served for rote memorization, allowing Cecil quickly to call up and, point by point, survey everything that might be relevant to the making of an argument.

Cecil’s Men Cecil surrounded himself with Cambridge men who had designs on rectifying the English language. His two hand-picked successors as secretary were Thomas Smith (1575–1577) and Thomas Wilson (1577–1581) (Doran & Woolfson, 2004). In 1568, Smith resurrected a treatise on systematizing English spelling that he had devised in 1542. He published this in Paris, where he served as English ambassador for Cecil. The treatise proposed ‘an entirely new alphabet of nineteen Roman, four Greek, and six English letters with ten vowels carrying long and short accents’ (Dewar, 1964: 19). Members of the Cambridge group tried to rationalize English. Referring to the distinction between voiced and voiceless th, Smith asserted that even the Anglo-Saxons, in thorn (þ) and eth (đ), had an orthography that was more faithful to the mother tongue than current writing habits (Smith, 1983: 138–141). Ironically, Smith’s treatise appeared in Latin – sufficient evidence of its intended audience, Elizabeth’s classically educated governors. A second Cambridge colleague flagged spelling for rectification. Cecil patronized John Hart, who had been created Chester herald on 18 July 1567, and who counted Cecil ‘of long time . . . my especiall good maister’ (Hart, 1955: 69). Hart’s treatise on revising English spelling, originally dedicated to Edward VI in 1551, had languished in a royal manuscript until it was printed as Orthographie in 1569. This attacked the ‘lak of ordre emongest writers and printers: which now have the bridel, to run where euerry fantazi serueth, to the confusion of knoledge’ (Hart, 1955: 115). Hart likened the effect of misleading orthography to the confusions that occur when learned people ‘of farre West, or North Countryes, which vse differing English termes from those of the Court’ encounter the speech of London, ‘where the flower of the English tongue is vsed’ (Hart, 1955: 234). Hart compared letters of the alphabet to hastily imported foreign-language terms, taught not by ‘the mother to the child’ but by ‘stepmothers and strange nurses’. He thought foreigners ‘corrupted and aliened [English] from the natuer’ (Hart, 1955: 236). His novel alphabet, of course, had plenty of naysayers, men who ‘wold

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persuade me not to speake of any misuse in our inglish writing, whiche is of late brought to souch a perfection as never the lyke was seen’ (Hart, 1955: 119). However, Hart believed that English speech needed new terms of art, that is, new alphabetic letters, to denote unambiguously the sounds of English speech (Hart, 1955, 1570: 231). Of the ‘learned sort’ for whom Hart had printed Orthographie, however, ‘few . . . thought it worth their labour to reade, and fewer’ appreciated the economic merits of reformation (Hart, 1955, 1570: 232). Undeterred, Hart then brought out a newly written treatise, A Methode or comfortable beginning for all vnlearned (1570), that put his spelling system to work. He promised that with only 100 hours of instruction, anyone could master it. His hopes that the Queen or Cecil might simply enact a change in spelling, however, were disappointed. His last resort was a recommendation to post ‘the figures with their letters . . . drawen on the walles, pillers, and postes of churches, tounes and houses’ (Hart, 1955, 1570: 237). The public greeted the ideas of Smith and Hart skeptically. Even Gabriel Harvey, who was sympathetic to Smith, wrote to Edmund Spenser in a letter (published in 1580) that amending English orthography, as Smith had proposed,17 required general agreement, ‘publickely and autentically established, as it were by a general Counsel, or acte of Parliament’, before he (for one) would change his ways (cited in Stern, 1979: 144). Cecil could have arranged for that but did not. He did not proactively impose standards because he valued the mother tongue at a lower rate than law and order, a steady tax base, and improved knowledge of nature, history and religion. He looked to the market to determine changes such as spelling reform. Cecil’s earliest partner in managing Elizabeth’s affairs was Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, another Cambridge man. The first decade of Elizabeth’s reign witnessed Parker stimulate research into the ancient dignity of the English language. Described as ‘the Chief Retriever of that our ancient Native Language, the Saxon’ (Strype, 1711: 535), Parker patronized men who improved the understanding of English law and ecclesiastical history. The Privy Council in 1568 published a call for the recovery of ‘auncient recordes or monumentes written’ that had a bearing on ‘the state ecclesiasticall and ciuile gouernement’ (cited in Page & Bushnell, 1975: 6).18 In A Testimonie of Antiquitie, published in 1566, Parker and his assistants edited and translated Ælfric’s homily, In die sancto Pasce, as well as the Lord’s Prayer, the creed and other Saxon liturgical texts. The homily supported the position taken by the Church of England on transubstantiation, that is, the spiritual and non-physical presence of Christ’s body and blood in the bread and wine of the sacrament of communion. It also offered a historical precedent for the translation of scripture from Latin into the mother tongue.

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By his death, the archbishop had amassed more than 500 manuscripts, including the Corpus Glossary, ‘the first dictionary of English’ (Crankshaw & Gillespie, 2004). Parker’s retinue of literary scholars included John Joscelyn (his Latin secretary), William Lambarde and Thomas D’Oyly. Joscelyn produced a scholarly Old English lexicon with some 20,000 word-entries, left unpublished at his death. Lambarde turned out a great edition of the Old English laws, Archaionomia, in 1568 (Bately, 1992: 436). D’Oyly may be the same man who undertook an unpublished Spanish–English lexicon. Parker believed that ‘it was worth one’s Pains . . . to compare our Country Language, which we now use, with that obsolete and almost extinguished Speech; and while we are comparing them, to observe, how like they are, and almost the same’ (Strype, 1711: 535). Both Parker and Cecil promoted the writing of historical dictionaries of English. Parker’s desire to learn about English words from early documents intrigued Cecil, who was to matters secular what Parker was to the Elizabethan Settlement on matters of faith. Parker’s Joscelyn made an Old English lexicon, and Cecil patronized four language scholars besides Thomas Smith and John Hart: Laurence Nowell, Stephen Batman, Barnabe Googe and William Fleetwood (Read, 1960: 126). Nowell produced the first manuscript dictionary of Anglo-Saxon (Nowell, 1952). Batman and Googe both published hard-word glossaries, the former in his translation of Bartholomaeus’ medieval encyclopedia in 1582, the latter in his translation of Palingenio Stellato’s Zodiake of Life (1576; dedicated to Cecil). Fleetwood, the recorder of London, developed a keen interest in the ancient language of law of forestry in England (Fleetwood, 1581). Smith, Wilson and the other Cambridge men in the circle of Cecil and Parker all had strong views on how to rectify the faults of English. Parker and Cecil acted as patron to scholars who recovered the historical pedigree of English in Saxon. Each leader invested in manpower to improve the plain clarity of English words, and what they denoted, by making new etymologies. Yet Laurence Nowell and John Joscelyn never got their Old English lexicons into print. Parker and Cecil also indirectly repressed the ungoverned speech of many countrymen by increasing the number of official Elizabethan homilies, sermons that all preachers had to use. And, of course, Cecil did nothing to legislate English orthography, as Smith and Hart would have liked, or to devise public standards for English vocabulary that favoured words that descended from Old and Middle English. Jürgen Schäfer describes the period leading up to Shakespeare’s first plays ‘as a period of agonizing linguistic uncertainty’ for English, a ‘marginal language’ that had only recently lifted itself from backwardness by a ‘spectacular increase of lexical resources’ through decades of translations

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(Jones, 1953: 207; Schäfer, 1989: 1). The load of new words supposedly made English unintelligible for the unlearned. This now standard view of Elizabethan English, however, seems to be exaggerated because, if the Early Modern mother tongue was in crisis, the historical record – and that is what this essay tries to reconstruct – does not bear it out. England saw enough potential crises from 1558 to 1590, but its own language was not among them. Parliament agonized over Elizabeth’s refusal both to clarify the succession and to nullify the claims of her Catholic competition, Mary, Queen of Scots – not over alien nouns. Cecil dealt with the Ridolfi plot and upstart, treasonous noblemen like the Duke of Norfolk. The Queen’s Council worried over a continued simmering conflict with France and Rome about religion, interfered in the Low Countries and faced the Spanish threat of invasion. It debated the economy (initially, the sad state of English coinage). In 1569, after 10 years as Elizabeth’s secretary, Cecil wrote ‘A short Memoryall of the State of the Realme’. This begins, ‘The Perills ar many, great, and imminent’, but nowhere does this 10-page manuscript allude to the English language (Haynes, 1740: 579–588). Another of Cecil’s papers, ‘A Declaration of the Queenes Proceedings since her Reigne’ (Haynes, 1740: 589–593), devised in 1569 – for Elizabeth herself to speak in the first person – also ignores English as a concern, aside from the authorization of the English Bible and liturgy in religion in the first year of Elizabeth’s reign. The Acts of Elizabeth’s Council, ruled by Cecil, mention English just once, on 28 April 1559, when it orders local authorities to interrogate Richard Mycheam of ‘the Isle of Tenett in Kente’, for ‘hyndering the Inglishe Servyce’ (Dasent, 1893: 96). The record of policy development by Elizabeth’s chief minister betrays no agony over the English language. Cecil’s logical policy analysis survives in neat notes in his own handwriting. For example, his examinations of arguments for and against England’s intervention against the French in Scotland in August 1559 survive in British Library Cotton MS Caligula B.x in two drafts. He asks the question, sets out numbered arguments under ‘That yea’ and ‘That no’, and closes with a conclusion that recommends a cautious yes (Alford, 1997: 239).19 Although among the most active of writers at this time, so voluminous are his papers, Cecil drafted no position papers about the shortcomings of English, as some of his colleagues saw them, and mentioned in his correspondence no policy issues about it or any other language. He did not enforce his private views on English or the classical languages by acts or proclamations; after all, although English had become the language of legal statutes under Henry VII, the Bible under Henry VIII and the Book of Common Prayer under Edward VI, Latin remained the preferred educated tongue in England. At the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign, the Lily and Colet (1945 [1567]) grammar

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textbook made compulsory under Edward VI assumed that English shared Latin parts of speech (the adjective was a noun), and civil law continued to employ Latin. At home, Cecil and his wife might have spoken Greek.

Cecil’s Patronage of Books Cecil did not fund writers, even Cambridge men (whom he preferred), but rather acted as patron to their books by allowing dedications that would have guaranteed them good sales. Among very big lexicographical works, three were dedicated to Cecil: the Latin–French–English dictionary of John Baret (a fellow at Cambridge), the great Latin–English dictionary (1587) – which replaced the Elyot–Cooper Thesaurus – of the Cambridge University printer Thomas Thomas, and the large herbal (1597) of John Gerard, Cecil’s gardener. Cecil led all other patrons of major language reference works, but a personal bias for the Cambridge doctrine and for Latin and Greek, as well as simple party, motivated him. He allowed about 95 dedications during his life (Williams, 1962: 35–36) and exerted his influence to enable others to obtain the Queen’s patronage (van Dorsten, 1969: 549–550). Of the books with hard-word glossaries that Jürgen Schäfer lists from 1558 to 1582, Cecil allowed three men in his retinue to dedicate their books to him: William Turner, Arthur Golding (a fellow Cambridge man) – his translation of Caesar’s Gallic Wars – and Barnabe Googe (a kinsman) – his translation of Palingenio Stellato’s The Zodiake of Life. 20 In contrast, Cecil displayed a deeply anti-Oxfordian bias against Thomas Cooper, who dedicated his Thesaurus to Cecil’s antagonist Robert Dudley, an earlier version of which Cecil owned and annotated critically. Three other Oxfordians also went elsewhere for support: Peter Levins dedicated his Latin–English rhyming dictionary to Stanley (master of the Queen’s Mint); John Higgins his English–Latin lexicon to George Peckham; and Henry Lyte his herbal to Elizabeth herself. First in honour of those language men who obtained Cecil’s patronage must be the eminent herbalist Dean of Wells, William Turner, in his book on wines. Cecil’s favourite publisher, William Seres, printed Turner’s A new Boke of the natures and properties of all Wines in 1568; Turner pointedly dedicated it to Cecil. Sick and near death in a London lodging, Turner wanted the patronage of the Queen’s secretary to protect him ‘against all such babling and vnlearned Sophisters, as wyll speake agaynst’ his book (a3r). Only midway through his guide to wines and how to drink them does he reveal one reason why he needs this protection. Turner attacks Thomas Cooper’s Thesaurus (1568) for being of ‘but small helpe’ with English equivalents for

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Latin wine terms. Turner admired Cooper’s Latin, but ‘in the English . . . I found to much plentie of light, and new inckhorne termes’ and too many occasions when the Thesaurus gave the same ‘name to diuerse Latin wordes’ (d4r).21 Exasperated at his ‘great and costlye booke’ (d4r), a treasure that did not live up to its title, Turner complains: Surely we haue but small help of that booke in declaring of these words, & many such other, that are much occupied in phisicke and philosophy, and in other both liberall and mathematical sciences. (d5r) Turner wishes for a learned physician and philosopher like Linacre, a grammarian like John Claymond (president of the College of Physicians, 1541– 1543) or ‘one perfite Englishman like vnto Sir Thomas Moore’ to revise the dictionary ‘to the ende that . . . [it] may be in dede as it is called’ (d5r). Turner implies that Cecil agreed with him that the largest, most costly dictionary published in 16th-century England lacked definitions of the things that words denoted. On the first page of his book on Wines, Turner asserts that the very first thing to do in writing about something is to give its definition (b1r). Defining kinds of white wines led Turner to the Thesaurus. Turner’s goal was to discover what was true about a thing, not to map vocabularies to one another. The sciences had too little to gain from lexicons like Cooper’s. Specialized glossaries and treatises that offered definitions and translated classical knowledge into English would better serve the humanist objective. First in Cecil’s annotations to Cooper’s 1548 lexicon, and then in Turner’s appeal to Cecil’s prejudice against that Oxfordian’s Thesaurus, we learn indirectly what the great administrator thought was wrong with English. We know about Cecil’s interest in mathematics from Edward Worsop, who dedicated A Discoverie of sundrie errours and faults daily committed by Landmeaters (1582) to him. It is a dialogue about the dangers of relying on surveyors who do not know mathematics and geometry. After Worsop explains technical concepts such as scale, true proportion, symmetry, perimetry and parallel, one of his listeners asks, irritatedly, ‘Why write you such strange & far fetched words & termes, seeing you can write their meanings in plaine english, if you wold?’ (b4r). Worsop replies that, because French, Italian, German and Latin languages also use words borrowed from Greek, ‘the learned might iudge a great presumption, and lacke of discretion in vs, if we should translate those Greeke termes, into our Englishe wordes’ (b4v), particularly since so doing would hinder comparison of English works on mathematics with ones in foreign tongues. Another listener, Jonson, suggests that Worsop ‘and your friend for whom you haue written this booke, had

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deuised termes much like the deuise of Pedlers Frenche’ (c1r), by which he means canting language. Worsop defends himself (and Cecil) from this slur by saying, He for whom I haue written this booke, wil not think them strange, or far fetched, because he giueth himself to the studies of Arithmetike & Geometrie, and therfore acquainted with words and termes of those arts. (b4v) In other words, Worsop says that Cecil liked hard words if they were terms of art. The authors of the mathematical studies to which he alludes come out in his dedicatory preface. They are (in the mother tongue) Euclid, Record, and Leonard and Thomas Digges (a2v). That another land-surveyor, John Blagrave, who wrote The Mathematical Iewel (1585) with many definitions and a hard-word glossary, dedicated his book to Cecil shortly afterwards shows that the treasurer’s interest in mathematics began earlier than the late 1570s. Cecil read works that Worsop mentions much earlier.22 By mid-century, only one English schoolmaster, Richard Mulcaster, thought that English should be taught. Mulcaster published the first English word-list in 1582, 8000 words strong, hoping to encourage the making of a monolingual dictionary, but until 1596, the date of Edmund Coote’s English Schoole-maister, no one had agreed with him on the urgency of an Englishlanguage policy. If Cecil had been interested in his mother tongue, he might have patronized Mulcaster, but unfortunately the schoolmaster had left Cambridge to graduate with an MA from Oxford. Cecil used the Cambridge men who came to power with him. The Latin lexicon of John Baret, termed a student of Cambridge in his patent of 7 December 1571, was allowed because it had ‘very commendable phrases out of many excellent authors’ and, in the second edition, mapped Greek words to Latin, English and French (Calendar of Patent Rolls, 5: 391, no. 2682). Cecil may have taken some satisfaction when Thomas Thomas, another Cambridge administrator, in 1587 buried the excesses of the Elyot–Cooper tradition with his own Latin– English dictionary, and dedicated the monumental work to him. Cecil continued to deny Oxfordians the financial advantage conferred on writers who were allowed to dedicate their books to him. Cecil tried to retire in the early 1590s and at last, worn out by service, relied increasingly on his son to carry out policy; he died in 1598. His severe disapproval of obscure, inkhorn vocabulary and his patronage of the sciences over the arts then lifted; a drab age in culture ended. Big bilingual dictionary projects in languages other than classical had been stalled while Cecil ruled, but after his retirement and death five huge bilingual vernacular

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dictionaries spilled out a huge reservoir of equivalents from Italian (from John Florio, 1598, 1611), Spanish (John Minsheu, 1599; Richard Percyuall, 1591), French (Randall Cotgrave, 1611), and 11 tongues, including these (Minsheu, 1617). Florio’s Italian–English World of Wordes alone repopularized copiousness, obscenity and vernacular languages. It came out in the year Cecil died. Like vernacular lexicographers, poets and playwrights were also almost completely luckless under the great man. Early in 1596, when George Peele presented Cecil with a begging copy of his poem, The Tale of Troy, which he had written in 1581–1582, ‘Burghley responded by filing the request for patronage together with others made by those supplicants least worthy of any response’ (Barbour, 2004). Edmund Spenser, a Cambridge graduate, was the only English poet who had some success with the treasurer. Spenser’s sonnets to Christopher Hatton, the lord chancellor, and aged Cecil appear on the same page in The Faerie Queene (1590).23 The sonnet to Cecil apologizes for his ‘ydle rimes’ and for ‘The labor of lost time, and wit vpstayd’, yet hopes that if he sees the epic’s ‘deeper sence’ – the reason it was dedicated to Elizabeth – he would judge it ‘not vaine’ and would ‘wipe their faults out of . . . [his] censure grave’. Cecil and Spenser then had a falling out. I expect Cecil disliked Spenser’s Chaucerisms and thought his fictions got in the way of history, which he admired, to judge from the historians whose works were dedicated to him (Richard Grafton, Richard Rainolde, Raphael Holinshed, William Camden and Florence of Worcester).24 Holinshed said of English, ‘There is no one speache vnder the sun spoken in our time, that hath or can haue more variety of words and copie of phrases’ (Schäfer, 1989: 1), but it took Cecil’s departure to see a revival of imaginative, copious English. For the difference made by his retirement from the scene, compare the language of Shakespeare’s early history plays with that of his Romeo and Juliet. Shakespeare composed his first plays, the Henry VI trilogy and Richard III, between 1589 and 1593, when Cecil was still a force to be reckoned with. Those plays expound a Tudor policy on rebellion promoted by the Elizabethan homilies and enforced by Cecil in the execution of traitors. The common source of these plays was Holinshed’s Chronicles, which was dedicated to Cecil in 1577. Shakespeare could not have employed a better expedient to gain the trust of Elizabeth’s chief minister, a powerful man who held plays in contempt. In comparison with Shakespeare’s later works, the language in these early history plays is plain. Unique words in them amount to only 4.6% of the total vocabulary, the lowest lexical innovation rate in his career. In Love’s Labour’s Lost (1594–1595), in which Shakespeare boldly referred to Cecil as ‘the fox’ (Petti, 1960: 208), it had risen to 8.8%, and in Hamlet (1600–1601), two years after Cecil’s death, to 10.2% (Hart, 1943: 132).

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Cecil found his doctrine of plain English and his love of Latin and Greek in his teacher and brother-in-law John Cheke and his friends Roger Ascham and Thomas Wilson, but he wanted English to have plenty of well-defined terms of art to denote things that could be described plainly. He recognized that English vocabulary needed to be raised to the quality of Greek. His personal manuscripts, annotated books, and the books that (with permission) were dedicated to him show his personal biases. Cecil shunned Oxford graduates and patronized fellow Cambridge men all his life unless, like Spenser, they used inkhorn or old terms that obscured meaning. Cecil even seems to have held Richard Mulcaster’s Oxford degree against him. With partners such as Parker and servants like Laurence Nowell and John Joscelyn, English recovered its plain roots in Old English. Contemporaries like Turner and Worsop increased the delight in new terms of art filched from Latin and Greek. Personally, Cecil valued a multilingual England that wrote documents of state in plain English and settled into Greek at home: he lived in what Florio would call a ‘world of words’. Cecil knew the rectification that English needed and led by example in achieving it. He influenced the book trade ‘more than has hitherto been appreciated’, according to Peter Blayney, who says that such was his power that ‘even an occasional thought and a little effort’ might have had ‘far-reaching consequences’ (Blayney, 1997: 30). Cecil’s influence on the English language, as I have argued, is also circumstantial, arising from his great power, his known taste in languages, his patronage of language scholars and books, his writing style, and the lexical changes in English that came about in reaction to his retirement and death. Cecil did not use his authority to proclaim or legislate new standards for English. He practised a laissez-faire market policy that encouraged the growth of terms of art and accustomed his people to the freedom and the need to add useful vocabulary. After his retirement and death, a hitherto repressed copiousness in synonyms returned in force,25 as in Shakespeare’s plays and in the glut of published vernacular bilingual dictionaries. English vocabulary then gradually broke into two: the mother tongue (enriched with terms of art enfranchised legitimately within it), and an ungovernable argot of words, idiosyncratic terms of art, and synonyms, coined or borrowed by individuals who did not need to ask permission, and troublesome for readers. This resurgence eventually led to a public demand for general-purpose, hard-word monolingual glossaries and dictionaries by men from Edmund Coote (1596) onwards. Cecil promoted a rectification of the language in his lifetime that, with other factors, led to excesses in the following century that would have offended him, but who is to say that his biases were not right for his age? He exerted pressure for responsible vocabulary growth by the professions and

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avoided asking England’s unworldly antiquaries, men who were nonetheless his friends and servants, to devise standards. He let the market decide whether England needed a monolingual dictionary. Elizabeth was notorious for her reluctance to make decisions on controversial issues, and Cecil seems to have shared her point of view on prudence in government. Four and a half centuries after Cecil denied Smith and Hart an enforced implementation of their weird alphabets, English speakers still lacked a rational orthography, but a contemptible minority tongue in the Europe of the early 1580s has become a term-rich universal language of science and business for more than a century now. English today boasts more than 1 million words because anyone can coin and define technical and personal vocabulary at will. Cecil’s laissez-faire language policy, which lets the market economy effect standards, still prevails.

Notes (1) (2) (3) (4)

(5) (6)

(7)

For good biographies of Cecil, see Read (1955, 1960), Graves (1998) and Loades (2007). Jürgen Schäfer says that the first use of the phrase ‘hard words’ is in Edmund Becke’s biblical glossary (Becke, 1551; Schäfer, 1989: I, 7). Pacified. Of dictionaries not analyzed by Schäfer, bilingual lexicons are most important. Four are dictionaries of Latin: three editions of Cooper’s Thesaurus, John Higgins’s (1572) revision of Richard Huloet’s Abecedarium, two editions of John Baret’s Alveary and William Patten’s The Calender of Scripture (1575). Peter Levins’s Manipulus Vocabulorum is an English–Latin dictionary of rhyming English words (1570). French is served by Lucas Harrison’s A Dictionarie French and English (1571), and by Claude Hollyband’s French Littleton (1566) and The Treasury of the French Tongue (1580). Levins, Higgins’s revision of Huloet, Baret and Mulcaster gave the reading public 40,000 word-entries with English headwords. To these should be added William Whittingham’s propername glossary in the Geneva Bible (1560), John Hall’s glossary to Lanfranc, John Banister’s table of simples in his Treatise of Chirurgery (1575), Thomas Hill’s gardening books and Henry Lyte’s translation of Rembert Dodoens’ herbal (1578), which add another 2000 to those that Schäfer found. The book list has English books and bilingual dictionaries such as Minsheu (1627) and Cotgrave and Howell (1650), but these postdate Cecil’s death. The anonymous contemporary biographer of Cecil wrote that ‘His Eloquence was his Playne[ne]sse in familiar comon Wordes, without Affectation. Wherein it was observed in him [as] a Thinge straunge, that, in so playne Terms as comonly he used, his Eloquence was so excellant, as that [what] he spake was impossible to be delivered more rhetorically, clerely, & significantlie; [the whole being] easye to be understood & remembred, & yet beyond the Eloquence of others thought to be most eloquent’ ([Hickes], 1732 [1612]: 50). ‘THen we vse to define a matter, when wee can not agree vpon the nature of some word, the which we learne to know by askyng the question what it is. As for example. Where one is apprehended for killing a man, we laye murder to his charge: wherupon the accused person when he graunteth the killing, and yet denieth it to

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(8)

(9)

(10)

(11)

(12) (13)

(14) (15) (16)

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be murder: we must straight after haue recourse to the definition, and aske, what is murder, by defininge whereof, and comparing the nature of the word, with his dede done: we shall sone know whether he committed murder or manslaughter’ (Wilson, 1553: N4r). Ascham wrote in his Scholemaster (1570, which was dedicated by his widow to Cecil): ‘Neuertheles, some kinde of Epitome may be vsed, by men of skilful iudgement, to the great proffet also of others. As if a wise man would take Halles Cronicle, where moch good matter is quite marde with Indenture Englishe, and first change, strange and inkhorne tearmes into proper, and commonlie vsed wordes: next, specially to wede out that, that is superfluous and idle, not onelie where wordes be vainlie heaped one vpon an other, but also where many sentences, of one meaning, be so clowted vp together as though M. Hall had bene, not writing the storie of England, but varying a sentence in Hitching schole: surelie a wise learned man, by this way of Epitome, in cutting away wordes and sentences, and diminishing nothing at all of the matter, shold leaue to mens vse, a storie, halfe as moch as it was in quantitie, but twise as good as it was, both for pleasure and also commoditie’ (Ascham, 1570: n3r–v; 43r–v). Wilson borrows many such uncommon words from a pre-existing register or vocabulary employed by logicians and rhetoricians, who fetched them from Latin because they name things for which English did not have reasonable equivalents. Wilson understands inkhorn terms, then, as a noxious subset of foreign loanwords that lack any sponsoring community. All but two of the 22 words in this definition are monosyllables. British Library c.122.f.12. Cecil wrote his name in Latin and English at the bottom of the title page. Another owner, Paule Williams, signed his name in the middle of this page. In 1566, Elizabeth visited Oxford and heard a Latin oration from Thomas Cooper, who had brought out the largest Latin–English dictionary of its century, the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae et Britannicae, a massive re-edition of Elyot’s work. A few annotations are playful, like the hand pointing to part of the entry for ‘Elephas’ (elephant) that reads ‘The female, whiche he ones seasoneth, he neuer after toucheth. The male olyphant lyueth .200. yeres, at the least 120. yeres’ (bb2v). One noted entry enjoys the same mild misogyny that appears later in his published advice to his son Thomas. Cecil places a marginal noting symbol beside Cooper’s ‘Acco, cus, a woman, whiche was so foolisshe, that she wolde speake and talke to her owne image in a glasse, wherof cometh Accissare, to plaie the idiote: and suche fooles bee called Acci’ (a6r). His ‘Certain Precepts for the Well Ordering of a Man’s Life’ (c. 1584) notes that ‘there is nothing so fulsome as is a she-fool’ (Wright, 1962: 10). These are taken from signatures sss6 and tt8. The oldest layer of this notebook may be the collection of citations in Latin and Greek. For example, under the heading ‘B. E.’ on folio 16r are two Latin entries, the first beginning ‘Breve’; folio 29r, titled ‘Ætas’, holds a four-line Greek stanza; and folio 54r, for ‘G’, has an entry in Latin, ‘Cucurrire gallus gallina gracillat’ which is indexed by a headword off to the right, ‘Gallus’. Other headings in this layer are ‘Liberalis’ and ‘Luna’ (63r), ‘Morbus’ (66r), ‘Mediocritas’ (66v) and ‘Res’ (80v). These entries have numbered citations on pages with ruled margins but have no alphabetic headers, just the headword. Cox’s book in the 1530s was out of print and forgotten. Accidental aspects of the internal substance of a thing are places called Adiacentiae or ‘wordes adioyned’ (as, for example, a man like Cato, who is eloquent as well as

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wise), Actus or ‘dedes done, or suffred to be done’, and Subiectum or ‘the thyng conteinyng . . . being the stoorehouse of Accidentes’ (K5v, K7r, K8r). Hart goes unmentioned. The stimulus for Parker’s interest in Old English manuscripts, as far as we know, was a request made before Elizabeth by a messenger of the Magdeburg Centuriators in July 1560 (Jones, 1961: 37–38; cf. Graham and Watson, 1998). England was asked to contribute early documents about ecclesiastical history, especially the records of church councils, to a European project intended to undermine papal interpretation of Christian church history. Sir William Petre sent the request to Parker, and Parker in turn asked the reformation playwright and preacher John Bale for help. Bale’s reply arrived only a few days later. He told Parker how to retrieve his great library of Old English manuscripts, which Bale had had to abandon in Ireland when forced to escape persecution by leaving for the continent. Two decades later, he is still writing analytic memos. Two survive in his papers at Hatfield about the mooted marriage between Elizabeth and a child of Henry, King of France, the Duke of Alençon. Cecil lays out objections arising from both her and her realm. He points out the calamity that would follow her death in childbirth and subsequent government by an infant, the uncertainty of her affection for the duke, and the possibility that, if he survived Elizabeth, Alençon would marry Mary, Queen of Scots, and so claim both realms. As for England, Cecil noted, it traditionally disliked being governed by foreigners, especially the French, and might fear – should Elizabeth die and a male child succeed to the throne – that he might also become King of France and henceforth rule England from overseas. See Read (1960: 208–211). Cecil also accepted John Bossewell’s heraldic Armory (1572) and Thomas Hill’s Gardener’s Labyrinth (1577). He cites Cooper’s repeated use of ‘soure’ to signify terms like adstringens, austerum, acerbum, acer and acidus. Thomas Digges dedicated Alaae seu scalae mathematicae to him in 1573. STC 23081a (London: William Ponsonby): qq1r. This may explain why John Gerard referred to his Herball (1597) as a history of plants. Even his beloved Cambridge succumbed to a love of words for their own sake which led his own nephew, Francis Bacon, to rebuke its scholars in The Advancement of Learning (1605; see Henderson, 1995: 229).

References Accademia della Crusca (2002–) Firenze. http://www.accademiadellacrusca.it Ailesbury, R.B., Earl of (1687) Bibliotheca Illustris, Sive, Catalogus Variorum Librorum in Quâvis Linguâ & Facultate Insignium Ornatissimae Bibliothecae Viri Cujusdam Praenobilis ac Honoratissimi Olim Defuncti Libris Rarissimis Tam Typis Excusis Quàm Manuscriptis Refertissimae. London: T. Bentley and B. Walford. Alford, S. (1997) Reassessing William Cecil in the 1560s. In J. Guy (ed.) The Tudor Monarchy (pp. 233–253). London: Arnold. Ascham, R. (1545) Toxophilus the Schole of Shootinge. London: Edward Whytchurch. Ascham, R. (1570) The Scholemaster or Plaine and Perfite Way of Teachyng Children, to Vnderstand, Write, and Speake, the Latin Tong. London: John Day. Ascham, R. (1865) The Whole Works. Vol. 1, Part I: Life, & c., and Letters. J.A. Giles (ed.) London: J.R. Smith.

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Banister, J. (1575) A Needefull, New, and Necessarie Treatise of Chirurgery. London: Thomas Marsh. Barbour, R. (2004) Peele, George (bap. 1556, d. 1596). In H.C.G. Matthew and B. Harrison (eds) Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Baret, J. (1574) An Aluearie or Triple Dictionarie, in Englishe, Latin, and French. London: Henry Denham. Bartholomaeus Anglicus (1582) Batman vppon Bartholome his booke De proprietatibus rerum (S. Batman, trans.). London: Thomas East. Bately, J. (1992) John Joscelyn and the laws of the Anglo-Saxon kings. In M. Korhammer, K. Reichl and H. Sauer (eds) Words, Texts, and Manuscripts: Studies in Anglo-Saxon Culture Presented to Helmut Gneuss on the Occasion of His Sixty-fifth Birthday (pp. 435– 466). Cambridge: D.S. Brewer. Becke, E. (1551) A gatheryng of certayne harde wordes in the newe Testament, with their exposicion. In The Byble (pp. aa1r–c1v). London: John Waley. Blagrave, J. (1585) The Mathematical Iewel. London: Walter Venge. Blayney, P. (1997) William Cecil and the stationers. In R. Myers and M. Harris (eds) The Stationers’ Company and the Book Trade 1550–1990 (pp. 11–34). Winchester: St Paul’s Bibliographers. Blount, T. (1656) Glossographia. London: Thomas Newcomb for Humphrey Moseley and George Sawbridge. Bossewell, J. (1572) Armory. London: Richard Totelli. Bowden, C. (2005) The library of Mildred Cooke Cecil, Lady Burghley. The Library 6 (1), 3–29. Brede, A. (1937) The idea of an English language academy. English Journal 26 (7), 560–568. Bullokar, J. (1616) An English Expositor: Teaching the Interpretation of the Hardest Words in our Language. London: John Legatt. Calendar of the Patent Rolls: Elizabeth I (1966) (Vol. 5, pp. 1569–1572). London: HMSO. Calendar of the Patent Rolls: Elizabeth I (1986) M. Post (ed.) (Vol. 8, pp. 1578–1580). London: HMSO. Castiglione, B. (1561) The Covrtyer (T. Hoby, trans.). London: William Seres. Cawdrey, R. (1604) A Table Alphabeticall. London: J. Roberts for Edmund Weaver. Cockeram, H. (1623) The English Dictionarie: Or, An Interpreter of Hard English Words. London: Eliot’s Court Press for N. Butter. Cooper, T. (1548) Bibliotheca Eliotae or Eliotis Librarie. London: Thomas Berthelet [British Library c.122.f.12.]. Cooper, T. (1565) Thesaurus Linguae Romanae et Britannicae. London: Thomas Berthelet. Coote, E. (1596) The English Schoole-maister. London: Widow Orwin for Ralph Jackson and Robert Dexter. Cotgrave, R. (1611) A Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues. London: A. Islip. Cotgrave, R. and Howell, J. (1650) A French–English Dictionary. London: W.H. for John Williams. Crankshaw, D.J. and Gillespie, A. (2004) Parker, Matthew (1504–1575). In H.C.G. Matthew and B. Harrison (eds) Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dasent, J.R. (ed.) (1893) Acts of the Privy Council of England. New series, 7: AD 1558–1570. London: HMSO. Demosthenes (1570) The Three Orations of Demosthenes (T. Wilson, trans.). London: Henry Denham.

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Dewar, M. (1964) Sir Thomas Smith: A Tudor Intellectual in Office. London: Athlone Press. Digges, T. (1573) Alaae seu Scalae Mathematicae. London: Thomas Marsh. Doran, S. and Woolfson, J. (2004) Wilson, Thomas (1523/4–1581), humanist and administrator. In H.C.G. Matthew and B. Harrison (eds) Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Eccles, M. (1957) Bynneman’s books. The Library 12 (2), 81–92. Elyot, Sir T. (1538) The Dictionary of Syr Thomas Eliot Knyght. London: Thomas Berthelet. Elyot, Sir T. (1548) Bibliotheca Eliotæ. Eliotis Librarie. London: Thomas Berthelet [British Library C.122.f.12.]. Erasmus, D. (1549) The Praise of Folie (Sir T. Chaloner, trans). London: Thomas Berthelet. Finkenstaedt, T., Leisi, E. and Wolff, D. (1970) A Chronological English Dictionary Listing 80,000 Words in Order of their Earliest Known Occurrence. Heidelberg: Carl Winter. Finkenstaedt, T., Wolff, D., Neuhaus, H.J. and Herget, W. (1973) Ordered Profusion: Studies in Dictionaries and the English Lexicon. Heidelberg: Carl Winter. Fleetwood, W. (1581) A treatise upon the charters, liberties, lawes and customes of all forests, parkes, chases and free warrens within the realme of Englande. Harvard Law School MS 15. Florio, J. (1578) His Firste Fruites. London: Thomas Dawson for Thomas Woodcocke. Florio, J. (1598) A Worlde of Wordes, Or Most copious, and exact Dictionarie in Italian and English. London: Arnold Hatfield for Edward Blount. Florio, J. (1611) Queen Anna’s New World of Words, Or Dictionarie of the Italian and English Tongues. London: Melch. Bradwood for Edward Blount and William Barret. Gerard, J. (1597) The Herball or Generall Historie of Plantes. London: John Norton. Graham, T. and Watson, A.G. (1998) The Recovery of the Past in Early Elizabethan England: Documents by John Bale and John Joscelyn from the Circle of Matthew Parker. Cambridge: Cambridge University Library for the Cambridge Bibliographical Society. Graves, M.A.R. (1998) Burghley: William Cecil, Lord Burghley. London: Longman. Hall, E. (1548) The Vnion of the Two Noble and Illustrate Famelies of Lancastre [and] Yorke. London: Richardi Graftoni. Harrison, L. (1571) A Dictionarie French and English. London: Henry Bynneman. Hart, A. (1943) Vocabularies of Shakespeare’s plays. The Review of English Studies 19, 128–140. Hart, J. (1955) John Hart’s Works on English Orthography and Pronunciation [1551, 1569, 1570]. Part I: Biographical and Bibliographical Introductions, Texts, and Index Verborum B. Danielsson (ed.). Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell. Haynes, S. (ed.) (1740) A Collection of State Papers, Relating to Affairs In the Reigns of King Henry VIII. King Edward VI. Queen Mary, and Queen Elizabeth, From the Years 1542 to 1570. London: William Bowyer. Heal, F. and Holmes, C. (2002) The economic patronage of William Cecil. In P. Croft (ed.) Patronage, Culture and Power: The Early Cecils (pp. 199–229). New Haven: Yale University Press for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, the Yale Centre for British Art. Henderson, J.R. (1995) Vain affectations: Bacon on Ciceronianism in The Advancement of Learning. English Literary Renaissance 25 (2), 209–234. Hickes, M. (1732 [1612]). The compleat statesman. In F. Peck (ed.) Desiderata Curiosa (Vol. 1). London. Higgins, J. (1572) Huloets dictionarie. London: Thomas Marsh. Hill, T. (1577) Gardener’s Labyrinth. London: Henry Bynneman.

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Hollyband, C. (1566) The Frenche Littelton: A Most Easie, Perfect, and Absolute way to Learne the Frenche Tongue. London: Thomas Vautroullier. Hollyband, C. (1580) The Treasury of the French Tongue. London: Henry Bynneman. Husselby, J. and Henderson, P. (2002) Location, location, location! Cecil House in the Strand. Architectural History 45, 159–193. Jones, N.L. (1961) Matthew Parker, John Bale, and the Magdeburg Centuriators. The Sixteenth Century Journal 12 (2), 35–49. Jones, R.F. (1953) The Triumph of the English Language: A Survey of Opinions Concerning the Vernacular from the Introduction of Printing to the Restoration. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Lambeth Palace Library MS 302. Several Pedigrees of the Kings of Navarre, and England. Lancashire, I. (2002) ‘Dumb significants’ and early modern English definition. In J. Brockmeier, M. Wang and D.R. Olson (eds) Literacy, Narrative and Culture (pp. 131–154). Richmond: Curzon. Lancashire, I. (ed.) (2006–) Lexicons of Early Modern English. Toronto: University of Toronto Press and Universities of Toronto Libraries. http://leme.library.utoronto.ca Lancashire, I. (2007) The two tongues of early modern English. In C. Cain (ed.) Managing Chaos (pp. 115–153). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Lancashire, I. (2010) Why did Tudor England have no monolingual English dictionary? In J. Considine (ed.) Webs of Words: New Studies in Historical Lexicography (pp. 8–23). Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars. Levins, P. (1570) Manipulus Vocabulorum. London: Henry Bynnenan. Lily, W. and Colet, J. (1945 [1567]) A Shorte Introduction of Grammar. New York: Scholars. Loades, D. (2007) The Cecils: Privilege and Power behind the Throne. Kew: National Archives. Lyte, H. (1578) A Nievve Herball, or Historie of Plantes. London: Gerard Dewes. Matthew, H.C.G. and Harrison, B. (eds) (2004) Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press. McConchie, R.W. (1992) What were Robert Cawdrey’s hard words? Learned terms in A Table Alphabeticall (1604). In P. Pahta and L. Kahlas-Tarkka (eds) ‘As Who Say’ – Many Happy Returns: Essays in Honour of Saara Nevanlinna (pp. 51–58). Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. Minsheu, J. (1599) A Dictionarie in Spanish and English. London: Edm. Bollifant. Minsheu, J. (1617) Vocabvlarivm Hispanicolatinvm Et Anglicum copiosissimum. London: John Browne. Minsheu, J. (1627) Minshaei Emendatio, vel à Mendis Expurgatio, seu Augmentatio sui Ductoris in Linguas, The Guide into Tongues. London: John Haviland. Mulcaster, R. (1582) The First Part of the Elementarie. London: Thomas Vautroullier. Nevalainen, T. (1999) Early modern English lexis and semantics. In R. Lass (ed.) The Cambridge History of the English Language. Vol. 3, 1476–1776 (pp. 332–458). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nowell, L. (1952) Laurence Nowell’s Vocabularium Saxonicum. In A.H. Marckwardt (ed.). Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. OED Online (2010–) Oxford: Oxford University Press. http://www.oed.com [subscribers only] Page, R.I. and Bushnell, G.H.S. (1975) Matthew Parker’s Legacy: Books and Plate. Cambridge: Corpus Christi College. Palingenio Stellato, M. (1576) The Zodiake of Life (B. Googe, trans.). London: for Rauf Newberie.

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Palsgrave, J. (1530) Lesclarcissement de la langue francoyse. London: Richard Pynson and Johan Haukins. Patten, W. (1575) The Calender of Scripture. London: Richard Jugge. Percyuall, R. (1591) Bibliotheca Hispanica. Containing a Grammar; with a Dictionarie in Spanish, English, and Latine. London: John Jackson for Richard Watkins. Petti, A.G. (1960) The fox, the ape, the humble-bee and the goose. Neophilologus 44, 208–215. Read, C. (1955) Mr. Secretary Cecil and Queen Elizabeth. London: Jonathan Cape. Read, C. (1956) Lord Burghley's household accounts. The Economic History Review NS 9.2, 343–348. Read, C. (1960) Lord Burghley and Queen Elizabeth. London: Jonathan Cape. Rice, G.P. Jr. (1951) The Public Speaking of Queen Elizabeth: Selections from Her Official Addresses. New York: Columbia University Press. Schäfer, J. (1989) Early Modern English Lexicography (2 vols). Oxford: Clarendon Press. Smith, B. (1929) Queen Elizabeth at the Cambridge disputations. Quarterly Journal of Speech 15 (4), 495–503. Smith, Sir T. (1983) Literary and linguistic works [1542, 1549, 1568]. Part III. A critical edition of De Rectae Emendata Linguae Anglicanae Scriptione, Dialogus. B. Danielsson (ed.) Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell. Spenser, E. (1590) The Faerie Qveene Disposed into Twelue Books. London: William Ponsonby. Spenser, E. (1596) The Second Part of the Faerie Qveene. London: William Ponsonby. Stern, V.F. (1979) Gabriel Harvey: His Life, Marginalia and Library. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Streitberger, W.R. (2007) The Earl of Sussex, the Revels Office, and London commercial theatre, 1572–1583. Review of English Studies n.s. 58 (233), 34–63. Strype, J. (1711) The Life and Acts of Matthew Parker. London: John Wyat. Thomas, T. (1587) Dictionarium linguae Latinae et Anglicanae. Cambridge: Richard Boyle. Turner, W. (1568) A New Boke of the Natures and Properties of All Wines. London: William Seres. van Dorsten, J.A. (1969) Mr. Secretary Cecil, Patron of Letters. English Studies 50.1, 545–553. Whittingham, W. (1560) A brief table of the interpretation of the propre Names. The Bible. Geneva: Roland Hill. Williams, F.B. Jr. (1962) Index of Dedications and Commendatory Verses in English Books Before 1641. London: Bibliographical Society. Wilson, T. (1551) The Rvle of Reason: London 1551. Amsterdam: Da Capo Press. Wilson, T. (1553) Art of Rhetorique. London: Richard Grafton. Worsop, E. (1582) A Discouerie of Sundrie Errours and Faults Daily Committed by Landemeaters. London: Henry Middleton. Wright, L.B. (ed.) (1962) Advice to a Son: Precepts of Lord Burghley, Sir Walter Raleigh, and Francis Osborne. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press for the Folger Shakespeare Library.

4 Prescribing Pastoral and Pragmatic Orientations: Challenges for Language Policy Lionel Wee

Introduction In this paper, I want to focus on linguistic prescriptivism in a different sense from that usually conveyed by the term. The usual understanding involves prescriptions concerning specific matters of usage, as in pronunciation, orthography or grammar. However, it also possible to speak of linguistic prescriptivism in the sense of prescribing specific varieties of language: which varieties ought to be used and why.1 And here, I want to explore some of the challenges for language policy that arise when pastoral and pragmatic orientations for prescribing specific languages intersect. A pastoral view (Gal, 1989: 316) of language treats it as a proprietary entity that is inherited across generations of speakers who belong to the same community, with this community itself understood as (always) having occupied a specific territory. This territoriality contributes to the community’s sense of historicity, so that the language comes to be seen as steeped in tradition: it is understood to be an inalienable carrier – in the sense that no other language is considered to be an adequate substitute – of the community’s ancestral values. The language is thus said to represent a significant if not essential aspect of the speakers’ cultural identity so that loss of the language is (allegedly) tantamount to the destruction of that culture. Because of this, as a demonstration of their fidelity to the community and 63

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its associated values, speakers may be obligated to preserve their knowledge and use of the language. In contrast to the pastoral view, speakers who learn a language from a pragmatic orientation do so because it is valued as a resource that facilitates socio-economic mobility in a competitive marketplace rather than as a heritage language intrinsically valued as a marker of cultural identity perspective (Heller, 1999: 336; Wee, 2003: 11). The loss of the language is not expected to result in any significant identity trauma. Consequently, speakers are not under any obligation to maintain the language. This is a language of convenience, so to speak, being learned and used for the mundane, if not profane, purpose of making money or simply getting on in the world. And if some other language should prove to be of greater pragmatic value, speakers might then be expected to shift their language interest accordingly. In a purely monolingual community, the same language would serve both pastoral and pragmatic purposes. But this is an ideal, since multilingualism represents the more realistic state of affairs (Romaine, 2001). Consequently, even within a pastoral view, tensions can arise when the community in question is ethnically and linguistically diverse, as tends to be the case with many countries. Under such circumstances, the positioning of one language as the language that is representative of the country’s culture and identity may be contentious, especially if this selected language is perceived as unfairly privileging one domestic group over others. This set of tensions – concerning ethnic conflicts over the selection of one representative language – has already received a fair amount of attention (Blommaert & Verschueren, 1998; Brown & Ganguly, 2003; Jaffe, 1999). For this reason, I think it is useful to focus attention on the tensions between pastoral and pragmatic orientations. My intention is to examine the constraints and rationales behind the language policies of some countries, and to show how the presence of these tensions may create the impetus towards change in existing policy. To do this, I focus on South Korea, Malaysia and Singapore, for the following reasons. All three countries are, to varying degrees, grappling with issues posed by the presence of English, arguably the pragmatic language par excellence, since its status as a global language (Crystal, 1997) is attributable in no small part to the socio-economic advantages that accrue to those who are perceived to speak it well. In the next section, I say a bit more about why I am focusing on these three countries specifically, before going on to discuss them individually. Then, over the following three sections, I provide brief descriptions of some of the policy challenges faced by South Korea, Malaysia and Singapore.2 In the concluding section of this paper, I suggest that the governing authorities responsible for the language policies of these countries

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may need to engage more deliberately in discourse planning (Lo Bianco, 2004: 743). Much current policy is predicated on how to position (or not) specific language varieties (e.g. ‘Should English be treated as an official language?’ or ‘How many mother tongues ought to be recognized?’). However, such an approach leaves the underlying assumptions that constitute the pastoral and pragmatic orientations towards language varieties unexamined. What is required, then, is the willingness to discuss and examine the (changing and contested) assumptions about the languages themselves. To the extent that policy formulation actually builds in processes of deliberation, where these assumptions can be subjected to public debate and scrutiny, it can be described as informed by a process of discourse planning.

South Korea, Malaysia and Singapore South Korea has a population of about 49 million. It is a country that is relatively close to the pastoral ideal of linguistic homogeneity. Even though regional dialects are significantly different from standard Korean, though Chinese migrants have always been present in Korea, and though, as a result of international marriages, speakers of other Southeast Asian languages also exist in South Korea, the ideological construction of South Korea as an ethnically and linguistically homogeneous society is one that is firmly entrenched in the public consciousness (Park, 2009: 29–30). The national identity is firmly built around the Korean language and, as a relatively monolingual society, Korean clearly serves both pastoral and pragmatic purposes. However, national identity sometimes has to compete with other identities, such as the desire to appear sophisticated, well-educated or modern. In this regard, even though English has no official status in South Korea, it is extensively taught in schools, given its perceived importance as a language of modernization and economic success. Thus, Park (2009: 42–43) notes that English-speaking skills are increasingly important in white-collar jobs; they may be needed just to gain employment, even if the job itself does not actually require using the language. In this way, South Korea consequently provides a good case study of the clash between pastoral and pragmatic forces in their most distilled manifestation, when only two different languages are involved. In comparison with South Korea, both Malaysia and Singapore are more overt in recognizing the ethnically and linguistically diverse nature of their populations. Malaysia has a population of about 25 million, with ethnic Malays comprising about 50%, ethnic Chinese about 24%, and Eurasians, Indians and other groups making up the rest. Singapore’s population stands

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at about 4.6 million. The Chinese make up about 76%, Malays 14% and Indians 8%, with the rest being Eurasians and other ethnicities. While both countries were united as members of the Federation of Malaysia, they separated (with Singapore leaving the Federation in 1965) due to political differences over how to manage such ethnic and linguistic diversity. Malaysia preferred a bumiputra policy, which recognizes Malay as the national language and endows ethnic Malays with special rights. Singapore was uncomfortable with the idea of privileging one particular ethnic group over others and preferred a policy that recognized multiple ethnic mother tongues as a way of giving equal status to all ethnic communities. These two countries therefore pursued different strategies for managing ethnolinguistic diversity: the former has attempted to construct a national identity around an ethnic-specific language and leaves no official place for English, while the latter has deliberately instituted English as an official language, to serve both as an inter-ethnic lingua franca and as a language for engaging with the global economy. The problem for Malaysia is that the status of Malay as the national identity language is sometimes in tension with other ethnic languages, such as Mandarin or Tamil. This problem is compounded by the fact that, as with South Korea, it is English that is often seen as the language of modernity (below). Unlike South Korea and Malaysia, Singapore presents as something of an anomaly as regards the issue of language and national identity. While Malay is officially the national language, this is mainly symbolic. Malay is used in the national anthem and in military commands, but there is no official obligation to learn the language. The emphasis instead is on learning a particular ethnic mother tongue. There is consequently no language that strongly embodies a national identity, and cultural identification is instead supposed to be directed towards specific ethnic communities. A good illustration of the difference between Malaysia and Singapore as regards attitudes towards English comes from the fact that English is the medium of communication in Singapore’s parliamentary proceedings. However, when a Malaysian senator proposed allowing the use of English in the Malaysian parliament, angry responses included editorials from a Malaysian newspaper, Berita Minggu, which called such a proposal ‘shameful’ (Rappa & Wee, 2006: 5). Thus, even though Malaysia resembles South Korea in that English has no official status in the country, its inclusion in this paper provides us with an example of the challenges posed by English in the context of an ethnolinguistically diverse country. Unlike South Korea and Malaysia, English does have an official status in Singapore. The addition of Singapore then gives us an idea of some of the problems that are faced by a country even when its policy already specifically accommodates the presence of a language that serves a pragmatic purpose.

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South Korea: Debating English as an Official Language Recent discussions in South Korea about English have focused quite heatedly on the importance of the language for Koreans’ socio-economic mobility. Unsurprisingly, English is seen as a possible threat to the Korean identity, with Koreans who are perceived to be too enthusiastic in their pursuit of English having their ‘Korean-ness’ questioned. The situation in South Korea is particularly interesting, because the country is (potentially) on the cusp of a significant development in its language policy, as many of the debates have pivoted around the very specific question of whether or not English should be accorded the status of an official language. According to Yoo (2005), discussions over the proposal to treat English as an official language have been gaining momentum since the early 1990s, and became especially heated when, in 1998, a local author named Bok Geoil suggested that local ethnic languages are inevitably doomed to extinction in the face of the onslaught of the English language (Bok, 1998). As Yoo puts it: Bok’s main argument is that ethnic languages will die out soon because people have realized the power and prestige of English as the present global language, and therefore, that the South Korean government should take the initiative to adopt English as the co-official language with Korean for the time being and, in the long run, establish English as the one and only official language in South Korea. Thus, his proposal for EOL was based on ‘subtractive’ bilingualism. (Yoo, 2005: 7) Opponents of the proposal have adopted a two-pronged response, arguing that (a) a nationalist ideology protecting Korea’s identity as a monolingual society is essential in maintaining a sense of national unity, and (b) the rise of English is really a signifier of the disparities in economic clout between various nations, specifically Korea vis-à-vis the West (Yoo, 2005: 9–10, 13). Taken together, (a) and (b) connect the maintenance of the Korean language with the continued integrity of the Korean identity, and link the repudiation of the English language with pride in Korea’s own economic growth. Thus, Yoo (2005: 1) observes that the debates over the proposal for English to be treated as an official language are often presented as a contest between two competing forces: a desire to meet the ‘demands of globalization’, and a desire to protect a sense of nationalism. Here, we have in a nutshell the tension between pragmatic and pastoral views of language, the former represented by English and the latter by Korean. We make an additional observation. Recall

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that one of the responses by opponents to the proposal is to argue that Korean can in fact play a role in the country’s own economic growth. This amounts to a claim that Korean, too, can have a pragmatic value that may be comparable to that of English. This recalls the suggestion by Rappa and Wee (2006: 21) that the dynamics of language policies can be fruitfully understood in terms of attempts to construct specific relations between languages: complementarity, displacement and equivalence are especially relevant. Linguistic equivalence refers to a situation where one language is claimed to be on par with another. Linguistic displacement refers to a competitive situation where the presence of one language is seen to lead to the elimination of another. Finally, linguistic complementarity is where various languages are treated as serving different and non-overlapping functions so that there is no competition between them. In the case of South Korea, the concern that Korean might be displaced by English motivates the claim that the former can and should be treated as equivalent to the latter. Regardless of the outcome of the debate – that is, regardless of whether English actually becomes an official language in Korea – there are a number of things that are worth noting. One, the extreme end of either position is obviously untenable. Calls for the rejection of English are unrealistic given the fact that English is already present and highly valued in Korean society (Park, 2009: 37). Equally unrealistic or certainly unnecessarily provocative is Bok’s claim that Koreans are keen to switch to English because of the language’s perceived prestige and power and, in the course of doing so, are willing to completely abandon Korean. The very fact that there has been robust opposition to the proposal to make English an official language falsifies Bok’s claim. The more reasonable position, obviously, is that many Koreans are keen to embrace English, probably for the reasons of prestige and power that Bok suggests, but they wish to do so while still retaining knowledge of Korean. A productive discussion will therefore require adopting a more moderate approach, one which is willing to consider carefully how Korean and English can co-exist, while admitting that any such co-existence may not necessarily represent a state of equal partnership.3 Two, the way in which globalization is presented in the debate needs to be broadened. Globalization is all too commonly constructed as the need to engage with the world ‘out there’ in socio-economic terms, or to create a business environment that will better attract foreign investment. This is not inaccurate, but it is incomplete. A significant feature of globalization is increased transnational mobility, particularly of educated cosmopolitans or affluent elites. This transnational migration of cosmopolitans and elites to different countries has sometimes been described as a competition for global talent, and it has the potential to substantially change the demographics of any country.

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This mobility is a two-way street, since it involves both the outward migration of Koreans as well as the inward migration of foreigners, some of whom may subsequently take up citizenship. This means that South Korea needs to consider the possible emigration of educated Koreans, and how this might affect the competitiveness and vitality of the country in the medium to long term. As regards the issue of immigration, the point is particularly relevant to any claim that South Korean society is necessarily monolingual and the assertion that the Korean language is an inherent feature of the Korean identity. This is because newly arriving global talents that take up Korean citizenship may comprise a diversity of ethnic backgrounds. This would increase the ethnic and linguistic diversity of Korea, and also raise questions about how best to integrate these different ethnolinguistic realities into Korean society. Three, another point that seems to have been underappreciated in the debate over whether to make English an official language is the issue of class. To the extent that a command of the English language comes to be seen as providing greater access to socio-economic resources, characterizing the debate as one between globalization and nationalism – as tends to be the case at present – sidelines the very real fact that, precisely because English is being pursued for its association with prestige and economic power, there may well emerge a class divide between Koreans themselves: those who speak English well and those who don’t or not at all. For example, employment and promotion prospects are critically influenced by the possession of English skills, regardless of whether the job description actually demands such skills, since competence in English is seen as defining an injae, or ‘talented person’ (Park, 2009: 42–43). Korean parents also aim to send their children overseas to English-speaking environments as an investment in their children’s future, despite the huge financial burdens involved. This phenomenon is known as jogi yuhak, ‘early overseas education’ (Park, 2009: 44). Relatedly, the construction of ‘English villages’ – intended to allow Koreans to practise English in an immersion environment without having to leave the country – is so popular as to have become politicized by regional authorities as ‘a populist alternative to costly jogi yuhak’ (Park, 2009: 47). To summarize, the momentum for change in Korean language policy comes from the following factors. There is a need to: (1) accommodate Koreans’ aspirations regarding the connection between English and socio-economic mobility; (2) engage in (1) while minimizing class divisions inflected along English language lines; and (3) connect the language policy to a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between globalization and nationalism.

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As we now see, similar challenges arise for Malaysia regarding the relationship between Malay and English. However, the Malaysian situation is further complicated by the fact that the status of Malay is also in occasional tension with that of other local languages, such as Mandarin and Tamil.

Malaysia: The Bumiputra Policy The bumiputra policy in Malaysia provides special recognition of the rights of the ethnic Malays on the basis that, as the ‘original or indigenous people of Malaya’, they are entitled to specific consideration and privileges when compared to other ethnic groups. This can be seen in the following statement by Mahathir Mohamad (Malaysia’s longest serving prime minister): We are now in the process of building a new nation which is to be an amalgam of different racial groups. The form of this new nation and this new citizenship must be such as to satisfy all the constituent races. An understanding of the relative rights and claims of each race is important if we are to avoid the differences which selfish racial prejudices will engender . . . I contend that the Malays are the original or indigenous people of Malaya. (Mahathir, 1970: 33, italics in original) Despite their status as the ‘original people’, Malays’ control over their homeland had been weakened by British colonial policy on migrant workers, which had preferred to employ non-Malay workers, especially the Chinese. This historical exclusion from particular forms of employment has been held responsible for the Malays’ relative lack of economic power vis-à-vis the other ethnic groups. Unlike South Korea, then, the pastoralist ideal of an ethnically and linguistic homogeneous society has been compromised by the other ethnic groups, whose economic dominance has made them difficult to ignore. It is considered inappropriate, and indeed unjustifiable, that the original ethnic group of Malays should also be economically weaker or less prosperous than other ethnic groups in the country. As a consequence, even though the importance of Malay rights was codified in the Malaysian constitution in 1957, a refinement was implemented in 1970 in the form of the New Economic Policy (NEP). Under the NEP, ‘Malays were not only given special rights in administration and education but also in terms of language and culture’ (Rappa & Wee, 2006: 33). In 1971, an amendment to the constitution further stated that the status of Malay as the official language and the

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status of other languages as non-official but merely tolerated ‘may no longer be questioned, it being considered that such a sensitive issue should for ever be removed from the arena of public discussion’. Thus, purely by fiat, the issues of bumiputra rights and the choice of Malay as the national language are barred from public discussion. Attempts to visit these issues are sometimes characterized as unpatriotic and disrespectful to the Malay royalty. Despite this, the bumiputra policy has continued to prove contentious over the years, so that in 2001 the opposition political party, the Democratic Action Party, issued the following statement during a press conference: . . . a narrow attitude that bumiputra students must be helped at all cost, even at the expense of other citizens who are high achievers in public examinations . . . It does not make sense for Education Minister Tan Sri Musa Mohamed to propose that the much disputed quota system be extended to the private sector which would further curb the limited opportunities available to non-bumiputra. (Rappa & Wee, 2006: 44) In addition to controversies surrounding the general issue of Malay rights, there have also been problems relating more directly to the Malay language itself. The highly symbolic role that Malay occupies in Malaysia means that it is constantly in tension with other languages such as Mandarin and Tamil, as well as English. The relationship between Malay and Mandarin, for example, is problematic, since many Chinese Malaysians have preferred to send their children to Chinese-medium schools rather than national-type schools where the medium of instruction is Malay and, in fact, the early 1970s saw protests from the Chinese community over the introduction of Malay as the language of instruction. However, one consequence of this preference for either Malay or Chinese as the medium of instruction has been the production of Malaysian graduates with questionable proficiency in English, with many of them unable to find employment. As a result, there has been a split between the public and private sectors, with Malay being used primarily in the former and English in the latter. Thus, Pennycook (1994: 201) points out that ‘those educated in the Malaysian university system tend to be regarded as second-class students, and thus have more difficulty finding top jobs, especially in the private sector, while the overseas-educated remain a social and economic elite’. And at present, it is estimated that more than 50,000 of the country’s graduates are unemployed – many of whom are ‘poor, female, Malay and cannot speak enough English to hold a two-minute conversation in the language’ (Straits Times, 2009a). To its credit, the Malaysian government has been aware that lack of English language proficiency would be a problem for the country’s graduates.

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And it was precisely this concern with employability that led the Malaysian government, in 2003, to introduce a language policy where only mathematics and science were to be taught in English. We saw earlier in the discussion of South Korea that one response to the perceived competition that English poses has been to assert a relation of equivalence. In the case of Malaysia, even the proposal to give English a limited role has been met with resistance and a similar assertion of equivalence that some other language should be used instead. However, unlike South Korea, where the only alternative proposed by those opposing the use of English was Korean, in Malaysia, a number of alternative languages are proposed (Malay, Mandarin, Tamil), depending on the specific pastoral orientation of the ethnic group involved. There is no unified rally around a single pastoral language because specific ethnic groups are still unable or unwilling to subordinate their ethnic languages to an imposed national language. For example, some Malaysian states, notably those under the rule of the opposition party, Pakatan Rakyat, have lobbied for mathematics and science to be taught in Malay, on the grounds that using English was ‘a blow to the “sanctity of Bahasa Malaysia” as the national language’ and has ‘created problems for both teachers and students, especially from the rural areas’ (Straits Times, 2009b). This call for a move away from English is not limited to the opposition. Even members of the ruling coalition have called for a move towards the ‘mother tongue’: the Malaysian Chinese Association and the Malaysian Indian Congress, respectively, want Chinese and Tamil to be used for teaching mathematics and science (Straits Times, 2009c). As a result of these political reactions against the use of English for mathematics and science, in July 2009 the Malaysian government announced it was abandoning the policy, despite the fact that many parents and employers wanted English to be retained (Gooch, 2009). How this latest move will affect the employability of the country’s graduates remains unclear, since even if equivalence of languages is established within the school system, this does not mean a similar equivalence in the wider job market. This is because the pragmatic value of these other languages is harder to establish and control outside the school system. In Bourdieu’s (1991) terms, the use of Malay, Mandarin or Tamil instead of English for teaching mathematics and science may lead to a less unified linguistic market, where the linguistic and cultural capital acquired by students is not easily convertible into other forms of capital (economic, symbolic) after graduation. The challenge for Malaysia’s language policy is therefore to: (1) maintain inter-ethnic harmony without being seen to undermine the bumiputra policy;

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(2) satisfy nationalists that the status and sanctity of Malay as the national language is not being eroded by English; and (3) do (1) and (2) while ensuring that Malaysians still remain competitive and employable.

Singapore: Multiracialism and Pragmatism Unlike South Korea and Malaysia, Singapore’s language policy has from the outset embraced English for its pragmatic value. As noted earlier, Singapore left the Federation of Malaysia, in part over the issue of whether ethnic Malays ought to be granted special rights. Singapore’s position was that granting such rights would do little to improve the status of the Malays and would, in fact, create more problems for ethnic relations. But because Singapore has no natural resources of its own, its leaders were faced with the task of building the nation’s economy by developing manpower and attracting foreign direct investment. This motivated the emphasis on learning English, which is supposed to be a purely ‘practical’ language, one that ‘should be taught . . . without cultural nuance or reference’ (Wee, 2007: 253). However, because of the country’s ethnic and linguistic diversity, the promotion of English has had to take into account the presence of Singapore’s other languages. To do this, the government has consistently encouraged Singaporeans to be bilingual in English and a mother tongue that is officially assigned to them on the basis of their membership of an ethnic community. Given Singapore’s ethnically diverse society, three official mother tongues are recognized for each of the major ethnic groups: Mandarin for the Chinese, Malay for the Malays and Tamil for the Indians.4 Although the government recognizes English as an official language, it does not wish to accord it the status of an official mother tongue for a number of reasons: (a) English is to serve as an inter-ethnic lingua franca; (b) as the major language of socio-economic mobility, maintaining an ethnically neutral status for English helps ensure that the distribution of economic advantages is not seen as being unduly associated with a specific ethnic group, which would otherwise raise the danger of inter-ethnic tension; and (c) English is treated as a language that is essentially Western and thus unsuitable to be a mother tongue for an Asian society such as Singapore. English is therefore embraced for its association with economic development and access to scientific and technological know-how. It is restricted to a purely pragmatic role, with the ethnic mother tongues assuming the pastoral function of establishing cultural heritage. The government’s attempt to accommodate the presence of English alongside the

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mother tongues constitutes a situation of complementarity, where English is presented as the language of access to Western science and technology while the mother tongues are presented as providing links to ancient cultures and values. In this way, English and the mother tongues are assigned to separate functions in Singapore’s language policy. With the foregoing in mind, we can now turn to the challenges facing this policy. We have seen that Singapore’s language policy makes a distinction between English and the official mother tongues. However, there are reasons why this particular positioning of English is problematic. Firstly, for many Singaporeans today, the language of the home is English rather than one of the official mother tongues, because Singaporeans have taken seriously the government’s message that English affords its speakers significant socio-economic advantages (Gupta, 1998: 120). English is therefore threatening to displace the other languages. One already significant consequence is that a number of Chinese Singaporeans have great difficulty in coping with Mandarin, despite the fact that it supposed to be their mother tongue. This has recently forced the government to introduce a simplified language ‘B’ syllabus for Mandarin, and to acknowledge that only a minority, an elite estimated at about 10% of the student population, can be expected to be fully bilingual in English and the official mother tongue (Wee, 2006: 355). Secondly, it is questionable if the government can continue denying English the status of a mother tongue on the grounds that Singapore is an Asian society. This is because the government has recently decided to reposition itself as a cosmopolitan, global city in order to attract talented foreigners as potential new citizens, thus replacing those Singaporeans who may decide to emigrate permanently (Wee & Bokhorst-Heng, 2005: 170). Singapore’s national identity may then need to be reconstructed into one less dependent on an Asian ‘us’ versus Western ‘them’ dichotomy, since many such foreigners may come from different ethnic backgrounds. This possibility was acknowledged by Goh Chok Tong, then prime minister, in his 1999 National Day Rally speech (Wee & Bokhorst-Heng, 2005: 171–172). Given these factors, there are good reasons why the government may have to consider allowing English the status of an official mother tongue. Thirdly, the government has extended its pragmatic orientation from English to also include one of the ethnic mother tongues, Mandarin. The government has suggested that Mandarin does not only have cultural value for Chinese Singaporeans, it also has great economic potential given the liberalization of China’s markets (Bokhorst-Heng, 1998: 254). This line of argument undermines the government’s own assignation of a pragmatic role for English and a pastoral one for the mother tongues. Moreover, raising the pragmatic value of Mandarin potentially jeopardizes the equal status that

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the three official mother tongues are supposed to enjoy. For example, a growing number of Indian and Malay parents want the schools to allow their children to study Mandarin because the language is seen as ‘an economic asset’ (Rappa & Wee, 2006: 101). This desire on the part of non-Chinese to learn Mandarin is a sensitive matter, since the government might be criticized for encouraging Mandarin at the expense of the other mother tongues. But, at the same time, to deny the learning of a language that is seen as having economic value might also be construed as holding back the economic development of the minority communities. One way out of this dilemma is to play up the economic value of Malay and Tamil so that the mother tongues of these other communities, too, might be considered as attractive as Mandarin. This might then stem any desire on the part of minority parents for their children to learn Mandarin instead of Malay or Tamil. The advantage of this move is that it is consistent with the spirit of multiracialism. The difficulty lies in whether it can be made plausible, that is, whether Malay and Tamil can be argued to have the same kind of economic value as Mandarin (Wee, 2003). Thus, the commitment to multiracialism has the government recognizing multiple languages as having equivalent pastoral values for the different ethnic communities. But having suggested that one of the languages may also have a pragmatic value, the government now has to be sensitive to the implications of this move for the relationship of equivalence among the official mother tongues. As we observed in the case of Malaysia, it is not easy to establish the pragmatic value of a language because this is highly dependent on market forces. The foregoing suggests that Singapore’s language policy has to: (1) come to terms with the fact that one consequence of successfully encouraging the learning of English is that it cannot be relegated to a purely pragmatic realm – the language may have to be acknowledged as serving an identity and cultural function as well; (2) monitor and carefully manage the consequences of promoting the economic value of Mandarin – in particular, it has to ensure that the commitment to multiracialism and the equality of treatment for all three mother tongues is not compromised.

Concluding Discussion The challenges facing the language policies of these three countries exemplify some of the problems involved in prescribing particular languages visà-vis pastoral and pragmatic considerations, especially if it is assumed that

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such prescriptions can be made unequivocally and consistently. For South Korea, the challenges essentially revolve around the relationship between Korean and English. For Malaysia, similar difficulties involve managing the relationship between Malay and other local languages (such as Tamil and Mandarin) on the one hand, and the relationship between Malay and English on the other. For Singapore, concerns arise from trying to maintain equality among Malay, Tamil and Mandarin as languages with pastoral significance, while still encouraging Singaporeans to take advantage of the pragmatic benefits that knowledge of English as well as Mandarin can confer. Of the three countries, Singapore arguably appears to be in a somewhat better position to handle its own particular suite of challenges. This is because, unlike South Korea and Malaysia, Singapore does not have a language that is strongly seen as emblematic of its national identity.5 Hence, the pragmatic attraction of English is not seen as posing a threat to the status of this language. South Korea and Malaysia, in contrast, have to grapple with the fact that, as the pursuit of English intensifies, its wider presence in these societies could be seen as undermining national pride in Korean and Malay, respectively. Note that the issue here is not a matter of language endangerment or language death, since neither Korean nor Malay faces such a predicament. But national pride is no less potent as a force for rallying strong emotions about language, and the fact that Korean and Malay still have healthy numbers of speakers does not in any way diminish the sense that English may be encroaching onto areas of usage that ought to be reserved for these other languages. Nevertheless, even though Singapore does not have to grapple with the perception that English is a threat to a national language, its policy does suffer from a rather simplistic attempt to dictate from the top down the pastoral and pragmatic functions that different languages are supposed to serve. There seems to be little willingness to question the assumptions that motivate the distinction between English, on the one hand, and the ethnic mother tongues, on the other. This is especially critical since changing sociopolitical conditions would seem to warrant at least critically discussing the validity of this distinction. What seems to be absent from all three countries, then, is an institutionalized mechanism for the public examination of assumptions about language in relation to society. Such a mechanism may be useful because there are various social forces, internal and external to a society, that call for the need to negotiate a general understanding of the relations between different languages: One such force may be a change in the ethnic make-up of the society as migrants flow across a nation’s boundaries so that yesterday’s ethnic minority may become today’s majority. Yet another could be an urgent

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need to attract foreign investment or the need to reassert/recover a national identity in the face of perceived Westernization. As these forces come into prominence or fade away, yesterday’s relation of equivalence could well be today’s relation of displacement, and vice versa. (Rappa & Wee, 2006: 22) Despite this, it is perhaps not surprising that no such institutionalized mechanism exists, since political leaders tend to operate with the assumption that language is a phenomenon that bears a fairly straightforward and unchanging relationship to group identity (Duchêne, 2008: 171). This makes it all the more urgent that there be some form of ‘discourse planning’, which refers to:6 the influence and effect on people’s mental states, behaviors and belief systems through the linguistically mediated ideological workings of institutions, disciplines, and diverse social formations. Although discourse is quintessentially dialogical, and by definition permits contest and negotiation, planning discourse refers to the efforts of institutions and diverse interests to shape, direct and influence discursive practices and patterns. (Lo Bianco, 2004: 743, italics in original) Attention to discourse planning would be invaluable because it recognizes that there is no such thing as a purely objective or interest-free language policy. All such initiatives represent specific agenda, covertly or otherwise (Luke et al., 1990; Shohamy, 2006). A discourse orientation to language planning has the merit of encouraging the critical examination of taken-forgranted assumptions that sometimes influence the ways in which problems are framed (Lakoff, 2004; Schön, 1993). This consideration of hitherto unexamined assumptions is a crucial precondition for bringing out the specific interests that might be served in any given framing, and also for exploring the possibility of alternative framings. Since unexamined assumptions can be found both among language planning authorities as well as the group of citizens who might be the target of a given policy, this means that discourse planning should also be meta-discursive, that is, it should include the willingness to have various assumptions challenged/defended in the realm of public reason. One institutional design that might follow from discourse planning is that of a deliberative poll, which can facilitate public deliberation in a considered and structured manner. According to Goodin: Deliberative Polls gather a random sample of between 250 and 500 citizens. They hear evidence from experts, break up into smaller groups

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(around 15 people each) to frame questions to put to the experts, and then reassemble in plenary session to pose these questions to panels of experts. Before-and-after surveys of participants are taken to measure both information acquisition and opinion change over the course of the event. (Goodin, 2008: 17) As Held points out: Typically, the process of deliberation is expected to shift opinions because views have become informed by a careful consideration of the evidence, and those involved have taken account of the opinions and arguments of others. Apart from the immediate impact of a deliberative poll on its participants, it is hoped that, if the results are well publicized . . . the general public would be stimulated to consider their own views more carefully. (Held, 2006: 247) Where South Korea, Malaysia, and Singapore are concerned, then, one possible way of gaining some traction on their own language policy challenges would be to engage in discourse planning, where structured discussions are encouraged which aim explicitly to examine the pastoral and pragmatic assumptions about various languages. Moderating the often unquestioned and hence unexamined expectations of pastoral and pragmatic orientations toward languages is a critical factor in language policy. Such a move would emphasize the need for both language planners and their targeted groups to revisit cherished assumptions about what knowledge of particular languages can be reasonably expected to achieve. This would be necessary in order to mitigate the strong nationalist tendencies observed in the cases of South Korea and Malaysia. But it would also be needed to balance out an overly compartmentalized view of language, in the case of Singapore’s distinction between English and the ethnic mother tongues.

Notes (1) These two understandings correspond roughly to the well-known distinction between corpus and status planning (Kloss, 1969). (2) For more detailed discussions of these countries, see Park (2009), Rappa and Wee (2006) and Wee (2006). (3) Quite aside from the controversy evoked by Bok, there appears to have been a general concern that, despite a number of government initiatives aimed at improving English language education in South Korea, the results have not been encouraging. Thus, it is worth asking if the EOL proposal can actually help create an environment that

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would indeed improve the general level of English proficiency, such that Koreans would be better able to compete in the global economic environment (Ok, 2005: 9). See Wee (2006) for further discussion about this. (4) There is a significant degree of administrative oversimplification involved. The Indian community is very heterogeneous and many Indians prefer to treat Hindi, Gujarati or Punjabi as their mother tongues rather than Tamil. Also, individuals are assigned membership in an ethnic community on the basis of their father’s ethnicity. This also applies to cases of mixed parentage, so a child whose mother is Malay and whose father is Chinese is officially Chinese. In recent years, some allowances have been made to deal with these complexities: the government is more willing to recognize other Indian languages than Tamil, and it has started allowing ‘hyphenated’ ethnic classifications. (5) We noted above that Malay, despite its national language status, has a largely symbolic and limited role in public life. Another possible candidate for a language representative of the Singaporean identity is the local variety of English, known as Singlish. However, this remains a highly controversial position with both supporters and detractors easily found among the citizenry (Wee, 2005: 56), and even supporters of Singlish are unlikely to want it to be accorded any kind of official recognition, since its perceived value arises primarily from its colloquial status. (6) Lo Bianco’s (2004) own characterization of discourse planning is targeted towards scholars of language policy; that is, his aim is to emphasize that institutions are already engaged in discourse planning and, consequently, the academic study of language policy has to be more attentive to discourse. My own use of the term is aimed at the activities of policy makers themselves. Even if institutions are already engaged in discourse planning, there is still a need to underscore the importance of institutions being prepared to give greater space to the deliberation of assumptions about language.

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Gupta, A.F. (1998) The situation of English in Singapore. In J.A. Foley et al. (eds) English in New Cultural Contexts: Reflections from Singapore (pp. 106–126). Singapore: Oxford University Press. Held, D. (2006) Models of Democracy (3rd edn). Stanford: Stanford University Press. Heller, M. (1999) Alternative ideologies of la francophonie. Journal of Sociolinguistics 3 (3), 336–359. Jaffe, A. (1999) Ideologies in Action: Language Politics on Corsica. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Kloss, H. (1969) Research Possibilities on Group Bilingualism: A Report. Quebec: International Center for Research on Bilingualism. Lakoff, G. (2004) Don’t Think of an Elephant! Know your Values and Frame the Debate. Vermont: Chelsea Green. Lo Bianco, J. (2004) Language planning as applied linguistics. In A. Davies and C. Elder (eds) Handbook of Applied Linguistics (pp. 738–762). Oxford: Blackwell. Luke, A., McHoul, A. and Mey, J.L. (1990) On the limits of language planning: Class, state, and power. In R.B. Baldauf, Jr. and A. Luke (eds) Language Planning and Education in Australasia and the South Pacific (pp. 25–44). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Mahathir, M. (1970) The Malay Dilemma. Singapore: Times Books International. Park, J. (2009) The Local Construction of a Global Language: Ideologies of English in South Korea. Berlin: Mouton. Pennycook, A. (1994) The Cultural Politics of English as an International Language. London: Longman. Rappa, A. and Wee, L. (2006) Language Policy and Modernity in Southeast Asia: Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. New York: Springer. Romaine, S. (2001) Multilingualism. In M. Aronoff and J. Rees-Miller (eds) The Handbook of Linguistics (pp. 512–532). Oxford: Blackwell. Schön, D.A. (1993) Generative metaphor: A perspective on problem-setting in social policy. In A. Ortony (ed.) Metaphor and Thought (2nd edn) (pp. 137–163). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Shohamy, E. (2006) Language Policy: Hidden Agendas and New Approaches. London: Routledge. Straits Times (2009a) Good sense held hostage to politics. Straits Times, 14 January. Straits Times (2009b) Pakatan states oppose English in class. Straits Times, 14 January. Straits Times (2009c) Six years later, language debate rages on. Straits Times, 16 January. Wee, C.J.W-L. (2007). Afterword: Language, capitalist development, cultural change. In V. Vaish, S. Gopinathan and Y-B. Liu (eds) Language, Capital, Culture: Critical Studies of Language and Education in Singapore (pp. 249–257). Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Wee, L. (2003) Linguistic instrumentalism in Singapore. Journal of Multilingual & Multicultural Development 24 (3), 211–224. Wee, L. (2005) Intra-language discrimination and linguistic human rights: The case of Singlish. Applied Linguistics 26 (1), 48–69. Wee, L. (2006) English in South Korea: Managing the presence of a global language. Plenary at Sociolinguistics International Conference, November. Korea University. Wee, L. and Bokhorst-Heng, W. (2005) Language policy and nationalist ideology: Statal narrative in Singapore. Multilingua 24 (3), 159–183. Yoo, O.K. (2005) Discourses of English as an official language in a monolingual society: The case of South Korea. Second Language Studies 23 (2), 1–44.

Part 2 Colonialism and Literary Canons

5 Mutual Preservation of Standard Language and National Identity in Early Modern Wales John D. Phillips

Introduction This paper is about a particular period in the history of Standard Welsh – about the interaction between national feeling, the standard language and coincidental political factors at a time when the future seemed bleak for Welsh. The emergence of Standard Welsh lies in the distant past, when it was the language of government and culture in Wales. Unlike many modern standard languages, Standard Welsh has a continuous history from ancient times to the present day. This paper will look at its transmission through the period of conquest and colonization by England into modern times. Transmission depended crucially both on the strong sense of national identity in Wales – of which the language was an essential part – and on fortuitous events in English domestic politics. Political events completely unconnected to the Welsh language prompted an amelioration of the English government’s initially strongly anti-Welsh stance, resulting in legislation which ultimately turned out to promote the standard language. The resulting wide dissemination of the standard was a main enabling factor in preserving the national identity in succeeding centuries. 83

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Medieval Welsh The large corpus of written Welsh from the medieval period covers literary, historical, legal, medical, religious and other genres. Texts were produced throughout Wales (Willis, 2005: §2), but they contain few linguistic clues to their geographical origin, giving the impression of a homogeneous language without variation in register or dialect. However, evidence suggests that there were regional differences in colloquial speech, and of course it would be odd if there were not dialects in a language long spoken in a mountainous country such as Wales. Explicit evidence for regional dialects in medieval times includes the reports of witnesses, names for regional dialects and features of the modern dialects.

Anecdotal evidence for dialects There are at least two explicit reports of obvious regional differences in speech. Gerald de Barri, in his Descriptio Kambriæ, completed in 1194, notes differences between the speech of north Wales and of Ceredigion in the west. This is a report based on personal observation by a witness with long experience of Wales and the Welsh. Four centuries later, the Welsh scholar and polymath Humphrey Llwyd (Jones, 1956), in his Commentarioli Descriptionis Britannicae Fragmentum published in 1572 (translated as The Breuiary of Britayne, 1573), notes differences between the speech of north Wales, Ceredigion and south Wales. Llwyd made use of earlier literature in his research, including Gerald de Barri’s Descriptio, but he presents the report of dialect differences as his own, thereby vouching for its truth in his own time. As a well-travelled Welsh-speaking native of Wales, it is likely that he knew.

Names of dialects The names of several Welsh dialects are attested early. Use of the name presupposes the existence of a clearly recognizable form of speech. Gwyndodeg, the name of the dialect of Gwynedd (northwest Wales), is first attested in a 13th-century poem by the professional poet Dafydd Benfras, who died in 1258. In the poem, Dafydd humorously laments his own lack of linguistic ability: Pan geisiais ysill o Ennilleg, Cam oedd, neud ydoedd yn Wyndodeg!

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(When I attempted a syllable of Norse, It was all wrong, it came out as north Welsh dialect!) The poet Casnodyn, in a poem dated 1316–1318 (Daniel, 1999: 7), claims command of both Gwyndodeg and Gwenhwyseg, the dialect of southeast Wales: Mau geiriau golau gw ˆyl Wyndodeg, Mi a w ˆyr moli hil rhi hawl rheg; Meithir y cludir clod anrheg – tafawd, Mor ddidlawd fy ngwawd yng Ngwenhwyseg. (Daniel, 1999: 42) (The clear words of gracious Gwyndodeg are mine, I know how to praise the gift-deserving descendant of a king; tongue-given praise will be carried far, equally rich is my eulogy in Gwenhwyseg.)

Linguistic evidence for dialects Modern Welsh has clear regional differences in pronunciation, vocabulary and (to a lesser extent) grammar, as would be expected given the long history of the language in Wales. The differences between dialects are sufficiently deep that it would be surprising had they developed over just a short period of time: it seems that the modern dialects must have deep roots. Some explicit linguistic evidence backs up the claim that that the modern dialects have a long history. The evidence is of two types, both exemplified below.

Vocabulary The complementizer taw is used in present-day Welsh in many dialects of south Wales. It hardly appears in medieval writing (Thomas, 1992: 290), but it has obvious cognates in related languages (e.g. Irish tá). Sound correspondences (e.g. between Welsh aw and Irish á) show that it is inherited, not borrowed. It must therefore have existed in Welsh from the beginning. A reasonable explanation is that it has always been in use dialectally but has never been part of the standard.

Sound change Welsh, Cornish and Breton, originally dialects of a single language, diverged to become separate languages during the course of the medieval period. Although the major split is between Welsh on the one hand, and Cornish and Breton on the other, comparison of the modern dialects suggests that there was in early medieval times (and earlier) a dialect chain from northern Wales, through southern Wales and Cornwall, to Brittany in the

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extreme south (Watkins, 1961: 227). An example of the type of evidence which can prove early difference between regional varieties in Wales is that of words which in modern northern dialects end in [dl] or [dn], for example, anadl (breath), banadl (broom), chwedl (story), gwadn (sole). In modern southern dialects, the [d] is missing in these words (e.g. anal, banal), though there was [ð] earlier, sometimes still to be heard in words originally monosyllabic (e.g. chweddl, gwaddn). Cornish is no longer spoken, but records show that the Cornish cognates had [ð] (spelt th), for example, banathel (broom), whethl (story). Modern Breton has forms like anal, banal, and earlier spellings show that there was originally [ð]. Hence, southern Welsh groups with Cornish and Breton here: the split between northern [–dl] and southern [–ðl] must have happened before the split between Cornish and Welsh. Northern and southern Welsh were already different in this respect in medieval times.

The medieval standard Recently there has been a concerted effort to find dialect features in medieval texts. Several scholars (Thomas, 1992, 1993; Rodway, 2003; Willis, 2005) have looked at variation in the language of a large number of manuscripts originating from different parts of Wales. Only three very minor features have been found which could be linked to geographical origin: (1) the presence or absence of -i- in certain suffixes; (2) the third person inflected forms of two prepositions can contain either southern [t] or northern [θ]; (3) there is variation in the third person singular past tense inflexion of verbs, linked in a complex way to the time and place of writing. It seems then that medieval texts are written in a very homogeneous standard language which existed alongside various regional colloquial varieties of Welsh. It is interesting that characters in narrative are represented as speaking this standard language – perhaps it was used for speech, too, on some occasions. Thus this standard language was used for writing and perhaps for some speech in Wales, at the time when England conquered and annexed it.

Language as a component of identity Gerald de Barri ends his description of Wales (Descriptio Kambriæ, 1194) by quoting a retort made by a Welshman to Henry II of England during his attack on Wales in 1162: Nec alia ut arbitror gens quam hec Cambrica alia ue lingua in die districti examinis coram Iudice supremo quicquid de ampliori contingat

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pro hoc terrarum angulo respondebit1 (I think that no other nation than this of Wales, nor any other language, shall on the day of the great reckoning before the Supreme Judge, answer for this corner of the earth.) It has often been argued (e.g. Richter, 1976, 1998; J. Davies, 1992: 118, 128; 1994: 54; R.R. Davies, 1984: 52–53; 2000: 15–19) that a sense of national identity developed early in Wales – but see Williams (1995) for an opposing view. Richter (1976: 82) concludes his monograph on the subject thus: ‘The Welsh were perceived and understood themselves, at the end of the twelfth century at the latest, as a social group which, living in a clearly defined area, claimed a particularly noble descent, were proud of it, and tried to preserve their identity against encroachment from England’. Welsh law reflected the existence of a concept of ‘Welshness’. The Welsh law books take for granted that there is one law in Wales though there may be several polities (Jenkins, 1976: 3; Davies, 1984: 56); the law drew a clear distinction between Welsh and foreigners, and a Welshman was a Welshman anywhere in Wales (Jenkins, 1976: 16; Davies, 1984: 56). The Welsh language was an essential part of this identity. Discussing the early 12th century, R.R. Davies (2000: 17) speaks of ‘an awareness of the Welsh language and pride in its purity’ and argues that, already, ‘language was becoming one of the badges of national identity’. Davies (2000: 17–18) discusses several linguistic building blocks of Welsh identity: the literary tradition, with its explicit concept of Wales as a discrete area with named borders; its practitioners, who moved freely about Wales seeking patrons; and Welsh law, which worked in Welsh throughout Wales. Even scholars who dispute the existence of a ‘Welsh nation’ admit a weaker sense of identity partly based on language. Williams (1995: 21), while characterizing Welsh national consciousness itself as partial and ambiguous from medieval times up to the present, nevertheless finds an awareness of unity shared by the Welsh in the medieval period, embodied in the Welsh language and in a feeling for the past conveyed in that language. By the time of Edward I’s assault on Wales in 1282, the Welsh themselves presented their identity explicitly in terms of language. According to a letter from the Council of Wales (Peckham, 1282), replying to a suggestion that the Prince of Wales should transfer his patrimony (which included Snowdonia) to Edward: ‘The people of Snowdonia for their part state that even if the prince desired to give the king seisin of them, they themselves would not do homage to any stranger, of whose language, customs and laws they are utterly ignorant’ (translation from Martin, 1884: 471). A particularly clear example of the importance of language to Welsh identity is the adjective anghyfiaith. The word is constructed of the prefixes an-, ‘not, un-’, cyf-, ‘same, co-’, and the word iaith, ‘language’ – literally, ‘not of the

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same language’. It is commonly used in medieval texts to mean simply ‘foreign, non-Welsh’ (GPC: I, 59). It is used as a technical legal term in this meaning (Lewis, 2009 [1913]: 11). Gwlad anghyfiaith (gwlad means ‘country’) is used in the law books to mean a polity outside Wales, a non-Welsh political state, as in the definition Mab gwraig a wystler i wlad anghyfiaith, the son of a woman given as hostage to a foreign country, that is, a country outside Wales. The close association between language and identity in medieval Wales was to have far-reaching consequences for the later history of the language.

The Act of Union, 1536 Wales was formally annexed to England by an Act of the English Parliament in 1536 (Anno vicesimo septimo Henrici VIII c. 26, quoted in full by Rees, 1937). The main purpose of this Act was to impose the English legal and administrative systems on Wales and to extend the privileges of English citizenship, including parliamentary representation, to the King’s Welsh subjects. A further objective, however, was cultural and linguistic assimilation. The Act explicitly aimed ‘utterly to extirpe alle and singuler the sinister usages and customes’ of Wales, including ‘a speche nothing like ne consonaunt to the naturall mother tonge used within this Realme’ (Rees, 1937: 81). The Act made English the only official language in Wales and required ‘that frome hensforth no personne or personnes that use the Welsshe speche or langage shall have or enjoy any maner office or fees within the Realme of Englonde Wales or other the Kinges dominions’ (Rees, 1937: 96). The result was that Welsh was excluded from most of the higher status functions it had previously occupied.

Reception of the Act in Wales The Act of Union was welcomed by the gentry, who were able to take advantage of the opportunities for wealth and power that the new order deliberately provided. There was, as Geraint Jenkins (2008: 5) puts it, ‘no need to coerce or ride roughshod over the political elite in Wales. With so many advantages to be gained, the benefits of assimilation were too powerful to resist’. The gentry quickly abandoned Welsh and merged themselves into the English aristocracy. The middle classes reacted differently. As noted above, the Welsh had a strong sense of their national identity, which included the Welsh language as an essential component. By 1536, a little over a century after the defeat of the last native Prince of Wales, Owain Glyndw ˆ r, the Welsh saw themselves

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as a nation with a separate and independent history stretching back into the distant past. Welshman Henry Tudor had seized the English throne in 1485, largely reconciling the Welsh to political union with England. Nevertheless, they took pride in a language and culture quite unlike those of England. While the Act’s extension of the rights of citizenship to all seems to have been welcomed (Jenkins, 2008: 6), it is clear that the suppression of Welsh was widely resented. Although, of course, the king’s writ could not be openly criticized in print, the introductory matter of Welsh-language printed books of the period speaks eloquently of fear for the future of the language. Oni fynnwch fyned yn waeth nag anifeiliaid mynnwch ddysg yn eich iaith (William Salesbury, Oll Synnwyr, 1547). (Unless you want to become worse than animals, demand education in your language.) Mor angharedig ac mor annaturiol fydd llawer o genedl Cymru, . . ., yn gollwng dros gof iaith ei enedigol wlad (Gruffudd Hiraethog, Diarhebion Cymraeg, 1567)2. (Many of the Welsh nation are so unlikable and unnatural, . . . abandoning the language of the land of their birth.) nid oes na ffordd na modd well yn y byd i warchadw iaith rhag ei cholli na gwneuthur Gramadeg iddi ac ohoni (Gruffydd Robert, Dosbarth Byr, 1567)3. (There is no better way to protect a language from attrition than to make a grammar of it and for it.) wrth gymharu ieithoedd ynghyd ni welaf i yr un o’r ieithoedd cyffredin eraill nad yw’r Gymraeg yn gystal a’r orau ohonynt os caiff ei gosod allan yn ei rhith a’i heulun ei hun (Gruffydd Robert, Y Drych Cristnogol, 1585)4. (If I compare the common languages, I cannot see that Welsh is not as good as the best of them if set out according to its own form and idiom.)

Religion in England Coincidentally, at the same time as the Welsh annexation, there was a religious struggle taking place in England. Henry VIII had established the Church of England with the Act of Supremacy in 1534, just two years before the Act of Union. For the next 20 years, until Henry’s son and successor Edward VI’s death in 1553, the English government promoted Protestantism. This had little effect in Wales, which remained Catholic. Edward was

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succeeded by his sister Mary, a Catholic. Mary attempted to re-impose Catholicism by torture and public burnings – tactics of terror. As the Welsh historian John Davies explains: Yn ystod ei phum mlynedd o deyrnasiad, llosgodd Mari tua tri chant o hereticiaid. . . . Y mae lle i gredu fod trwch y Cymry o blaid ymdrechion Mari. (Davies, 1992: 230) (During her five-year reign, Mary burnt about three hundred heretics. . . . The evidence suggests that most of the Welsh supported Mary’s efforts.)

Act for a Welsh Translation of the Bible and Book of Common Prayer, 1563 Mary’s reign was short. She died in 1558 and the accession of her sister Elizabeth brought the restoration of Protestantism. Wales, though, was a problem. Both in England and on the continent of Europe, there were a succession of plots to overthrow Elizabeth and put a Catholic monarch on the throne, culminating in the attempted invasion by the Spanish Armada in 1588. On England’s western border, Wales was an unassimilated colony with strongly Catholic sympathies. It offered to a European Catholic power an obvious staging post for an invasion of England, in the same way that Elizabeth’s Welsh grandfather, Henry Tudor, had seized the English throne 70 years earlier with an attack launched from France through an enthusiastically supportive Wales (Williams, 1986). In 1563, an Act of Parliament directed that the Book of Common Prayer and the Bible should be translated into Welsh, and that church services in Welsh-speaking areas should be held in Welsh. Translations of the Book of Common Prayer and the New Testament were published in 1567, the whole Bible in 1588. The details of the 1563 Act’s genesis and passage are not known. It began as a private member’s bill promoted by Humphrey Llwyd (mentioned above), Member of Parliament for Denbigh in northeast Wales (Jones, 2004). Secretary of State William Cecil took pride in his Welsh descent – the family name is presumed to be an anglicization of the Welsh name Seisyll (Dodd, 1953). It seems likely that he gave his support to the arguments of Welsh politicians and clerics that, in the circumstances, religious and political loyalty were more important than linguistic uniformity: it was imperative to ensure the political loyalty of the Welsh, and to spread the Protestant word in Wales.

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It turned out that the new order promoted Standard Welsh. The Act of Uniformity in 1559 had instituted compulsory Sunday attendance at an Anglican church. The Act for a Welsh translation of the Bible and Book of Common Prayer in 1563 directed that church services in Welsh-speaking areas should be held in Welsh, using the Welsh Bible and Welsh Book of Common Prayer. The Church was responsible for rites and registrations relating to birth, marriage and death, which would also be conducted in Welsh. Hence all Welsh speakers, by law, became accustomed to hearing the Standard Welsh of the Prayer Book and Bible regularly.

The 1588 Bible The translations of the Prayer Book and Bible were universally praised. The following contemporary quotes show the general feeling subsequent to the publication of the whole Bible in 1588. The object of praise is the editor and main translator of the 1588 publication, William Morgan. Iaith rwydd gan athro iddyn A phawb a’i ddallt, a phob dyn. (Siôn Tudur, 1981 [1588]) (Clear language by their teacher, and everyone understands it, everyone.) gwaith angenrheidiol, gorchestol, duwiol, dysgedig; am yr hwn ni ddichon Cymru fyth dalu diolch iddo gymaint ag a haeddodd ef. (Maurice Kyffin, Deffyniad Ffydd Eglwys Lloegr, 1594)5 (a necessary, masterly, holy and learned work, for which Wales can never give him the thanks he has deserved.) Troist y ddau Destament trostynt Yn Gymraeg hoywdeg hynt. (Siôn Mawddwy, late 16th century; quoted by Jones, 1997: 152) (You translated both Testaments throughout into fine, elegant Welsh) Rhoist bob gair mewn cywair call Rhodd Duw mor hawdd ei deall. (Rhys Cain, soon after 1600; quoted by Jones, 1997: 152) (You made each word sound so sensible, The gift of God so comprehensible!) It is often said that the Bible translation created standard Welsh. Thomas Parry’s support of this view (1944: 153) was particularly influential, and it is unusual to find anything earlier mentioned in references to the origin of

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Standard Welsh. An example in recent academic work is Willis (2008: 5) who writes of ‘the establishment of a standard written language from the 16th century onwards’ (sefydliad iaith ysgrifenedig safonol o’r 16eg ganrif ymlaen); a non-academic example is in the English-language Wikipedia page on Welsh: ‘Literary Welsh is closer to the form of Welsh standardised by the 1588 translation of the Bible and is found in official documents and other formal registers’ (Wikipedia, 22 July 2010). However, despite this common view, the language of earlier printed books is not noticeably different from that of the Bible. Richard Davies, the organizer of the translation project, and William Salesbury and William Morgan, the main translators, were all thoroughly familiar with earlier Welsh literature and looked to this earlier literature for linguistic models (Davies, 1992: 234; Thomas, 1982: 92). The achievement of the translators was in the clarity and naturalness of their phrasing using the existing written medium, not in the creation of a new standard. Though Salesbury had some controversial ideas about spelling, which were reflected in the 1567 edition of the New Testament, these were set aside in the complete Bible of 1588. The intention was not to prescribe a particular form of language, but to convey the message of the Bible in a dignified register accessible and acceptable to all. The quotes above suggest that contemporaries saw the translation as having succeeded in this aim. Although there is no evidence of any prescriptive intent on the part of the translators, in subsequent centuries the Prayer Book and Bible came to be seen as the pattern for Standard Welsh. The first grammars of Welsh date from medieval times, and grammars are among the earliest printed Welsh books, but grammars have never had much influence on the language. Prescriptive attitudes have rarely been a serious issue in Wales, but when they have come to the fore, they have been based on the Prayer Book and Bible. This accounts for the impression, noted above, that it was these books which created the standard.

The Effect of the 1563 Act The 1563 Act may have seemed a small concession on the part of the government, but its effect over the centuries was immense. Although the church was the only governmental organization using Welsh, it was extremely influential in that it was the only governmental organization with which most people had any contact. The mandatory use of Welsh in churches both gave Welsh status and ensured the wide dissemination of Standard Welsh.

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In the long term, the resulting wide dissemination of Standard Welsh was a main enabling factor for the success of many nationwide projects, including education and literacy, book publishing, nationwide institutions and the periodical press. All these things together helped keep alive the consciousness of the Welsh people as a cohesive nation separate from their neighbours.

Education The early printings of the Bible were large format for use in churches, and therefore expensive. The 1630 printing was in small format and sold at five shillings (Fowkes, 1993: 145) – about $60 in today’s Canada (Officer, 2009). By the 18th century, almost every house had a Bible and someone who could read it. A network of travelling schools grew up, funded by the donations of the rich. These taught reading in Welsh, using the Prayer Book and Bible as their only texts. The records of their enrollment suggest that 50% of the population had attended in the mid-18th century (Jenkins, 1987: 377; Jones, 1997: 198–203). Wales was one of the few countries with a literate majority (Davies, 1994: 307).

Printed books Widespread literacy in the standard language meant that there was a market for printed books. Of course, nowhere near as many books were published in Welsh as in the main state languages of Europe, but there were many more than in other non-official languages. By 1660, 104 books had been published in Welsh. Comparable languages such as Irish, Scottish Gaelic and Breton, though each had two or three times the number of speakers, had seen little publishing activity: 11 books in Irish, four in Gaelic, and one in Breton. Nothing at all had been published in the other two Celtic languages, Manx and Cornish. Publishing in Welsh continued to flourish in succeeding centuries. Table 5.1 shows the figures for 20-year periods.

Institutions and movements Standard Welsh made it easier for national movements and institutions to exist. There were no problems with inter-dialect comprehension, there was a standard written form for records and there was a formal register for public speaking. Two examples follow.

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Table 5.1 Books printed in Welsh Years

No. of books

1701–1720 1721–1740 1741–1760 1761–1780 1781–1800 1801–1820 1821–1840 1841–1860 1861–1880

138 115 177 423 440 890 1670 2065 2195

Source: Jones (1997: 256)

The eisteddfod Medieval eisteddfods had been grand affairs – competitions between professional poets and musicians held by kings and princes in their courts. By the 17th century, they were amateur gatherings held in taverns, though the local squire would often feel obliged to contribute financially. But they attracted competitors from a wide area and the winning poems were published nationally (Jones, 1997: 222).

Methodism The growth of Methodism in Wales in the 18th century promoted not just a passive knowledge of the written and spoken standard but, through meetings where everyone was expected to participate, an active spoken competence. Preachers travelled throughout Wales, preaching and ministering in the standard language, a practice which continued until the decline of religion in the 20th century.

The periodical press The periodical press was later getting started. Although widespread literacy in the standard language meant that there was a market, 18th-century periodicals generally were not financially viable because of heavy taxation. Initially, the only successful type of periodical publication was the almanac: almanacs were published regularly from before 1680. Other periodicals were published for a few issues during the 18th century, but folded later (Jones, 2002: 1). Only in the 19th century, when the taxes on newspapers were first reduced, then abolished, could the periodical press flourish. The first half of

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the 19th century saw about 130 different periodicals. Many failed, but by midcentury there were about 40 regular publications. Contemporary research estimated the aggregate number of copies at 120,000, each read by about 20 people (Jones, 1997: 258) – several times the total population. It would appear that the typical 19th-century Welsh speaker read several periodicals regularly.

Conclusion Before its annexation to England, Wales had a homogeneous standard language which existed alongside regional colloquial varieties. Language was an essential part of the strong sense of national identity in which the Welsh took pride. The Act of Union, which annexed Wales to England in 1536, made the use of Welsh illegal in official matters, excluding it from most of the higher status functions it had previously occupied. It seemed that Welsh was doomed to the status of a peasants’ language; the evidence suggests that the future of the written standard language seemed bleak to its users. Fortuitously, religious and political controversy in England provided an opening which Welsh politicians were able to use to obtain passage in 1563 of an Act of Parliament requiring the translation into Welsh of the Book of Common Prayer and the Bible, and commanding that Welsh should be used in churches in Welsh-speaking localities. Translations of excellent quality were made into the traditional standard language, and the Act was enforced. Since church attendance was compulsory, this meant that all Welsh speakers were obliged by law to attend services in Standard Welsh. A consequence of the 1563 Act, probably unintended (by the government at least), was that all Welsh speakers became familiar with Standard Welsh. It could well be that Standard Welsh became more widely disseminated than it had been in the medieval period. Comparatively cheap editions of the Bible were printed and found their way into households throughout Wales, providing a basis for widespread literacy. In the 18th century, widespread familiarity with Standard Welsh, and in particular with the content of the Book of Common Prayer and the Bible, made it possible for travelling schools to flourish, teaching reading in Welsh and raising the level of literacy still further. Widespread literacy meant that there was a market for books. Widespread literacy in the standard language meant that there was no problem with inter-dialectal intelligibility. Because of the standard language, Wales formed a single market for the purposes of publishing: anyone who could read could read any book or periodical printed in Welsh. This, of course, has also been the case with the official state languages of Europe – English, French, German, and so on – but in general

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it has not been the case with non-official languages. The number of books, and later periodicals, published in Welsh was small compared to the major state languages, but was far greater than in other non-official languages. The wide dissemination of Standard Welsh was a main enabling factor for this. In a similar way, the existence of the standard language meant that there were no linguistic obstacles to written and spoken communication between people from different parts of Wales. Standard Welsh made it very much easier for nationwide institutions and movements to exist and to flourish. In these ways, the existence and wide dissemination of the standard language played a large part in maintaining the sense of national identity of the Welsh in the centuries after unification with England. In the absence of Welsh political institutions, it was the standard language, the culture of literacy based on it and the cultural institutions which used it, which together helped keep alive the consciousness of the Welsh people as a cohesive nation separate from their neighbours.

Notes (1) Many manuscripts, modern editions, and translations exist of Gerald de Barri’s Descriptio Kambriæ (1194). This quotation is taken from the text in the British Library MS. Cotton Nero D. VIII, 176r–183ra25, and can be seen at http://www.bl.uk/cata logues/manuscripts/HITS0001.ASP?VPath = html/73749.htm&Search = Cott.+Nero.+ D.++viii.&Highlight=F. The author is also known as Giraldus Cambrensis or Gerald of Wales. (2) Gruffudd Hiraethog (1567) Y Diarebion Camberaec. There exists only a single incomplete copy of this printed book, missing its title page, in the British Library. Internal evidence suggests 1567 as the date of publication and Gruffudd Hiraethog as the author of at least the first section (including this quotation). (3) The author’s name is not actually given in the printed book of Dosparth byrr ar y rhann gyntaf i ramadeg cymraeg (1567), but is generally accepted to be Gruffydd Robert, also spelt Griffith Roberts. (4) Gruffydd Robert (1585) Y Drych Cristianogawl. In order to mislead the authorities, the book’s title page claims that it had been printed at Rouen in 1585. The author is given as G.R. of Milan, traditionally taken to be Gruffydd Robert. The book was actually printed privately in Llandudno in Wales in 1587, and the author is perhaps Robert Gwyn (i.e. R.G., not G.R.) (5) Maurice Kyffin (1594) Deffynniad Ffydd Eglwys Loegr. The author’s name is commonly spelt Morris Cyffin.

References Daniel, R.I. (1999) Gwaith Casnodyn. Aberystwyth: Canolfan Uwchefrydiau Cymreig a Cheltaidd Prifysgol Cymru. Davies, J. (1992) Hanes Cymru. London: Penguin. Davies, J. (1994) A History of Wales. London: Penguin.

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Davies, R.R. (1984) Law and national identity in thirteenth-century Wales. In R.R. Davies, R.A. Griffiths, Ieuan Grynnedd Jones and Kenneth O. Morgan (eds) Welsh Society and Nationhood: Historical Essays Presented to Glanmor Williams (pp. 51–69). Cardiff: University of Wales Press. Davies, R.R. (2000) The Age of Conquest: Wales, 1063–1415. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dodd, A.H. (1953) Cecil of Allt-yr-ynys (Herefords.), Burghley (Northampton), and Hatfield (Herts.). In Dictionary of Welsh Biography to 1940. London: Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion. Fowkes, R.A. (1993) The ‘standard’ Welsh of the 1588 Bible. Language Sciences 15, 141–153. Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru [GPC] (1950–2002) [A Dictionary of the Welsh Language] (4 vols). Cardiff: University of Wales Press. Gerald de Barri (Giraldus Cambrensis) (1194) Descriptio Kambriæ. Various editions and translations. Gruffudd Hiraethog (1567) Y Diarebion Camberaec. British Library. Jenkins, D. (1976) Cyfraith Hywel. Llandysul: Gomer. Jenkins, G.H. (1987) The Foundations of Modern Wales 1642–1780. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Jenkins, G.H. (2008) ‘Taphy-land historians’ and the union of England and Wales 1536– 2007. Journal of Irish and Scottish Studies 1, 1–27. Jones, A. (2002) Print, language and identity: Newspapers in Wales since 1804. 68th International Federation of Library Associations and General Conference, 18–24 August, 2002, Glasgow. Jones, G.P. (1956) Humphrey Lhuyd (1527–1568). A sixteenth century Welsh physician. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine 49 (8), 521–528. Jones, R.B. (2004) Llwyd, Humphrey (1527–1568). In H.C.G. Matthew and B. Harrison (eds) Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jones, R.O. (1997) Hir Oes I’r Iaith. Llandysul: Gomer Press. Kyffin, M. (1594) Deffynniad Ffydd Eglwys Loegr. London: Richard Field. Lewis, T. (2009 [1913]) A Glossary of Mediaeval Welsh Law. Reprint by General Books; originally published in Manchester in 1913. Martin, C.T. (ed.) (1884) Registrum epistolarum fratis Johannis Peckham, archiepiscopi Cantuariensis (Vol. 2). London: Longman & Co. Officer, L.H. (2009) Purchasing Power of British Pounds from 1264 to Present. Measuring Worth website. Online at http://www.measuringworth.com/ppoweruk/ Parry, T. (1944) Hanes Llenyddiaeth Gymraeg hyd 1900. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. Peckham, J. (1282) Garth Celyn 11 November 1282, The reply of the Council of Wales. In C.T. Martin (ed.) (1884) Registrum Epistolarum Fratis Johannis Peckham, Archiepiscopi Cantuariensis (Vol. 2, p. 471). London: Longman & Co. Rees, W. (1937) The union of England and Wales. Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, 27–100. Richter, M. (1976) Giraldus Cambrensis: The Growth of the Welsh Nation. Aberystwyth: National Library of Wales. Richter, M. (1998) National identity in medieval Wales. In A.P. Smyth (ed.) Medieval Europeans: Studies in Ethnic Identity and National Perspectives in Medieval Europe (pp. 71–84). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Robert, G. (1567) Dosparth byrr ar y rhann gyntaf i ramadeg cymraeg. Milan: Vincenzo Giradoni. Robert, G. (1585) Y Drych Cristianogawl. Rhotomagi: ap haeredes J. Favonis. [See Note 4.] Rodway, S. (2003) Two developments in medieval literary Welsh and their implications for dating texts. In P. Russell (ed.) Yr Hen Iaith: Studies in Early Welsh (pp. 67–74). Aberystwyth: Celtic Studies Publications.

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Salesbury, W. (1547) Oll synnwyr pen kembero ygyd. London: Nycholas Hyll. Thomas, C.H. (1982) Registers in Welsh. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 35, 87–115. Thomas, P.W. (1992) In search of Middle Welsh dialects. In C.J. Byrne, M. Harry and P. Ó Siadhail (eds) Celtic Languages and Celtic Peoples: Proceedings of the Second North American Congress of Celtic Studies (pp. 287–303). Halifax: Saint Mary's University. Thomas, P.W. (1993) Middle Welsh dialects: problems and perspectives. Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies 40, 17–50. Tudur, S. (1981 [1588]) I erchi Beibl Cymraeg. In E. Roberts (ed.) Gwaith Siôn Tudur (p. 373). Cardiff: University of Wales Press. Watkins, T.A. (1961) Ieithyddiaeth. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. Williams, G.A. (Gruffydd Aled) (1986) The bardic road to Bosworth: A Welsh view of Henry Tudor. Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, 7–31. Williams, G.A. (Gwyn A.) (1995) Twf hanesyddol y syniad o genedl yng Nghymru. In Y Meddwl Cymreig (pp. 18–30). Cardiff: University of Wales Press. Willis, D. (2005) Lexical diffusion in Middle Welsh: The distribution of /j/ in the law texts. Journal of Celtic Linguistics 9, 105–133. Willis, D. (2008) Dadansoddi datblygiad negyddu yn y Gymraeg. Paper presented at Datblygiad yr Iaith network meeting, British Academy, February. Online at http:// people.pwf.cam.ac.uk/dwew2/network_meeting_handout_welsh.pdf

6 ‘A Highly Poetical Language’? Scots, Burns, Patriotism and Evaluative Language in 19th-century Literary Reviews and Articles Marina Dossena

How tame will his language sound, who would describe Niagara in language fitted for the falls at London bridge, [. . .]? Anon., 1815: 309

Introduction Two hundred and fifty years after his birth, Robert Burns is still a very influential figure on the Scottish literary scene: not only in Scotland, but in all the countries in which both popular (owing to the Scottish diaspora) and academic interest in Scottish literature (not necessarily linked to Scottish ancestry) have been constant. Praised as the great champion of Scots verse, Burns is often discussed in terms that, especially among nonspecialists, understate the debt he owed to earlier poets like Ramsay and Fergusson (the latter explicitly acknowledged by Burns himself).1 At the same time, Burns’s role in the preservation of Scots as a literary language is typically stressed, while his command of English is seldom discussed. Burns and his poetry have thus become a patriotic icon, to the point that, at the re-opening of the Scottish Parliament on 1 July 1999, it was his 99

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famous ‘A man’s a man for a’ that’ that was sung, almost turning it into a kind of unofficial national anthem.2 In fact, the connection between language and patriotism has very deep roots in Scotland. Already at the time of the Reformation, religious controversy could rely on linguistic arguments, for instance challenging John Knox for ‘knapping Suddroun’ (Dossena, 2009). In later centuries, after the Union of Parliaments in 1707, strenuous attempts to imitate southern English on the part of upwardly mobile speakers who wished to get rid of their ‘Scotticisms’ to get on in the world could be associated with a Unionist agenda, and it was not uncommon for books to focus on ‘British’ usage, rather than English, such as in the case of Buchanan’s very famous Linguae Britannicae Vera Pronuntiatio (1757). On the other hand, Scots had always played a very important role in literary and popular expression (Dossena, 2000). The emphatic favour with which Burns’s poems were received on the part of a certain cultural elite is therefore related to the prescriptive attitudes of these circles, for whom to find literary quality in a disparaged variety was a surprise. The role of critics was considerable in the establishment of what was perceived to be acceptable in literary usage. Nor was this restricted to the 18th century. A similar attitude may be observed throughout the 19th century; even in much more recent times it is not uncommon to associate proficiency in Scots with greater or lesser comprehension of Burns’s poems, almost as if they were the quintessential touchstone of the highest register in Scots, notwithstanding the fact that the Scots in which they are written is often diluted with English syntax and vocabulary. Given this crucial role of literary criticism in the formation of judgments concerning linguistic acceptability, I chose to investigate the repertoire of evaluative expressions recorded in literary reviews and in magazine articles concerning Scotland and its literary culture, in order to study the extent to which stylistic choices involving Scots were approved. Reviewers conveyed their opinions by means of more or less explicitly evaluative phrases, adjectives and adverbs, in which epistemic modality and (un)hedged statements also contributed to a more or less forceful statement of their line of argument. My main interest here, however, is not microlinguistic: instead, I intend to pay greater attention to the general message conveyed in these reviews and articles as far as the relationship between language evaluation and patriotism is concerned. In order to carry out my study, I compiled a collection of 32 19th-century and early 20th-century literary reviews and articles published in Englishlanguage journals, newspapers and magazines; in particular, I chose to select publications issued in the USA, Canada and Australia,3 in order to assess the

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image of Scotland outside the British Isles, in contexts in which this image might have a special meaning for the readership, on account of its inclusion of second- or third-generation immigrants from Scotland, and having therefore a possibly different attitude to sentimentalized themes than within the home country.4 In fact, the views expressed in these articles and reviews are often divergent. On the one hand, they may display an outspokenly proscribing attitude, the origins of which can be traced in the tradition of 18th-century prescriptivism (Dossena, 2005; Percy, 2010); they criticize the use of dialect, employing the typical terms of negative evaluation found in countless grammarians’ and orthoepists’ works. On the other, the poetic qualities of Scots may be emphasized, even to the point of defensiveness: an attitude that is also rooted in the 18th century, but which mainly relies on a changing view of Scotland that was gaining momentum at the turn of the century (Dossena, 2012). Almost paradoxically, this re-evaluation of Scotland was originally due to the Ossian controversy, and while the Highlands became the centre of new interest, readers also romanticized Lowland Scotland thanks to the success of authors such as Burns, Scott and – later – Robert Louis Stevenson. On occasion, linguistic arguments may even appear to take on additional overtones, which may in fact concern broader cultural issues. In this sense, it would not only be literary works that were assessed, but also world views and lifestyles, for which language functioned as a convenient metonym of distinctiveness and pride in difference from Britain. In the first part of this contribution, I intend to present an overview of the kind of attitudes expressed in relation to Scots in late modern times, especially as far as literary discourse is concerned, and highlight the ways in which critical responses to Burns’s work reflected relatively clear political views and agendas. I will then discuss the evaluations emerging from North American literary reviews and articles, in order to assess their patriotic relevance. This will enable me to concentrate on the relationship existing between linguistic choices, the potentially multiple identities they reflect and the importance they may have in the construction of literary novelty and specificity. In the concluding section, I will summarize my findings and outline the main trends observed in the texts under discussion.

Views of Scots in Late Modern Times In late modern times, Scots was beginning to find itself in a sort of Jekyll-and-Hyde situation. While staunch prescriptivists underlined how

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uncouth, barbarous and provincial it was in phonology, vocabulary and morphology, antiquarians highlighted its greater purity when compared with English, on account of the fact that the Norman influence had been less in Northumbrian territories than in southern ones. Among such voices, James Adams’s Vindication of the Scottish Dialect (1799) was perhaps the most powerful (and most fiercely anti-French) text to recommend a list of 45 Scots lexical items for adoption into English (Dossena, 2005: 85–90); these items were perceived to be endowed with a particular semantic richness, which Adams attributed to the fact that Scots preserved ‘the Saxon original in spite of the attempts of the Norman invaders and tyrants who endeavoured totally to extirpate its antient form’ (Adams, 1799: 148). In fact, this was not a new idea: more than a century earlier, in 1677, the greater proximity of Scots and Northern English to original Saxon forms had been stressed in a remark found in the pamphlet Ravillac Redivivus ([Hickes], 1678: 77), explained with a note in the margin in which the ‘Preface to Mr. Liles Saxon Monuments’ was cited. This work, published by William Lisle in 1637, was to become a keystone in the debate about the lineage of English and indeed of Scots on the part of 19th-century antiquarians: some commentators traced the historical roots of Scots as far back as to the Pictish language – though whether Pictish itself was of Gothic or Teutonic or Celtic origin was a further question (Skene, 1886: I/196). In the second half of the 18th century, the lively Ossian debate certainly influenced the controversy over the Celtic or Germanic roots of Scots; however, Scottish Teutonism was not exempt from political overtones: Sweet (2004: 189) quotes the words with which, already in 1722 (just a few years after the Jacobite rebellion of 1715), Edmund Gibson dedicated the revised edition of his translation of William Camden’s Britannia to George I, thus establishing a link between the mutual Saxon origins of Britain’s language, law, customs, names and place names – and the House of Hanover (Dossena, 2008). The search for ‘pure Saxon’ persisted throughout the 19th century (Dury, 1992): in 1888, when Charles Mackay published A Dictionary of Lowland Scotch with an introductory chapter on the poetry, humour, and literary history of the Scottish language and an appendix of Scottish Proverbs, the closer connection of Scots to older, ‘Anglo-Teutonic’ vocabulary was emphasized, stressing that such vocabulary was obsolete in English, but still fully comprehensible in Scotland (Mackay, 1888: xii). Such arguments recur in both reviews and articles, and it is within this framework that the works of Robert Burns are typically seen as emblematic of Scotland’s linguistic and cultural complexity: not only do they employ Scots and English in very skilful ways, they are also icons of patriotism while expressing sentimentality – a blend of great appeal for readers striving to

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attain an identity of their own while not losing contact with the home country of their ancestors. As Carol McGuirk has shown, the perception of antiquity contributes to the creation of a shared cultural memory of an idealized past – a perception that could have considerable appeal for readers away from ‘the old country’, and which, in the case of Burns, is quite unlike Scott’s own representations: ‘[Burns’s] exiles live on, turning back to Scotland and addressing it across the oceans’ (McGuirk, 2007: 201). Paying special attention to Burns is therefore useful in assessing how the appreciation of his work would have an impact on subsequent patriotic interpretations outside Scotland.

Burns and His Critics The contrast between English and Scots as literary languages had been defining itself since the 16th century, when the use of Scottis rather than Inglis was passionately defended by Gavin Douglas (McClure, 1994: 32–38). It was at the beginning of the 18th century, however, that the gap between prestige and context-suitability became dramatically wider after the Union of Parliaments in 1707. The increase in contact between English and Scottish people and the need for Scottish intellectuals to make themselves acknowledged on a nationwide basis were the catalysts that sparked off one of the most intriguing linguistic questions in the history of English. On the lexical and morphological level, dominant educated opinion allowed the use of Scots in poetry while abhorring it in everyday speech and writing. According to McClure (1995: 57), this is epitomized in the words of John Pinkerton; in 1786 Pinkerton published a selection of poetry from the Maitland MSS with the title Ancient Scotish Poems, never before in print, and in the preface he wrote: none can more sincerely wish a total extinction of the Scotish colloquial dialect than I do, for there are few modern Scoticisms which are not barbarisms . . . Yet, I believe, no man of either kingdom would wish an extinction of the Scotish dialect in poetry. In this framework, the works of Allan Ramsay were the first instances of a different light that was beginning to be shed on Scots, its literary tradition and, consequently, its dignity as a contemporary literary language. A more decisive contribution to Scottish literary tradition possibly came from the Ossianic fashion that swept Europe some years later and, although this may seem paradoxical, from the final Jacobite defeat in 1746: as Daiches

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(1964: 34–35) suggests, ‘once the cause was well and truly hopeless . . . the appeal of a lost cause could be combined with a nostalgic sense of a dwindled nationhood’ – a point also made by McGuirk (2007), as we saw above. A kind of duality, then, seemed to emerge in literary language and even in the arrangement of traditional Scottish airs: an attempt to revive the native tradition while aiming at gentility and ‘politeness’. Ramsay’s example was soon to be taken up, though on a different basis and much less defensively, by Robert Fergusson, to whom Burns felt very close, and whose spiritual legacy he felt he could take up. In spite of popular belief that Robert Burns was indeed just the simple ploughman that some of his contemporaries made him out to be, his education had included ‘a thorough grounding in English’ (Daiches, 1996: 1). Among the authors that Burns read, Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden, Pope, Richardson, Fielding and Smollett are quoted; Burns also knew the historical works of David Hume and William Robertson, and Daiches ascribes his ‘rhetorical sentimentality’, adequate to the ‘genteel literary fashion’ of those days, to his readings of Thomas Gray, James Thomson and William Shenstone. However, Burns also had an ‘informal education’ based on the oral folk tradition, an awareness of the older Scottish literary tradition, and Fergusson’s poems in Scots. Crawford (2009: 180) quotes Jean Armour, Burns’s wife, as saying, ‘He never spoke English, but spoke very correct Scotch’ (see ‘Notes by Mrs Burns’ in Waddell, 1867: 427). Many 18th-century critics appreciated and encouraged Burns, assuming that his posing as an unlettered peasant in the preface to the Kilmarnock edition of his poems corresponded to the actual truth. Burns was aware of his public perception and indeed excluded some pieces from the volume (notably, ‘Holy Willie’s Prayer’) in order to provide an image that coincided with the readers’ expectations. As is well known, the first critic to whom we owe Burns’s description as a ‘heaven-taught ploughman’ is Henry Mackenzie, author of The Man of Feeling. In an article published in The Lounger of 9 December 1786, when Burns was thinking of going to Jamaica in order to improve his fortune and to be allowed to marry Jean Armour, Mackenzie praised him as ‘a genius of no ordinary rank’, although the title, Extraordinary Account of Robert Burns, the Ayrshire Ploughman, obviously emphasized the unexpectedness of this talent in a country lad: as pointed out by Sorensen (2000: 20), the opposition between standard and nonstandard usage was increasingly associated with class, rather than regional provenance. Several other articles emphasized the specificity and difficulty of Burns’s language, while others stressed its lyrical quality and actually praised Burns for the way in which he commanded different registers in different varieties.

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Indeed, it is almost ironic that Burns’s fame should rest primarily on his ‘vernacular’ works, seen as forceful vindications of the national variety, when he himself seems to have been so attentive to the appropriateness that his two languages, English and Scots, had on a sociological level.5 Amid the debate on Scotland’s (and his) linguistic dualism, Burns, who had portrayed himself as ‘the simple Bard, rough at the rustic plough/ Learning his tuneful trade from every bough’ at the very beginning of his poem ‘The Brigs of Ayr’, later complained that his success had encouraged such a shoal of ill-spawned monsters to crawl into public notice, under the title of Scottish Poets, that the very term of Scottish Poetry borders on the burlesque. (Letter to Mrs Dunlop of 4 March 1789, in Currie, 1846: 41) Burns appears to have been acutely aware of the dangers Scots usage was facing. In the hands of mediocre poets, it could soon be restricted to humorous contexts, unfit for high-quality literary production; fortunately, Burns was to be followed by such literary giants as Walter Scott, James Hogg, John Galt and Robert Louis Stevenson. In addition, lexicographic and etymological interest in Scots would soon grow, and have an impact on later enterprises. Finally, it was not impossible for literary critics in America to discuss their own literature in relation to the Scottish one, on account of its being equally distant from the ‘English canon’. A study of literary reviews and articles may therefore help assess in what ways potentially difficult linguistic choices were assessed by critics and presented as acceptable to the reading public.

Burns and the Scots Language in North American Literary Reviews and Articles of the 19th Century My investigation centres on a small dedicated corpus of 32 literary reviews and articles published between 1815 and 1905. As the size of the corpus at this stage is clearly insufficient to provide any quantitative data, the aim of this study is to discuss findings from a qualitative point of view, outlining the main linguistic traits of relatively unexplored materials and highlighting the areas where further investigation may be most fruitful. The texts were collected using the Google News Archive service and other online newspaper archives, such as the International News Historical Archives and the Cornell University Library Making of America Collection.

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Given the sheer quantity of potentially available documents, I chose to select those that met the following criteria: (1) they contained specific keywords: not only Scotland, Scottish, Scotch, dialect, poetry, literature, but also the names of literary authors whose success was undoubtedly international (Burns, Hogg, Scott, Stevenson) and whose language could thus be assumed to be presented as emblematic of recommended usage because of (or in spite of) the occurrence of vernacular forms; (2) they were published outside Britain; although at a later stage it will be possible to offer a more systematic comparison between this setting and the views conveyed by literary articles and reviews published in Britain, for the purposes of this study, in which I aim to discuss the link between linguistic comments and patriotic views, I found it more useful to start by concentrating on the relationship between the representation of Scotland and favourable or unfavourable comments on language in a different context from the domestic one typically represented by British prescriptivists. As for the time span taken into consideration, all decades were represented, although greater attention was given to the 1870s, practically a century after Burns’s great success, and hence taken as a potential landmark in time. The sources from which the texts were downloaded are listed in Appendix 1. The North American Review (NAR), with eight entries, and The New York Times (NYT), with seven entries, appear to be the richest sources in which to find commentary on Scots. A smaller number of entries is found in Living Age (LA, six), The Atlantic Monthly (AM, four), while Harper’s New Monthly Magazine (Harper), Scribner’s Monthly (Scribner), The Century (Century), New Englander (NE), The Daily Nor’Wester (DNW), The Morning Telegram (MT) and The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser (SG) provide one entry each. This distribution is not a mere function of selection criteria: as selection was first and foremost operated on the basis of specific content keywords, the search engine returned those sources in which such keywords were most frequent, either on account of the source’s greater antiquity (owing to which more articles had appeared on the topics at hand) or on account of the periodical’s probably greater interest in Scottish language and culture. If we normalize the number of texts returned by the search engine in relation to the number of years during which the periodical had been in existence within the nine decades taken into consideration, we see that in The Morning Telegram the rate of interest in Scottish culture appears to be much higher than in the NAR, although

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this was the first literary magazine in the US: over nine decades, NAR returned eight texts for my compilation, while MT returned one in less than a decade – on average, a much higher percentage, which may suggest a greater interest in Scottish topics on the part of both the periodical and its readership. Table 6.1 below summarizes the number of texts on Scottish literature presented by each newspaper or journal in the corpus, while the last column indicates how the number of texts selected for the corpus relates to the number of years in existence of the newspaper or journal: the higher the number in this column, the greater the interest that may be assumed in Scottish topics. As for contents, the literary reviews and articles discussed here centre on a range of topics. Interestingly, Scottish literature is often discussed in the context of articles dealing with American literature, as both are presented as characterized by linguistic and stylistic distinctiveness. Predictably, linguistic comments also occur when the authors cite the works of Burns (the focus of our investigation), Ramsay, Scott, Stevenson and Charles Dickens, another author in which representations of non-standard language are often quite prominent. Humour, songs and ballads are also the object of linguistic commentary. Finally, remarks on recent lexicographic work provide another opportunity to discuss Scotland and America together. In the following sections, these issues will be taken into consideration more specifically, because it is in them that more instances of the relationship between language evaluation and patriotism are seen to occur. Table 6.1 Texts contributed to the corpus by each newspaper or journal Journal

Founded

Texts

Rate of interest

1. North American Review 2. New York Times 3. Living Age 4. Atlantic Monthly 5. Sydney Gazette and NSW Advertisera 6. New Englander 7. Harper’s New Monthly Magazine 8. Scribner’s Monthly 9. The Century 10. Daily Nor’Wester 11. Morning Telegram (continuation of Daily Nor’Wester)

Boston, 1815 New York, 1851 New York, 1844 Boston, 1857 Sydney, 1803 New Haven, 1843 New York, 1850 New York, 1870 New York, 1881 Winnipeg, 1894 Winnipeg, 1898

8 7 6 4 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

8 12 9 8 1 1 2 3 4 8 13

aThis

was the first newspaper in Australia. Although it returned only one text, it is retained in the current study to enable comparisons with North American documents.

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The language of distinctive literature In literary reviews and articles published in the US, it is not uncommon to find comments linking Scottish and American literature. In particular, the distinctiveness of language is highlighted as early as 1815 in the anonymous article, ‘American language and literature’, in which the author states: Would not what we have already accomplished in literature be thought well for a young people, if we wrote in our own tongue? . . . The remotest germs of literature are the native peculiarities of the country in which it is to spring. . . . [Ramsay and Burns] are essentially original. They not only give us manners, which are but practical, intellectual operations, but give them to us in the language, that was made for them, and which only can give them their true form and pressure. (Anon., 1815: 308) Indeed, the author stresses that there is a very clear connection between language and patriotism: It will be easy to shew the importance of a peculiar language, to the rise and progress of literature in a country. In the first place, every nation has a strong attachment to its language. This enters into the sum total of its patriotism. Its language is valued, because it is the vehicle of the intellectual state of a country to all others. It is cultivated, that the character it may be the means of establishing, may be exalted. Above all other reasons it is loved because it is peculiar, gives a peculiar national character, and preserves the intellectual labours of man. (Anon., 1815: 309) The difficult relationship with British English is then illustrated in terms that might as easily apply to Scottish English as they do to American English. Pride in the specificity of one’s own vernacular forms is in sharp contrast with the perceived arrogance of a proscribing attitude on the part of a supposedly more prestigious variety. Nor is this contrast restricted to language and literature; it also spans politics and religion: The language in which we speak and write, is the vernacular tongue of a nation which thinks it corrupted on every other lip but its own; of a nation, which has limited its perfection by pronouncing it already perfect; of a nation whose natural, political, religious, and literary relations and peculiarities, are totally unlike our own. The whole external character of our country is totally unlike that of England. Our descriptions, of

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course, which must, [. . .] be made in the language of another country, can never be distinctive. (Anon., 1815: 309) A later review, of 1825, focusing on ‘Recent American Novels’, praises ‘the Doric charms of the “lowland tongue”’, which ‘appeal to our associations with Ramsay and Burns, and the national songs, and sweeter national music of Scotland’ (Anon., 1825: 82). It is undoubtedly of a certain interest that critics should compare American literary production with Scottish poetry, song and music: what is apparently provincial in Britain is thus re-evaluated in a different light, and may in fact be seen as crucially distinctive elsewhere. Indeed, it is not infrequent for Scots to be associated with an idea of freedom, a very important topic across the Atlantic. A review of 1878 (Anon., 1878: 122) refers to Ramsay’s ‘clumsy poem, The Quadruple Alliance’, in which his use of English is presented as ‘frigid and uninteresting’, while ‘a return to the Scottish dialect and to Scottish scenes is accompanied by a freedom and a spirit which admirably illustrate the value in poetry of a native element’. Native linguistic choices are said to grant freedom to the text: they are supposed to allow it to be itself, to be independent from inadequate models. Along these lines, the association between language and freedom would become paramount in the works of Robert Burns, which are often cited as emblematic of an author’s amor patriae: for instance, his famous ‘Scots wha hae’ was to become almost a badge of identity among Scottish nationalists. Similarly, titles like ‘Love and Liberty’ (the cantata later known as ‘The Jolly Beggars’) and even the apparently humorous line according to which ‘Freedom an’ whisky gang thegither’, in ‘The Author’s Earnest Cry and Prayer to the Right Honourable and Honourable Scotch Representatives in the House of Commons’, in addition to the already cited ‘A man’s a man for a’ that’, the ‘Ode for General Washington’s Birthday’, and the poem ‘Such a Parcel of Rogues in a Nation’, contributed to Burns’s popularity in radical circles, although this image would later be overshadowed by a much milder Victorian interpretation of his poetry, which gave instead more prominence to other compositions (Currie, 2004: 1; McIllvanney, 2002). On a linguistic and literary level, discussions of this poet could then provide opportunities for passionate vindications of Scots, as seen in the two examples below, the latter of which is reported in two pieces – one of 1842 in the Sydney Gazette and one of 1844 in Living Age: The rudest forms of the Scotch dialect are melodious, and give a commonplace theme a charm to a stranger whose ear is musical. (Rideing, 1879: 180)

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The Scotch is not to be considered as a provincial dialect – the vehicle only of rustic vulgarity, and rude local humour. It is the language of a whole country, long an independent kingdom, and still separate in laws, character, and manners. It is by no means peculiar to the vulgar; but is the common speech of the whole nation in early life, and, with many of its most exalted and accomplished individuals, throughout their whole existence; . . . we may perhaps be allowed to say, that the Scotch is, in reality, a highly poetical language; and that it is an ignorant, as well as an illiberal prejudice, which would seek to confound it with the barbarous dialects of Yorkshire or Devon. (Lord Jeffrey’s Essays, 1844: 411; also cited in SG) Despite geographical distance, Lord Jeffrey’s essay proves to have been a very powerful tool for the vindication of linguistic, and therefore cultural and historical, identity: independence and separate ‘laws, character, and manners’ prevent the language from being the vehicle of ‘rustic vulgarity, and rude local humour’, unlike what is found elsewhere. As a result, the link between the appreciation of linguistic specificity and a patriotic attitude can hardly be made more evident.

The appreciation of Scottish authors Robert Burns and the celebrations of his birthday on January 25 would become icons of pride in Scottish identity both in Scotland and overseas; as The Morning Telegram of 25 January 1902 put it: Sons of Caledonia the world over unite today to pay honor to the peasant poet whose peccadillos have been almost forgotten; but whose songs stand pre-eminent in Scottish national literature. The author hints at Burns’s adventurous love life in his reference to ‘peccadillos’ now almost forgotten, and actually in the 19th century Burns’s biography was not always held in great esteem by American authors. However, his songs were perceived to be the epitome of sweetness ‘in an idealised American vision of Scotland’ (McGuirk, 1997: 154). The ways in which perceptions of ‘Scottishness’ changed between 1818 and 1918 have been discussed, among others, by Goldie (2006), who has highlighted the link between such changes and the development of mass print culture. Outside Britain, the situation was even more complex: as van Nuys (2002: 13–14) has shown, emigration resulted in the coexistence of multiple loyalties: to the ‘old country’, and to the new one, to one’s own group of origin and to one’s new neighbours, fellow workers and pioneers.

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The old country’s literary heritage, and its distinctive language traits, thus came to play a very important role in the construction of new identities. In addition to Burns, other authors would become famous for their creative use of Scots and were often discussed in terms that highlighted their possibly courageous linguistic choices. Most importantly, this concerned Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson, both household names in Scottish literature, and, perhaps less predictably, William Wilson. However, Burns remained the leading figure and guiding light: as remarked by a NYT critic in 1893, ‘Scotch who have poetic aspirations invariably try to follow the lead of Robert Burns’ (NYT, 1893), though perhaps in a somewhat different way. In Victorian times a certain taste for Kailyard fashion seems to underpin the following commentary on Wilson’s poems: WHAT a delightful language the Scotch is for songs of friendship and affection! Passionate love might choose a different tongue for its expression, but the love of boys and girls, the home and friendly affections, the lighter moods of love, – these are fitly and exquisitely expressed in this language. It gives itself easily to pathos, and has, too, a gentle playfulness akin to the French. (Scribner, 1876: 583) The critic stresses the association between Scots and affectionate, youthful playfulness and – in contrast to earlier comments – evokes French to highlight the compatibility between pathos and that certain ‘gentle, delightful, and exquisite’ expression allowed by Scots forms. Even Scott is said to have ‘elevated a coarse provincial dialect into the chosen one of tenderness and fancy’ (NAR, 1833: 297). Stevenson, instead, appears in a very different light in the words written by Henry James for The Century of 1888 (James, 1888: 873) when the author defines Robert Louis Stevenson ‘a Scot of the Scots . . . and the genuineness which [the Scotch dialect] wears in Mr Stevenson’s hands is a proof of how living the question of form always is to him, and what a variety of answers he has for it’. On the other hand, humorous productions in stage Scots hardly helped the consolidation of Scots as an acceptable register outside literature, despite continuing interest in the historical roots of the language.

Focus on vocabulary Vocabulary and etymology were other points concerning which the specificity of Scots could supply critics across the Atlantic with good arguments to advocate their own specificity. Already in 1781, John Witherspoon had created the term ‘Americanism’ on the basis of ‘Scotticism’, a very

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widespread label in the works of Scottish language commentators of the time – see the Oxford English Dictionary (s.v. Americanism): 1781 J. WITHERSPOON in Pennsylvania Jrnl. 9 May 1/2 […] Americanisms, by which I understand an use of phrases or terms, or a construction of sentences, even among persons of rank and education, different from the use of the same terms or phrases, or the construction of similar sentences, in Great Britain. The word Americanism, which I have coined for the purpose, is exactly similar in its formation and signification to the word Scotticism. This is perhaps unsurprising when we remember that Witherspoon was a Scot: while this is not the place to rehearse his biography, we may recall that he had been a Presbyterian minister in Paisley before emigrating to New Jersey to take up a professorship in Princeton, thus spanning two distant but equally interesting cultural environments. In Witherspoon’s definition, both Scotticisms and Americanisms may be heard ‘even among persons of rank and education’ – they may be markers of a distinctive variety, not just of a specific sociolect or regiolect. In transatlantic lexicography, such views would be taken further in the works of Noah Webster, which expressed a reaction of linguistic patriotism against a view of standard usage revolving around British models. Webster’s aim was to overcome linguistic models originating in southern England, while preserving Anglo-Saxon forms. His attention to etymology was also at the basis of his reintroduction of spellings in instead of in words like honour and colour (notwithstanding his introduction, instead, of spellings with instead of in words like centre and theatre). Such choices, however, were – perhaps predictably – stigmatized by English prescriptivists, and it would only be in the last decade of the 19th century that ‘colonial English’ would find a place in British lexicography (Dossena, forthcoming). Literary usage continued to be a world apart. The expressions of appreciation with which James Adams had described Scots vocabulary in 1799 were taken up in a Living Age article of 1851, in which Robert Tannahill’s poems are said to be better than Burns’s on account of their skilful blend of Germanic and Latinate forms. In particular, the critic praises The more easy and complete interfusion of the two dialects, the Norse Scotch and the Romanesque English, which Allan Ramsay attempted in vain to unite; while Burns, though not succeeding by any means perfectly, welded them together into something of continuity and harmony – thus doing for the language of his own country very much what Chaucer did

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for that of England. – A happy union, in the opinion of those who, as we do, look on the vernacular Norse Scotch as no barbaric dialect, but as an independent tongue, possessing a copiousness, melody, terseness, and picturesqueness which make it, both in prose and verse, a far better vehicle than the popular English for many forms of thought. (Anon., 1851: 536) The reference to Chaucer, one of the universally acknowledged founding fathers of English literature, grants Burns’s works an aura of undoubted respectability. Nor could Scots be associated with slang, or ‘popular English’; use of dialect was of course not unique to Scottish literature, and Dickens’s representation of the London accent is a very well-known case in point. However, as a critic writing on the works of Charles Dickens in 1845 was very careful to stress, there was perceived to be a huge difference between ‘corrupt phraseology’, which was supposed to be related to ‘degeneracy of character’, and Scots, especially as represented by Sir Walter Scott in his hugely successful Waverley novels – a variety which is ‘the language of a whole people’, and preserves ‘the remnants of a fine old tongue’: Mr. Dickens has himself endeavoured to convey to us, as the result of his observations on some classes of society in America, that corrupt phraseology is intimately associated with degeneracy of character. Slang differs widely from the broad Scotch which abounds in the Waverly [sic] Novels. That is the language of a whole people, in which the remnants of a fine old tongue are preserved, and linger amidst the more modern English, like the grand old pine trees of the country, still towering nobly above the tame cultivation which has crept in around them. It differs widely, too, from the provincial dialects of England, which arose insensibly, are spoken unconsciously, and are often in part due to a pronunciation moulded by climate, or conformation of the organs of speech. (Anon., 1845: 608) Again, antiquity and independence become the cornerstones on which linguistic respectability is built. This attitude was quite radically different from the one expressed 30 years earlier in an article in which not only language, but also history, not least the failure of the Jacobite cause, were discussed. The author, purportedly writing from Edinburgh, claimed that ‘throwing off the highland kilt and the lowland brogue’ was a necessary step for those Scots ‘who would flourish under English auspices’ (NAR, 1815: 339). The relationship between language and patriotism was this time outlined in

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negative terms, especially biased in terms of social class, as Scots was perceived to be the ‘vile’ language of ‘common porters and carmen’: There are a few, who pride themselves on the false nationality of preserving what they call their native language, and, . . . insist with a sort of absurd obstinacy, upon dealing out in the broadest accent, the vile Scotch of the common porters and carmen in the streets. There are few feelings so exalted and productive of great actions, as the nationality of the Scotch in most respects; but is it not an erroneous and contemptible nationality to attempt to continue a language, which, after all, is only a bad dialect of bad English, like the brogues of Cornwall, Somerset and twenty others? (NAR, 1815: 339) However, scholarly attempts to investigate the roots of Scots did trace its antiquity: even Jamieson’s Etymological Dictionary (1808) was listed among ‘Middle English Lexicons, covering the ground technically known as SemiSaxon and Early English’, by a 1891 critic discussing ‘Halliwell’s Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, . . .; Wright’s Dictionary of Obsolete and Provincial English, 1857; Trench’s Select Glossary, 1859; [and] Herbert Coleridge’s Dictionary of Old English Words of the latter half of the thirteenth century, 1863’ (Hunt, 1891: 196). Jamieson’s work is presented as ‘a dictionary of Northern English, as represented in the Lowland Scotch of Burns and Ramsay’ but – perhaps surprisingly – no mention is made of Jamieson’s own great interest in the etymology of Scots words (Dossena, 2005: 128–130; 2006). Once again, it is literature, and Burns’s poetry in particular, that functions as a catalyst for linguistic investigation.

Concluding Remarks A report on the Burns’s Night celebrations in Winnipeg on January 25, 1896 begins with the following words: In a city like Winnipeg, the centre of a new country, which demands from every man much hard work and the closest application to business, it is not an easy matter for the majority of men to cultivate literary tastes, and it is equally difficult for those who have imbibed such tastes, to keep them up. A valuable assistance was given to such last evening, in Westminster church, by Rev. C.B. Pitblado, in the scholarly and interesting critique which he gave of two great Scotchmen – Robert Burns . . . and Ian Maclaren, the author of ‘The Bonnie Brier Bush’. (DNW, 1896)

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The commentator introduces his article on an evening of Scottish poetry and song by placing it in the context in which his readers find themselves, and underlining the importance of literature for the cultivation and maintenance of literary tastes in an environment which might otherwise absorb all energies in work and business. Readers are well aware of being in ‘the centre of a new country’, but this does not stop them from appreciating authors who may inspire them, despite their being associated with a very distant land. The complexity of identity issues is thus summarized very neatly. The audience who attended the evening at Westminster church lived and worked in a new country, but their literary tastes looked to the literature of their fathers’ homeland. Nor is this contradictory: if anything, it shows the continuing relationship existing between past and present, between what is near and what is distant. The texts investigated in this contribution deal with these issues from a variety of angles. In the reviews and articles taken into consideration, Scottish authors and their works are discussed at length, often to praise their language choices, occasionally to criticize them. In addition, reviewers and commentators focus on Scotland and its linguistic variety to reflect on the linguistic situation in which they happen to be themselves. How specific can literature be, if language is shared? How distinctive can vocabulary be? How far does language standardization allow individual identity to survive and in fact (ideally) prosper? Outside Britain, these questions carry a very different weight from that which they do in Scotland, let alone England, Wales and Ireland. In these countries, the Scottish diaspora appears to have brought about a series of considerations on cultural identity, language and patriotism which allows commentators to express views that are quite divergent from those of British grammarians and traditional prescriptivists. Scotland’s specificity may provide a good paradigm for the establishment of a new literature and lexicography of one’s own. At the same time, it allows cultural roots and literary tastes to be maintained in spite of geopolitical distance. In the end, it may help preserve historical identity, while facilitating the creation of a new and modern one.

Notes (1) In 1787 Burns had a stone set to mark Fergusson’s grave in the Canongate Kirkyard in Edinburgh. (2) The video is available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anYHBwOF2cY&feat ure=related; see also the official footage of the ceremony on the website of the Scottish Parliament, accessed January 2012, at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/ newsandmediacentre/30903.aspx.

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(3) In fact, only one review was found to have been published in Australia, so my study will concentrate on North American publications. (4) In this respect, an interesting comparison may concern the different ways in which Highland Games evolved in North America and in Scotland – see, for instance, Berthoff (1982) and Calloway (2008: 267–272). (5) This kind of linguistic awareness emerges quite distinctly in his correspondence; see Dossena (1997).

References Adams, J. (1799) The Pronunciation of the English Language. Reprinted in Alston (ed.) (1968) English Linguistics 1500–1800. London: The Scolar Press. Alston, R.C. (ed.) (1968) English Linguistics 1500–1800. London: The Scolar Press. Anon. (1815) American language and literature. The North American Review 1/3 (September), 308, 309. Anon. (1825) Recent American novels. The North American Review 21/48 (July), 82. Anon. (1845) The writings of Charles Dickens. Living Age 5/59 (June), 608. Anon. (1851) Burns and his school. Living Age 31/396 (December), 536. Anon. (1878) Recent literature: Poems of Allan Ramsay. Atlantic Monthly 42/249 (July), 122. Berthoff, R. (1982) Under the kilt: Variations on the Scottish-American ground. Journal of American Ethnic History 1 (2), 5–34. Buchanan, J. (1757) Linguae Britannicae Vera Pronuntiatio. Reprinted in Alston (ed.) (1968) English Linguistics 1500–1800. London: The Scolar Press. Calloway, C.G. (2008) White People, Indians, and Highlanders. Tribal Peoples and Colonial Encounters in Scotland and America. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cornell University Library Making of America Collection. Online at http://ebooks. library.cornell.edu/m/moa/browse.html Crawford, R. (2009) The Bard. Robert Burns, A Biography. London: Jonathan Cape. Currie, J. (ed.) (1846) The Complete Works of Robert Burns, with an Account of his Life and a Criticism on his Writings, to Which Are Prefixed Some Observations on the Character and Condition of the Scottish Peasantry. Halifax: William Milner. Currie, J. (2004) ‘A man’s a man for a’ that’. Burns, Hogg and The Liberator. Paper presented at the 4th Symbiosis Conference, Across the Great Divide, July 2003, Edinburgh. Online at http://www.iash.ed.ac.uk/star/archive/Papers/Currie_BurnsHoggLiberator.pdf Daiches, D. (1964) The Paradox of Scottish Culture: The Eighteenth Century Experience. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Daiches, D. (1996) Robert Burns. ScotLit 14 (Spring), 1–2. DNW (1896) Report, Burns’ Night. The Daily Nor’Wester, 25 January. Dossena, M. (1997) Attitudes to Scots in Burns’s correspondence. Linguistica e Filologia 4, 91–103. Dossena, M. (2000) Sense, shortness and salt: Ideas of improvement in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century collections of Scottish proverbs. Review of Scottish Culture 12, 93–106. Dossena, M. (2005) Scotticisms in Grammar and Vocabulary. Edinburgh: John Donald (Birlinn). Dossena, M. (2006) ‘The Cinic Scotomastic’?: Johnson, his commentators, Scots, French, and the story of English. In G. Iamartino and R. DeMaria (eds) Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary and the Eighteenth-century World of Words. Special issue, Textus 19/1, 51–68.

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Dossena, M. (2008) When antiquarians looked at the thistle – Late modern views of Scotland’s linguistic heritage. The Bottle Imp 4 (November), 1–3. Online at http:// www.thebottleimp.org.uk Dossena, M. (2009) Language attitudes and choice in the Scottish Reformation. In C. Gribben and D.G. Mullan (eds) Literature and the Scottish Reformation (pp. 45–62). Farnham: Ashgate. Dossena, M. (2012) Speaking Scots and writing English. Print and Scotticisms. In S. Brown and W. McDougall (eds) The History of the Book in Scotland (Vol. 2, pp. 545–550). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Dossena, M. (forthcoming) Late modern English – semantics and lexicon. In L. Brinton and A. Bergs (eds) HSK – Historical Linguistics of English. Berlin: De Gruyter. Dury, R. (1992) Saxonism and the preference for ‘native’ vocabulary. In N. Pantaleo (ed.) Aspects of English Diachronic Linguistics (pp. 133–146). Fasano: Schena. Goldie, D. (2006) The British invention of Scottish culture: World War I and before. Review of Scottish Culture 18, 128–148. Google News Archive Service at http://news.google.com/archivesearch Hickes, G. (1678). Ravillac Redivivus. London: Printed by Henry Hills. Hunt, T.W. (1891) English lexicography. New Englander 55/257 (September), 196. International News Historical Archives at http://xooxleanswers.com/newspaperar chives7.aspx James, H. (1888) Robert Louis Stevenson. The Century 35/6 (April), 873. Lord Jeffrey’s Essays (1844) Living Age 1/7 (29 June), 411. Mackay, C. (1888) A Dictionary of Lowland Scotch with an Introductory Chapter on the Poetry, Humour, and Literary History of the Scottish Language and an Appendix of Scottish Proverbs. Edinburgh: Ballantyne Press/London: Whittaker and Co. McClure, J.D. (1994) English in Scotland. In R. Burchfield (ed.) The Cambridge History of the English Language. Vol. 5: English in Britain and Overseas: Origins and Development (pp. 23–93). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. McClure, J.D. (1995) Scots and its Literature. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. McGuirk, C. (1997) Haunted by authority: Nineteenth-century American constructions of Robert Burns and Scotland. In R. Crawford (ed.) Robert Burns and Cultural Authority (pp. 136–158). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. McGuirk, C. (2007) The crone, the prince, and the exiled heart: Burns’s Highlands and Burns’s Scotland. Studies in Scottish Literature 35/36, 184–201. McIllvanney, L. (2002) Burns the Radical: Poetry and Politics in Late Eighteenth-Century Scotland. East Linton: Tuckwell Press. NAR (1815) Letters from Edinburgh. North American Review 1/3 (September), 339. NAR (1833) Sir Walter Scott. North American Review 36/59 (April), 297. NYT (1893) Review of J.D. Law’s A Scotchman’s Lines. New York Times (17 September). Percy, C. (2010) How eighteenth-century book reviewers became language guardians. In P. Pahta, M. Nevala, A. Nurmi and M. Palander-Collin (eds) Social Roles and Language Practices in Late Modern English (pp. 55–85). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Rideing, W.H. (1879) The land o’ Burns. Harper, 59/350 (July), 180. Scribner (1876) The old cabinet. Scribner 11/4 (February), 583. Skene, W.F. (1886 [1876]) Celtic Scotland: A History of Ancient Alba. Edinburgh: David Douglas. Sorensen, J. (2000) The Grammar of Empire in Eighteenth-Century British Writing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Sweet, R. (2004) Antiquaries. The Discovery of the Past in Eighteenth-Century Britain. London: Hambledon. van Nuys, F. (2002) Americanizing the West. Race, Immigrants, and Citizenship, 1890–1930. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas. Waddell, P.H. (ed.) (1867) Life and Works of Robert Burns. Glasgow: David Wilson.

Appendix Corpus of literary reviews and articles collected for this study (accessed January 2012) Date

Source

URL

1815 1815 1825 1826 1832 1833 1842 1844 1845 1851 1852 1861 1861 1863 1868

The North American Review The North American Review The North American Review The North American Review The North American Review The North American Review The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser Living Age Living Age Living Age Living Age The Atlantic Monthly The Atlantic Monthly The North American Review The New York Times

1873

The New York Times

1876 1876 1878

Scribner’s Monthly Living Age The New York Times

1878 1879

The Atlantic Monthly Harper’s New Monthly Magazine

http://digital.library.cornell.edu/n/nora/ http://digital.library.cornell.edu/n/nora/ http://digital.library.cornell.edu/n/nora/ http://digital.library.cornell.edu/n/nora/ http://digital.library.cornell.edu/n/nora/ http://digital.library.cornell.edu/n/nora/ http://ndpbeta.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/ article/2555871 http://digital.library.cornell.edu/l/livn/ http://digital.library.cornell.edu/l/livn/ http://digital.library.cornell.edu/l/livn/ http://digital.library.cornell.edu/l/livn/ http://digital.library.cornell.edu/a/atla/ http://digital.library.cornell.edu/a/atla/ http://digital.library.cornell.edu/n/nora/ http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/ nytarchive.html http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/ nytarchive.html http://digital.library.cornell.edu/s/scmo/ http://digital.library.cornell.edu/l/livn/ http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/ nytarchive.html http://digital.library.cornell.edu/a/atla/ http://digital.library.cornell.edu/h/harp/

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Date

Source

URL

1879 1880

The Atlantic Monthly The New York Times

1888 1891 1893

The Century The New Englander The New York Times

1895

The New York Times

1895 1896

Living Age The Daily Nor’Wester

1900 1902

The North American Review The Morning Telegram

1905

The New York Times

http://digital.library.cornell.edu/a/atla/ http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/ nytarchive.html http://digital.library.cornell.edu/c/cent/ http://digital.library.cornell.edu/n/nwng/ http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/ nytarchive.html http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/ nytarchive.html http://digital.library.cornell.edu/l/livn/ http://manitobia.ca/cocoon/launch/en/ newspapers/Daily%20Nor%27Wester http://digital.library.cornell.edu/n/nora/ http://manitobia.ca/cocoon/launch/en/ newspapers/Morning%20Telegram http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/ nytarchive.html

Part 3 Transmarine and Transatlantic Allegiances

7 Language and National Identity in 17th- and 18th-century England Linda C. Mitchell

Introduction National identity is often reinforced through language. In 17th- and 18th-century England, native speakers were proud of their mother tongue. Qualities such as good character and good citizenship were associated with using the English language correctly. It is understandable then that grammarians in particular were uneasy that foreigners might come into England and not speak English, or even resist learning the language. This resistance could be interpreted as rejecting beliefs, values and attitudes in England. If foreigners wanted to be accepted, they had to learn the English language idiomatically and prove they had some degree of language competency. There could be no hint that they would corrupt the vernacular or remain isolated in their own native language. Foreigners coming to England were expected to learn the rules of grammar and pronunciation. It is these rules that helped regulate who rose in society and who was excluded. Language competency evidenced allegiance, commitment and conformity in immigrants. It also demonstrated that foreigners accepted an English national identity and embraced their new culture. Language proficiency indicated that they were worthy of being considered a resident in England. This study will describe how the works of grammarians and lexicographers aimed at foreigners were intended to demand conformity, to exclude those who refused to conform and to ensure the patriotism of those who did. 123

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Texts to be examined are grammar books, dictionaries, essays on language and manuals on reading. These books were published in England for both native and foreign speakers. In one case, an author of a pro-English text had himself come from another country.

Aims of Grammarians and Lexicographers Directed at Foreigners Grammarians and lexicographers encouraged foreigners to learn English. As early as the 16th century, English grammarians created texts for foreigners to learn the English language. William Bullokar states in Pamphlet for Grammar (1586) that it is designed to be ‘very helpful to the stranger to learn English perfectly and speedily’ (Salmon, 1996: 35). On title pages and in the prefaces of grammar texts, authors wrote enticing phrases about the perfection of English, the beauty of it and the abundance of words. Foreigners were told that English was not a difficult language to learn. Much of this persuasion to learn English was aimed at getting foreigners to conform with the ways of their new country. There was a suggestion that not conforming with the language of their new country could mean exclusion. Part of the pressure to conform was aimed at ensuring that new immigrants would support England and be patriotic.

Demanding conformity In 17th- and 18th-century England, conforming to rules of English grammar and usage were outward signs that foreigners were taking on the values, traditions and attitudes of their new home. However, many foreigners could not read English or Latin grammar books, and so there developed a need for texts that taught English as a second language.1 These texts were designed to help foreigners learn a new language and culture, but often the content was too advanced for immigrants who spoke no English. For example, on the title page of The English Dictionary (1655), Henry Cockeram includes all ‘strangers of any Nation [who should understand] the more difficult Authors already Printed in our Language, and [have] the more speedy attaining of an elegant perfection of the English tongue’ (Cockeram, 1655). Many native speakers were not able to perform the simpler tasks of basic communication, so expecting non-English speakers to reach that level so quickly was unrealistic. Reading difficult books and acquiring perfect English could be a far reach for new immigrants without resources and leisure time.

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If foreigners are to conform to their new culture, they must have a suitable English grammar. James Howell’s A New English Grammar, Prescribing as certain Rules as the Language will bear, for Forreners to learn English (1662) is an early attempt to fill that need. He writes a grammar for English, Spanish and Portuguese, with additional sections devoted to English literature, English proverbs and English history. Although the book is written in three languages, it resembles the format of Charles Hoole’s The Latine Grammar Fitted for the Use of Schools (1651), an earlier bilingual Latin grammar in which students had English on one side of the text and Latin on the other. In the introduction (‘To the Reder’), Howell states that his book is ‘a meer Grammar of the English it self, for the use of Forreners’ (Howell, 1662: 4). Foreigners were expected to stumble through grammar texts to learn English and do their best, even though they might know virtually no English. Howell acknowledges that it is a hard task to make a Grammar of a Mother Toung, A harder task to make one of a Dialect, But to make an exact Regular Grammar for all parts of a Subdialect (as the English is) is a task that may be said to be beyond the reach of human understanding. (Howell, 1662: 4) Howell explains his ‘New English Grammar prescribing as certain rules as the Language will bear for Forreners . . . to attain the knowledg of the English’ (Howell, 1662: 7). He also recommends omitting ‘superfluous letters’ and ‘solecisms us’d in the common practice of speech’ so that foreigners will learn the language ‘more easily’ (Howell, 1662: 7). Howell argues that foreigners underestimate the effort it takes to learn English. To make texts easier to use, he asks authors of language books to make ‘the Mother Tongue . . . more docile and easy to be learnt by Forreners’ (Howell, 1662: 83). Howell suggests that what brings ‘a stranger’ closer to the study of English is when the ‘writing and pronunciation of words do both agree’ (Howell, 1662: 83). Even native speakers struggle with the same obstacle: how the word looks is not necessarily how it is pronounced. Foreigners, he counsels, may get discouraged with learning a difficult language like English, but they should stay with it. I have known divers Forreners much affect the English Toung, but when they went about to study her, and found such a difference betwixt the printed words and the pronouncing of them, (which proceeds from the superfluous letters) they threw away their books in a kind of passion and dislike. (Howell, 1662: 83)

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Howell’s strength lies in his pedagogy for teaching English as a second language. He approaches each lesson by anticipating the difficulties that confront the foreign speaker, such as recognizing words that sound alike but are pronounced differently. Howell also points out the advantages of learning English. Unlike many languages, he states, English has ‘hath som things’ that other tongues do not have, ‘which tends much to the advantage and ease of the Forein Lerner’ (Howell, 1662: 87). For example, ‘all Verbs terminat alike in the singular and plural, through all the Moods, except in the second and third person singular’ (Howell, 1662: 87). He claims that the advantage of learning English is that letters are easily made into words and pronounced as they are written, but he does not acknowledge that there are many exceptions. He states, ‘ther are above 17 letters sav’d, and the words made fit to be pronounc’d by an Forrener being written as they are utter’d’ (Howell, 1662: 89). Moreover, Howell recommends that English speakers find ‘a way to spread [their native tongue] abroad, and make her better known to the world’ (Howell, 1662: 89). Language is also a way of imposing conformity on beliefs and attitudes, especially on religious doctrine. In the 17th century, a strategic method for grammarians to teach the English language and the Bible was to have grammar books that combined rules of language with Bible stories and Scripture. A student learned verb tenses in Bible stories or punctuation in Scripture. In Grammatica Linguae Anglicanae (1653), John Wallis’s goal is to teach foreigners English so that they can read theology. He explains that he has written a ‘grammar of this language because there is clearly a great demand for it from foreigners, who want to be able to understand the various important works which are written in our tongue’ (Kemp, 1972: 105).2 Emma Vorlat points out in Development of English Grammatical Theory:1586–1737 that Wallis is not so much interested in the idea that English ‘may facilitate [foreigners’] commercial or cultural relations with English’ (Vorlat, 1964: I.63). Instead, Vorlat suggests that ‘[Wallis], a puritan, just stresses that English would be an interesting language for foreigners to learn, because of the many works of practical theology written in it’ (Vorlat, 1964: I.63). Wallis states, ‘For instance there are many people, particularly foreign theologians, whose great ambition is to study Practical Theology, as it is normally taught in our tradition’ (Kemp, 1972: 105). Hujusce autem linguae Grammaticam institutionem ideo aggressus sum, quod ipsius cognitionem videam ab exteris non paucis maxime desideratam: quo possint varia illa & maximi momenti scripta intelligere, quae apud nos nostro extant idiomate. Multi nempe sunt, praesertim ex Theologis exteris, qui Theologiam Practicam, prout a nostris

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tradi consuevit, summopere cupiunt intueri; qua in re Concionatores nostros, faventibus Divini numinis auspiciis, profectus non vulgares fecisse in confesso est. (Wallis, 1653: xxiii–xxiv) Wallis describes language ‘in brief rules, so that it will be easier for foreigners to learn, and English people will get a better insight into the true structure of their native tongue’ (Kemp, 1972: 109).3 His strategy for learning English demonstrates a methodical approach to language that would be helpful to foreigners. Grammarians and lexicographers mention in their prefaces that foreigners spend too much time learning English. Christopher Cooper’s Grammatica Linguae Anglicanae (1685) advertises on the title page that his text is a practical grammar designed to help children, adults and foreigners more efficiently: ‘Grammatica Linguae Anglicanae. Peregrinis eam addiscendi cupidis pernecessaria, nec non Anglis praecipué scholis, plurimùm profutura’ (Cooper, 1685). Vorlat observes that Cooper outlines in his preface three reasons for foreigners to learn English: ‘a. a practical one, viz. to carry on their trade; b. a social one: to have real contact with the English; c. a cultural one: to read scientific and artistic works’ (Vorlat, 1964: 67). Grammarians looked for more efficient methods for students to learn English. In The English Grammar (1693), Joseph Aickin complains about the length of time it takes foreigners to learn English: ‘I have known some Foreigners who have been longer in learning to speak English and yet are far from it’ (Aickin, 1693: A2v). Aickin diagnoses the problem: ‘The not learning by Grammar is the true cause [of not learning English]’ (Aickin, 1693: A2v). Other grammarians advise foreigners to learn rules of grammar and become fluent. In A Key to the Art of Letters (1700), A. Lane in particular makes the argument to foreigners that English is valuable and that they should learn it as quickly as possible when entering England. He claims on the title page that this text is ‘an Essay to enable both Foreiners, and the English Youth of either Sex, to speak and write the English Tongue well and learnedly, according to the exactest Rules of Grammar’ (Lane, 1700). Like Howell, Lane tries a rational approach to make language acquisition easier and faster for non-English-speaking people. Listing the advantages of learning English was another way grammarians convinced foreigners to conform to English. In the preface to Edward Phillips’ The New World of English Words (1706), lexicographer John Kersey emphasizes the merits of English for foreigners ‘who are desirous to be acquainted with the Terms and peculiar Idioms of our English Tongue’ (Phillips, 1706: A2v). Kersey argues the superiority of English; it is ‘so far imporv’d [sic], that for Copiousness, variety of Style, clearness and elegancy of Expression, and other Advantages, it may be said to equal, if not surpass,

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all other Modern languages’ (Phillips, 1706: A2v). Foreigners were expected to perform tasks, such as reading newspapers, essays and literature in English. James Greenwood makes an observation along the same lines in An Essay Towards a Practical English Grammar (1753). He notes that Dr Wallis helps foreigners ‘understand our Language, and read the many excellent Books which have been written in it’ (Greenwood, 1753: 37–38). The next part of the sentence is especially significant because Greenwood looks at books on divinity: ‘especially our Books of Practical Divinity, for which our Divines have acquired more Fame throughout the northern Countries of Europe’ (Greenwood, 1753: 38). In The Royal English Dictionary (1763), Daniel Fenning comments on the first page of his preface that for both native speakers and ‘inhabitants of all the globe’ his text will provide ‘keys to unlock the treasure of our language’ (Fenning, 1763: Ar). Familiarity with English idioms also demonstrated that foreigners were conforming. John Rice argues in An Introduction to the Art of Reading (1765) that foreigners assimilate into their new surroundings when they can speak idiomatically (Rice, 1765: 362). Rice argues that the first qualification for any reader in any language is to have the ‘Idiomatical Order of its Words in common Discourse and simple Narration’ (Rice, 1765: 358). Foreigners, Rice emphasizes, will only be able to communicate coherently in English if they understand the order of a sentence: ‘Indeed, the grammatical construction of modern Tongues, depends so much on this Order of Succession in the Words, that they will by no Means admit of arbitrary Transposition; without being rendered equivocal or unintelligible’ (Rice, 1765: 358). According to Rice, it is hard to anticipate what foreigners are saying when they lack such knowledge, because ‘even after having acquired a copia verborum and a tolerable Pronunciation of particular words, [they] speak in a very different Manner from the Natives’ (Rice, 1765: 360). Thus, Rice underscores the importance of knowing idioms. He argues that non-native speakers ‘should be instructed in the particular Influence, which the Idiomatical Order, and the Transposition of our Words, have on the grammatical Construction of the Sentence they compose’ (Rice, 1765: 362). If foreigners master idioms and the order of words, they will improve their sentences. Pronunciation continues to be a sign of conformity to England in the 18th century. If a foreigner cannot pronounce words and communicate, he or she conveys, even though falsely, a resistance to assimilating in England. The newcomer must learn the preferred pronunciation to integrate fully. In A New Dictionary of the English Language (1773), Kenrick recognizes that foreigners may have ‘difficulty in acquiring the method of forming all the above sounds and modes of articulation’ (Kenrick, 1773: viii). However, he assures those using his text that ‘if they pay any degree of attention to the rules laid

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down in the following grammar, and the similarity there pointed out between the sounds of the English and other European languages, that difficulty will soon be obviated’ (Kenrick, 1773: viii). Kenrick observes that foreigners learn pronunciation by hearing it from native speakers and then practising it (Kenrick, 1773: viii). Besides referring to foreigners of different countries acquiring the correct sounds of English, he names natives of Scotland and Ireland and the provincials of Wales, Yorkshire and Cornwall as speakers who need work with sounds (Kenrick, 1773: viii). In this section, the point has been made that learning the language of one’s new country is a significant link to conforming and assimilating. Language competency enables one to become part of a country. The key to being accepted is mastering rules of grammar, pronunciation and literacy. It shows that one accepts the attitudes and values. Those acts make foreigners less of a threat.

Excluding those who refused to conform The preceding section focused on foreigners who learned the rules of grammar in order to conform and be accepted in England. Conformity becomes even more complex if one considers that rules of grammar can also be used to regulate the degree to which someone is included in or excluded from society. The degree to which immigrants could challenge some aspect of English culture depended on how much command they had of the mother tongue. By learning English, foreigners showed a degree of commitment to England, and they had a greater chance of being included in daily life. In his posthumously published English Grammar (1640), Ben Jonson cites some compelling reasons for foreigners to learn grammar. Jonson states, ‘The profit of Grammar is great to Strangers, who are to live in communion, and commerce with us’ (Jonson, 1640: 46).4 Jonson’s point is that knowing a language is key to integrating into society and being accepted by the community. However, as R.F. Jones observes in The Triumph of Language, Jonson developed his grammar ‘to free it from the charge of rudeness and barbarousness brought against it by foreigners especially’ (Jones, 1953: 287). Jones’s observation about Jonson’s motive underscores the idea that foreigners who did not speak the English language were resented and possibly excluded in some way. Foreigners were seen as a threat because they might corrupt the English language. In The English Grammar (1654), Jeremiah Wharton appeals on the title page ‘to strangers that desire to learn our Language’ (Wharton, 1654). He claims that his text ‘will bee the most certain Guide, that ever yet was extant’ (Wharton, 1654: A6r). He continues, ‘it will bee a special help; which they shall finde

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not to bee barbarous, confused, and irregular, (as the common saying is) but familiar, orderly and easie’ (Wharton, 1654: A6r). It should be noted here that some grammarians sent appended short grammars abroad for foreigners which, in some cases, might facilitate learning English before immigrants arrived in England and in other cases facilitate trading with the English, especially in the Low Countries. G.A. Padley explains in Grammatical Theory in Western Europe,1500–1700: Trends in Vernacular Grammar that ‘often very rudimentary works show their authors to have little or no acquaintance with the more important grammatical works of the time’ (Padley, 1985: 157). For example, appended grammars were attached to Henry Hexham’s Copious English and Nether-duytch Dictionarie (1660), and James Howell’s New English Grammar (1662), intended for Spaniards (Padley, 1985: 157). Pronunciation of the English language could also mark a foreigner for inclusion or exclusion because of the impression speech communicates. Dick Leith writes in The Social History of English (1997) about the literary attempts in the 16th century ‘to represent the speech of foreigners, the characteristics of Welsh, Scottish, and Irish people, and the speakers of other dialects of English’ (Leith, 1997: 42). Although Leith is talking about the 16th century, the impressions carry over into the 17th and 18th centuries. A foreigner’s speech evoked a stereotype, sometimes negative, and influenced the degree to which the newcomers were accepted in England. Leith states: It is now that we begin to see the social stereotyping of such speakers. Increasingly, they play the role of buffoon or boor. Non-standard speech is equated with simplicity or roughness. (Leith, 1997: 42) In The English Grammar (1693), Joseph Aickin addresses the problems foreigners have with pronunciation. He offers an instructional method for foreigners ‘who find great difficulty in pronouncing the Letters, according to our English pronunciation’ (Aickin, 1693: A6r). He believes that the ‘great obstruction that hinders foreigners from learning our Tongue, depends upon the difference of the Sounds: which these Tables will remedy, by causing them to apply their voice to the several instruments of Speech’ (Aickin, 1693: A6r). Lexicographers like Abel Boyer address foreigners’ spoken English. He states on the title page of The Royal Dictionary Abridged (1700) that he aims ‘To facilitate the Pronunciation of the English Tongue to Foreigners’ (Boyer, 1700). Another relevant observation about foreigners learning English is the connection between knowing the language and being a good person. In Tutor to True English (1699), Henry Care equates competency in English with ethics and morals. He suggests that foreigners should ‘be Masters of Our

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Language’ and, like other Englishmen, be ‘Expert for the Negotiation and Conduct of their Affairs’ and have ‘Christian Ethics and Morality’ (Care, 1699: A1v–A2r). The last part of this quotation about ‘Christian Ethics and Morality’ is particularly significant: a person’s character was judged by his language. It suggests yet another level for examining how foreigners were included or excluded on the basis of their English in 17th- and 18th-century England. Foreigners and native speakers who did not have competency in the English language were subject to being labelled and thus excluded. In the preface to The New Royal English Dictionary (1780), lexicographer Charles Marriott tells both native and foreign speakers that they should know English well: ‘To be ignorant of our mother tongue is not only a misfortune, but a disgrace; especially as Grammar is a branch of learning now more cultivated in England than in any other part of the globe’ (Marriott, 1780: A1r). Marriott judges ‘those persons, therefore, who speak or write with impropriety, are even without an excuse to palliate their ignorance’ (Marriott, 1780: A1r). Marriott is taking this opportunity in his preface to promote his own book. He references an ‘eminent writer’ who has produced a large dictionary for native speakers and foreigners (Marriott, 1780: A1r). However, the folio dictionary is four pounds and ten shillings, which he says not everyone can afford. Marriott states that the eminent author’s abridgement in octavo is too much of an abridgement to be useful. He shamelessly promotes his own dictionary, which he promises will be ‘extensive and copious’ but less expensive (Marriott, 1780: A1v). Although grammarian and lexicographer Thomas Sheridan was from Ireland, he was still considered to some degree a foreigner who did not speak like an Englishman. In the preface of A General Dictionary of the English Language (1780), Sheridan sympathizes with foreigners who have a difficult time learning English. Sheridan claims that ‘Of all the languages known in the world, English is supposed to be the most difficult’ (Sheridan, 1780: A1r). Sheridan asserts that ‘foreigners in general look upon it as impracticable to arrive at any degree of perfection, either in writing or speaking’ English (Sheridan, 1780: A1r). Sheridan disagrees with foreigners’ idea that English is difficult to learn: ‘Yet from its nature and constitution, with regard to the grammatical part, it ought to be the most easy of attainment of any other’ language (Sheridan, 1780: A1r). He argues that English is easy to learn because ‘it is built upon the simplest principles, and governed by the fewest rules, of any language yet known’ (Sheridan, 1780: A1r). Sheridan claims that English is easier to learn than Hebrew, which is ‘supposed to be the most simple of any’ language (Sheridan, 1800: A1r). Still, Sheridan is critical of English. He blames England for not having been more responsible in refining its language, while the French, Italians and

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Spanish have been industrious in ‘cultivating and regulating their speech’ (Sheridan, 1780: A1r). He acknowledges the difficulty of speaking English: ‘With regard indeed to the pronunciation of our tongue, the obstacles are great; and in the present state of things almost insuperable’ (Sheridan, 1780: A1r). Sheridan asserts that ‘all this apparent difficulty arises from our utter neglect of examining and regulating our speech; as nothing has hitherto been done, either by individuals, or societies, towards a right method of teaching it’ (Sheridan, 1780: A1r). He complains that ‘we [English] still remain in the state of all barbarous countries in that respect, having left [our English language] wholly to chance’ (Sheridan, 1780: A1r). The answer, he states, is to have ‘accurate grammars and dictionaries’ to help foreigners. However, Sheridan argues that ‘when a foreigner arrives in London, and, as the first necessary point, enquires for a master to teach him the language, to his utter astonishment he is told, there are none to be found’ (Sheridan, 1780: A1r). The foreigner is left ‘to pick up as well as he can, in the same way as if he had landed among savages’ (Sheridan, 1780: A1r). Whether Sheridan is correct in his assessment of English as either an easy language or one that has not been refined, foreigners had to be creative in figuring out ways to learn the language. Thus, language served as a means to become part of daily life in England. By learning English, foreigners demonstrated that they were conforming to the ways of their new home. Their ability to communicate also meant they were less likely to be excluded from English society.

Ensuring the patriotism of those who did During periods of high immigration, English residents were sensitive to displays of national identity and patriotism. They were especially aware of hearing foreigners speak in strange languages and were apprehensive of what the foreign language might do to the mother tongue. English grammarians and lexicographers worried that foreigners would corrupt the English language with harsh-sounding, barbaric words from French, German or Dutch. English grammarians could do little to insulate the mother tongue from the influence of foreign languages being spoken in England. 5 There was the unspoken feeling that foreigners who learned English would have an allegiance to England. When foreigner and immigrant Guy Miège came to England, he was committed to advancing language study. Miège was born in Lausanne, Switzerland in 1644 and moved to England in 1661. Because French was his mother tongue, he could understand what foreigners experienced when they learned English. His aim was to preserve the purity of English yet help

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foreigners speak correctly. In English Grammar (1688), Miège states that his text will not be ‘improper for the Use of Forreiners, especially the French, that have already got some Smattering of the English Tongue’ (Miège, 1688: A3r–A3v). In ‘Effort and Achievement in Seventeenth-Century British Linguistics’ (1986), linguistic historian Vivian Salmon points out that Miège, a foreigner himself, played an important role in advancing language. She states, ‘The teaching of English to foreigners was therefore largely responsible for the outstanding development of phonetics which characterized seventeenth-century England’ (Salmon, 1996: 21). In a prefatory note to the Scolar facsimile of Miège’s English Grammar (1688), R.C. Alston states that the grammar ‘has the distinction of being the only grammar of English written in English by a non-native speaker’ in 17th century England (Alston, 1969), although other grammars may qualify for that distinction. It should be noted here that English grammars in English by foreigners were published in the 18th century. For example, Michael Maittaire, born in Rouen in 1668 of French Protestant parents, took refuge in England, where he was educated. He published The English Grammar (1712).6 One might think of Miège as a foreigner writing in England, but that is not entirely true. A native of Lausanne and a Protestant, he came to England in his teens and spent most of his life there, which attenuated the influence of French upon him. Through his grammar texts and dictionaries, he was able to assume a national identity in England even though he was a nonnative speaker. In spite of French being his native tongue, he points out the merits of English. In the ‘Prefatory Discourse of the English Tongue’ in his English Grammar (1688), Miège describes the perfection of English: ‘When Substance combines with Delight, Plenty with Delicacy, Beauty with Majesty, and Expedition with Gravity, what can want to the Perfection of such a Language?’ (Miège, 1688: A6v). He tells foreigners that they, too, can make their ‘Speech majestical, pleasant, delicate, or manly, according to the Subject’ (Miège, 1688: A6v). Perhaps Miège is just trying to sell his book when he claims that foreigners have recognized the worth of English: ‘Of all which Advantages inherent to the English Tongue Foreiners are at last become very sensible’ (Miège, 1688: A6v). ‘Sensible’ is an important word because he is underscoring that foreigners are conforming to English. He claims that ‘whereas they used to slight [English], as an Insular Speech, not worth their taking notice, now that shook off that groundless Prejudice’ (Miège, 1688: A6v–A7r). With some self-promotion, Miège states that foreigners are ‘as great Admirers of it, especially since I afforded them those Helps which formerly they wanted’ (Miège, 1688: A7r). The advantages a foreigner acquires in English are ‘facility, copiousness, significancy, and sweetness’ (Miège, 1688: A6).

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English grammarians focused on teaching foreigners basic skills, while Miège helped the immigrants achieve more than a basic understanding of English. He wanted a language learner to attain a level of accuracy and refinement, which certainly would have helped an immigrant assimilate more easily into English culture. For example, Miège includes a section on the varieties of style and the ways to write or speak well. It was his work with foreigners as well as native speakers that earned him respect among his peers in England. His grammars and dictionaries were widely used with foreigners. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Matthew et al., 1992–) notes that ‘From the late 1670s, when he was living in Panton Street, London, teaching French and geography, Miège rapidly established a considerable reputation as a lexicographer and grammarian’ (Larminie, 2004). His most significant work was dedicated to French. He published A New French Grammar (1678), which was reissued many times, most notably as The Grounds of the French Tongue (1687) (Larminie, 2004). The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography notes that ‘This work was the most influential French grammar for several generations’ (Larminie, 2004). Vivienne Larminie cites in a foreword to a 1969 facsimile that Miège’s The English Grammar (1688) was a well-written, accessible text, but it was not popular like his A New French Grammar (1678). His Nouvelle méthode pour apprendre l’Anglois (1685) was so successful that more than 20 editions were published up to 1795 (Larminie, 2004). Miège demonstrates his loyalty to England in his English Grammar (1688) when he contrasts English to his native French tongue. He notes that the French language has remained stagnant while English has expanded: ‘whereas the French is stinted, and grown barren through its exceeding Nicety; the English on the contrary is grown mighty Copious’ (Miège, 1688: A5v). English, he states, has increased its vocabulary by ‘its innate Liberty of making such Compounds and Derivatives as are proper and suitable to abridge the Expression’ (Miège, 1688: A5v). Miège offers these pairs as examples: ‘after’ and ‘afternoon’, ‘forth’ and ‘forth-coming’, and ‘off’ and ‘off-spring’ (Miège, 1688: 20–21). He notes that the grace of such compounding ‘is one of the greatest Beauties . . . in a Language’ (Miège, 1688: A5v–A6r). Miège shows his allegiance to England when he professes his admiration for the vernacular. He praises English people for the extent to which they have improved their native tongue, saying that those amongst Forreiners who understand the Genius of it are in a maze [i.e. amazed] to see this Language so far outdo their own, and to find [that] many of their Words transplanted here, throve better in England than in their proper and natural Soil. (Miège, 1688: A5v)

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Even foreign languages, apparently, were better when used in English. He notes that those foreigners who used to resist learning English as an ‘Insular Speech’ with ‘groundless prejudice’ have become admirers of the language, especially since he has provided help for them (Miège, 1688: A5v–A6r). Ignoring the enrichment of English by other languages, Miège warns both native speakers and foreigners not to incorporate any more foreign words. He observes that now the English is come to so great Perfection, now ‘tis grown so very Copious and Significant, by the Accession of the Quintessence and Life of other Tongues, ‘twere to be wished that a Stop were put to this unbounded Way of Naturalizing foreign Words. (Miège, 1688: A7r) If grammarians are going to add foreign words to English usage, it should be done only with ‘Judgement and Authority’, and grammarians should improve on what they have rather than continue adding to the language: ‘Were this Nation contented to improve what Grain they have already, without over-stocking themselves from other Parts, and putting their Language on a perpetual Motion, it would be much for the Credit of it’ (Miège, 1688: A7v). Like his peers, Miège argued that the English language should not be corrupted by foreign words. Grammarians had a responsibility to guard the language. A love of one’s country shines through in words that express a nation’s ideas and beliefs. We assign words to concepts such as loyalty and allegiance to indicate how we feel about our homeland. In English Etymology (1783), George Lemon argues that Words are the elementary and constituent parts of every language, made use of by every nation on the face of the globe, both barbarous and polite, to express their various ideas to teach others, and give names and appellations to the different objects around them. (Lemon, 1783: i) Foreigners were more easily accepted in England when they used words that reflected nationalism. Any foreigner would best heed Lemon’s judgment that, ‘As England is the Land of liberty, so is her language the Voice of freedom’ (Lemon, 1783: vii). In A Complete Dictionary of the English Language (1790), Irishman Thomas Sheridan poses the question of the link between the honour of the country and the native tongue. He asks, ‘Whether it would not redound much to the honour of this nation, if the attainment of our tongue were rendered easy to foreigners, so as to enable them to read our excellent authors in the original, and converse with the natives of these

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countries upon equal terms?’ (Sheridan, 1790: B5v). Foreigners who can speak the language and read the literature have an easier time assimilating into a country than those who do not have literacy skills. Language skills are also an outward sign that one is taking on a national identity of his or her new country.

Conclusion In 17th- and 18th-century England, foreigners who wanted to be accepted fully in their new homeland had to learn English. Through some degree of language competency in English, foreigners demonstrated that they were willing to conform to a new country and accept new cultural beliefs and values. If foreigners did not learn English, language could be used as a mechanism to regulate how much they were included in or excluded from daily life. Non-English speakers appeared unpatriotic in their attitudes to England and were seen as outsiders. What is interesting about this study is that the pattern continues to repeat itself. In the United States today, speaking English is a deciding factor in how immigrants are accepted into American culture. For immigrants who learn the English language, attitudes towards them are very different from those towards immigrants who remain non-English speakers. Language has always been a powerful tool for deciding who has conformed sufficiently, who will be welcomed into a country and who is judged patriotic. Battles are fought in the name of grammar, but grammar is a mask for making decisions about which groups of people will be accepted.

Notes (1) For a discussion on books about English as a second language, refer to Salmon (1996: 34–39) and Padley (1985: 156–158). Many grammar texts were written in English for foreigners. For an overview, see ‘Grammar for foreigners: A moral and national identity’ in Mitchell (2001: 133–141). (2) The original Latin: ‘Hujusce autem linguae Grammaticam institutionem ideo aggressus sum, quod ipsius cognitionem videam ab exteris non paucis maxime desideratam: quo possint varia illa & maximi momenti scripta intelligere, quae apud nos nostro extant idiomate. Multi nempe sunt, praesertim ex Theologis exteris, qui Theologiam Practicam, prout a nostris tradi consuevit, summopere cupiunt intueri; qua in re Concionatores nostros, faventibus Divini numinis auspiciis, profectus non vulgares fecisse in confesso est’ (Wallis, 1653: xxiii–xxiv); (I have undertaken to write a grammar of this language because there is clearly a great demand for it from foreigners, who want to be able to understand the various important works which are written in our tongue. For instance there are many people, particularly foreign theologians, whose great ambition is to study Practical Theology, as it is normally taught in our

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tradition. It is well known that in this field our public teachers, with God’s help, have had outstanding successes) (Kemp, 1972: 105, 107). Cui ego malo ut remedium ferrem, hoc quicquid est operis ultro suscepi, ut linguam in se facillimam brevibus praeceptis traderem, unde et exteri facilius illam addiscere valeant, et nostrates veram nativae suae linguae rationem penitius perspiciant (Preface, xxv); (I aim to describe the language, which is very simple in essence, in brief rules, so that it will be easier for foreigners to learn, and English people will get a better insight into the true structure of their native tongue) (Kemp, 1972: 109). An earlier attempt is recorded around 1620, but the manuscript was lost in a fire that burned Jonson’s library. He rewrote English Grammar and published it in 1634. The edition used here is 1640, p. 46. If I were writing about the 16th century, I would consider the inkhorn controversy. It is largely a 16th-century phenomenon. Richard Foster Jones (1953: 68–141) presents a comprehensive discussion of the term in The Triumph of the English Language. Similar discussions in the 17th century argued against foreign borrowings that produced odd-sounding English words that might take away from the superiority of the English language. John Cheke argued against foreign borrowings: ‘I am of this opinion that our own tung should be written cleane and pure, unmixt and unmangeled with borowing of other tunges; wherein if we take not heed by tijm, ever borowing and never payeng, she shall be fain to keep her house as bankrupt’ (Jones, 1953: 103). Cheke then almost immediately admits that some loanwords must be used because of deficiencies in the English language. In The Arte of Rhetorique (1560: 82v), Thomas Wilson warned that ‘Among all other lessons this should first be learned, that wee neuer affect any straunge ynkehorne termes, but to speake as is commonly receiued . . . Some seeke so far for outlandish English, that they forget altogether their mothers language’. For more information on Maittaire, see Ross and Collins (2004).

References Aickin, J. (1693) The English Grammar, or, the English Tongue Reduced to Grammatical Rules Containing the Four Parts of Grammar, Viz., Orthography, Etymology, Syntax, Prosody or Poetry: Being the Easiest, Quickest, and Most Authentick Method of Teaching it by Rules and Pictures . . . Composed for the Use of All English-schools. London: Printed for the author. Alston, R.C. (1969) A Bibliography of the English Language from the Invention of Printing to the Year 1800. Leeds: E.J. Arnold. Boyer, A. (1700) The Royal Dictionary Abridged. In Two Parts. I. French and English. II. English and French. Containing Near Five Thousand Words More Than Any French and English Dictionary Yet Extant, Besides the Royal. To Which Is Added, the Accenting of All English Words, to Facilitate the Pronunciation of the English Tongue to Foreigners. London: Printed for R. Clavel [and others]. Bullokar, W. (1586) Pamphlet for English Grammar. London: Henry Denham. Care, H. (1699) The Tutor to True English: Or Brief and Plain Directions, Whereby All That Can Read and Write May Attain to Orthography, (Or the Exact Writing of English) As Readily As If Bred Scholars. Very Much Conducing Likewise to the Due Sounding and Perfect Reading All Sorts of Words Used in the English Tongue. With An Introduction to Arithmetic; More Easie Than Any Yet Extant. And Several Other Observations of General Use; Especially for the Youth of Either Sex, and Forreigners. London.

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Cockeram, H. (1655) The English Dictionary: or, An Interpreter of Hard English Words: Enabling as well Ladies and Gentlemen, Young Scholars, Clerks, Merchants; As Also Strangers of Any Nation, to the Understanding of the More Difficult Authors Already Printed in Our Language, and the More Speedy Attaining of An Elegant Perfection of the English Tongue, Both in Reading, Speaking and Writing (10th edn). London. Cooper, C. (1685) Grammatica Linguae Anglicanae. Peregrinis Cam Addiscendi Cupidis Pernecessaria, Nec Non Anglis Præcipue Scholis, Plurimùm Profutura. Cum Prasatione & Indice, in Quibus, Quid in Hoc Libello Persicitur, Videatur. London. Fenning, D. (1763) The Royal English Dictionary or a Treasury of the English Language Containing, a Full Explanation of All the Terms Made Use of . . . to Which is Prefixed, a Comprehensive Grammar of the English Tongue. London. Greenwood, J. (1753) An Essay Towards a Practical English Grammar. Describing the Genius and Nature of the English Tongue: Giving Likewise a Rational and Plain Account of Grammar in General, with a Familiar Explanation of Its Terms. London: J. Nourse. Hexham, H. (1660) Copious English and Netherduytch Dictionarie . . . As Also a Compendious Grammar for the Instruction of the Learner (1st edn 1648). Rotterdam. Hoole, C. (1651) The Latine Grammar Fitted for the Use of Schools. Wherein the Words of Lilie’s Grammar are (as much as might bee) Retained; Many Errors Thereof Amended; Many Needless Things Left Out: Many Necessaries, That Were Wanting, Supplied; and All Things Ordered in a Method More Agreeable to Children’s Capacitie. London. Howell, J. (1662) A New English Grammar, Prescribing As Certain Rules As the Language Will Bear, for Forreners to Learn English. Ther Is Also Another Grammar of the Spanish or Castilian Toung, With Some Special Remarks Upon the Foreigners Dialect, etc. . . . A Discourse Or Dialog Containing a Perambulation of Spain and Portugal, Which May Serve for a Direction How to Travel Through Both Countreys, etc. London. Jones, R.F. (1953) The Triumph of the English Language: A Survey of Opinions Concerning the Vernacular From the Introduction of Printing to the Restoration (reprinted 1974). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Jonson, B. (1640) The English Grammar . . . for the Benefit of All Strangers, Out of His Observations of the English Language Now Spoken, and in Use. London. Kemp, J.A. (1972) John Wallis’s Grammar of the English Tongue With An Introductory Grammatico-Physical Treatise on Speech (or the Formation of All Speech Sounds). London: Longman. Kenrick, W. (1773) A New Dictionary of the English Language: Containing, Not Only the Explanation of Words, with Their Orthography, Etymology, and Idiomatical Use in Writing; But Likewise, Their Orthoepia or Pronunciation in Speech, According to the Present Practice of Polished Speakers in the Metropolis . . . To Which is Prefixed, a Rhetorical Grammar. London: Printed for J. and F. Rivington. Lane, A. (1700) A Key to the Art of Letters: Or, English a Learned Language, Full of Art, Elegancy and Variety. Being An Essay to Enable Both Foreigners and the English Youth of Either Sex, to Speak and Write the English Tongue Well and Learnedly, According to the Exactest Rules of Grammar. After Which They May Attain to Latin, French, or Any Other Foreign Language in a Short Time, with Very Little Trouble to Themselves Or Their Teachers, With a Preface Shewing the Necessity of a Vernacular Grammar. London: Printed for A. and J. Churchill and J. Wild. Larminie, V. (2004) Miège, Guy (bap. 1644, d. in or after 1718). In H.C.G. Matthew, B. Harrison and L. Goldman (eds) Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (1992–). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Leith, D. (1997 [1983]) A Social History of English. London: Routledge.

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Lemon, G.W. (1783) English Etymology; or a Derivative Dictionary of the English Language: In Two Alphabets. London: Printed for G. Robinson. Maittaire, M. (1712) The English Grammar or An Essay on the Art of Grammar, Applied to and Exemplified in the English Tongue. London: Printed by W.B. for H. Clements. Marriott, C. (1780) The New Royal English Dictionary; Or, Complete Library of Grammatical Knowledge. London: Printed for J. Wenman. Matthew, H.C.G., Harrison, B. and Goldman, L. (eds) (1992–) Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Miège, G. (1678) A New French Grammar; or, a New Method for Learning of the French Tongue to Which Are Added, for a Help to Young Beginners, A Large Vocabulary; and a Store of Familiar Dialogues. Besides Four Curious Discourses of Cosmography, In French, for Proficient Learners to Turn into English. London: Thomas Bassett. Miège, G. (1685) Nouvelle Methode pour Apprendre L’anglois avec une Nomenclature, Francoise & Angloise; un Recueil d’Expressions Familieres; et des Dialogues, Familiers, & Choisis. Par le Sieur Guy Miege, A Londres: for Thomas Bassett at the George near S. Dunstans’s Church in Fleet-Street. Miège, G. (1688) The English Grammar Setting Forth the Grounds of the English Tongue; and Particularly Its Genius in Making Compounds and Derivatives. A Necessary Work in General for All Persons Desirous to Understand the Grounds and Genius of the English, and Very Proper to Prepare Young Men for the Latine Tongue. London. Mitchell, L.C. (2001) Grammar Wars: Language as Cultural Battlefield in 17th- and 18thCentury England. Aldershot: Ashgate. Padley, G.A. (1985) Grammatical Theory in Western Europe, 1500–1700: Trends in Vernacular Grammar (Vol. 1). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Phillips, E. (1706) The New World of English Words: or, Universal Dictionary. Containing an Account of the Original or Proper Sense, and Various Significations of All Hard Words Derived from Other Languages . . . As Now Made Use of in Our English Tongue. Together With a Brief and Plain Explication of All Terms Relating to Any of the Arts and Science, Either Liberal or Mechanical. London: Printed for the author. Rice, J. (1765) An Introduction to the Art of Reading with Energy and Propriety. London: Printed for J. and R. Tonson. Ross, M.C. and Collins, A.J. (2004) Maittaire, Michael (1668–1747). In H.C.G. Matthew, B. Harrison and L. Goldman (eds) Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Online at http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/17841 Salmon, V. (1986) Effort and achievement in seventeenth-century British linguistics. In T. Bynon and F. R. Palmer (eds) Studies in the History of Western Linguistics (pp. 69–95). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Salmon, V. (1996) Language and Society in Early Modern England. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Sheridan, T. (1780) A General Dictionary of the English Language, One Main Object of Which, is, to Establish a Plain and Permanent Standard of Pronunciation, to Which is Prefixed a Rhetorical Grammar. London. Sheridan, T. (1790) A Complete Dictionary of the English Language, Both With Regard to Sound and Meaning. One Main Object of Which is, to Establish a Plain and Permanent Standard of Pronunciation. To Which is Prefixed a Prosodial Grammar. Dublin: Printed by Pat. Wogan and Pat. Byrne. Vorlat, E. (1964) Development of English Grammatical Theory: 1586–1737 (Vol. 1). Leuven: Leuven University Press. Wallis, J. (1653) Grammatica Linguae Anglicanae. London: William Bowyer.

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Wharton, J. (1654) The English-Grammar: or, the Institution of Letters, Syllables, and Words in the English-Tongue. Conteining All Rules and Directions Necessary to Bee Known for the Judicious Reading, Right-Speaking, and Writing Thereof. Very Useful for All, That Desire to Bee Expert in the Foresaid Properties. More Especially Profitable for Scholars, Immediately Before Their Entrance Into the Rudiments of the Latine-tongue. Likewise to Strangers That Desire to Learn Our Language, It Will Bee the Most Certain Guide, that Ever Yet was Extant. London: Printed by William Du-Gard for the author. Wilson, T. (1560) The Arte of Rhetorique. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

8 ‘À la Mode de Paris’: Linguistic Patriotism and Francophobia in 18th-century Britain Joan C. Beal

The 18th century was a period during which relationships between Britain and France were often fraught. The century began with the two nations on opposite sides in the War of the Spanish Succession (1702–1713) and ended with them again in conflict in the French Revolutionary War (1793–1802). Attitudes to French, and to the influence of French on English during this period, were ambivalent. On the one hand, competence in French was considered an elegant accomplishment and French culture and fashions admired but, on the other hand, the use of French loanwords and pronunciations was condemned as at best affected and at worst unpatriotic. In this chapter, a range of sources including reviews, newspapers and periodicals is examined in order to determine the extent to which British attitudes to the French language and its influence reflected the animosity between the two nations during much of this century.

The Language of the Enemy In a report on the debate in the House of Lords about extending the suspension of Habeas Corpus,1 the following speech is cited: Gentlemen must know that the use so frequently made of French words in that House was both dangerous and mischievous; the same were repeated by seditious people in their conventions. . . . it was easy to 141

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discover the predilection which men had for French principles, when they adopted French words and phrases. (Lloyd’s Evening Post, 21 December 1798) This was written in the middle of the French Revolutionary War, when the British government was so concerned about the possible infiltration of French radical ideas that they allowed imprisonment without trial for acts which, in this 18th-century ‘war on terror’, were deemed seditious. This extract from Lloyd’s Evening Post, also included in several other newspapers, reports of adverse reaction to the use in parliamentary debates of the word Bastille to refer to a prison. The implication is that the use of French words and phrases might reflect sympathy with the French cause. This is an extreme reaction born out of extreme circumstances, but objections to French influence on the English language were commonplace throughout the 18th century. Animosity to French and the French is not surprising in a century marked by hostile Anglo-French relations. For much of the 18th century France was ‘the enemy’: the War of the Spanish Succession (1702–1713) was followed by: the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–1748); the Seven Years’ War (1756– 1763); the American War of Independence (1775–1783), in which France was on the side of the American Revolutionaries; and, ending the century but not the period of hostility, the French Revolutionary War (1793–1802). Tombs and Tombs refer to what has been called ‘“the second hundred years’ war” – a Franco-British duel through six great wars between 1689 and 1815’ (Tombs & Tombs, 2006: 1), while Colley notes that ‘until the end of the 19th century . . . most politicians, military experts and popular pundits continued to see France as Britain’s most dangerous and obvious enemy’ (Colley, 1992: 24). On the other hand, Colley (1992: 87–88) refers to the ‘rampant Francophilia’ of the ‘fashionable and governing classes’, who had developed a taste for all things French on the Grand Tour. Robin Eagles points out that, after the end of the Seven Years’ War in 1763, ‘Paris was . . . increasingly the main, or even sole, destination’ (Eagles, 1995: 62) on the Grand Tour, not only for the aristocrats who had traditionally taken part in the Tour, but increasingly for the middling sort as well. He notes that ‘between 1763 and 1765 it is estimated that some 40,000 people passed through Calais alone on their way through France’ (Eagles, 1995: 45). This Francophilia in turn heightened Francophobia in the form of concerns raised about the effect of fashionable French imports on the British economy. The grammarian and lexicographer James Buchanan made the following complaint: This Trade with France is the most disadvantageous of any to England; it were better we had no Trade with them; but scarce any Thing is liked

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by the Quality, either to drink or wear, but what is French. (Buchanan, 1753: 378) So strong was the feeling against French imports that patriotic societies such as the Laudable Association of Anti-Gallicans, founded in 1745, were set up to discourage such trade. Annual sermons to this society give a flavour of anti-French feeling at the time. Isaac Hunt’s sermon, delivered on St George’s Day 1778, is a case in point: One would imagine that in a country, complimented by other nations as the peculiar residence of good sense and sober thinking, there would be little danger of its adopting the customs, manners and dress of its most capricious, unthinking and frivolous neighbours; and this more especially in a country of manufacturers and commerce, in which such adoption is not only inconsistent with the native disposition and genius of the inhabitants, but is essentially detrimental to their public and private interest. Yet so powerful is the influence of that idol fashion, that we often see even the great and the good, the gentle and the simple, almost equally bound in its chains; indulging themselves in the gratification of their taste for foreign produce, or wearing the fantastical badge of foreign foppery. (Hunt, 1781: 13–14) Throughout the century, attitudes to the French language are ambivalent or perhaps contradictory: on the one hand, knowledge of French is a mark of education and gentility but, on the other hand, overuse of French words and pronunciations, like the adoption of French fashions, is seen at best as a ‘fantastical badge of foreign foppery’ and at worst as unpatriotic.

Language à la Mode: French, Fashion and Effeminacy As early as 1602, Richard Carew included in a list of stereotyped descriptions of European languages the statement that French is ‘delicate, but even nice as a Woman, scarce daring to open her Lippes, for feare of marring her Countenance’ (Carew, 1602: 11). This view of French as a ‘feminine’ language has persisted to the present day: Cohen reports that ‘at least twice as many girls as boys take French at school in England’ and that one reason for this is that ‘boys perceive French to be a “girls’ subject”, a “female” language’ (Cohen, 1996: x). She goes on to trace this attitude back to the 18th century, when the notion of the ‘English gentleman’ was being constructed. According

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to Cohen, exposure to the French language and French culture via the Grand Tour, a vital rite of passage for the young gentleman, was seen as a way of smoothing the rough edges of English masculinity but as always carrying the danger of emasculation and effeminacy. Cohen suggests that anxiety about the feminization of the English gentleman was personified in the figure of the fop and that one of the characteristics of the fop was that he was ‘Frenchified’ (Cohen, 1996: 9). Johnson’s (1755) definition of the word frenchify as ‘to infect with the manner of France; to make a coxcomb’ continues this association of the French language with stereotypes of foppishness. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) cites Richardson as using this word in a manner that associates French with light, insubstantial things: 1741 RICHARDSON Pamela I. Let. to Editor 13 Reduce our Sterling Substance into an empty Shadow, or rather frenchify our English Solidity into Froth and Whip-syllabub. Gilmore tells us that ‘[e]xposing affectation by assigning a heavily gallicized diction to characters was a favorite device of writers: for example Melantha in Dryden’s Marriage a-la-Mode (1673) and Bellarmine’s notes to Leonora in Fielding’s Joseph Andrews (1742)’ (Gilmore, 1981: 244n4). Eighteenth-century reviews contain many derogatory remarks about French loanwords in English, implying that the use of such terms was a fashionable affectation. The following extract from the Critical Review provided the title for this chapter: We are obliged to the French for a great number of terms and phrases, some of them used by men of taste and learning; others only by the coxcombs of both sexes, who affect to speak à la Mode de Paris. (Pringle, 1775: 49) The words coxcombs, affect and à la Mode associate French with vain followers of fashion. Like à la Mode (first cited 1649) and the later borrowing of chic (first cited 1879), the French word ton was introduced in the late 18th century to refer to whatever or whoever was fashionable. The first citation in the OED provides its own definition: 1769 Lloyd’s Evening Post 18–20 Dec. 589 The present fashionable Ton (a word used at present to express every thing that’s fashionable) is a set of French puppets. However, the phrase bon ton meaning ‘[g]ood style, good breeding; polite or fashionable society; the fashionable world’ has a first citation from 1747 in

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the OED. A letter in The World (3 May 1753) demonstrates how this phrase was used to disparage the fashion for adopting all things French. The author gives an account of a family trip to Paris, as a result of which, he complains, ‘I no longer understand, or am understood in my family. I hear of nothing but le bon ton’. In the following year, another letter in The World links this term more explicitly with language, referring to ‘that jargon which the French call the Bon ton, which they are obliged to change continually as soon as they find it prophaned by any other company but one step lower than themselves in their degrees of politeness’ (The World, 12 December 1754).2 The word Ton in isolation is likewise quickly taken up by writers complaining about French influence. ‘A Briton’ writing in the Public Advertiser with reference to speakers using French as a fashionable affectation describes them as ‘those modern admirers of the Ton, who court a noble Distinction for their Flower-de-lucing their Language with rank Gallicisms, as well as for enriching our English Dictionary with purely French words’ (Public Advertiser, 5 July 1780). Here, Gallicisms refers to the use of French constructions rather than loanwords per se. Johnson’s definition of this word as ‘a mode of speech peculiar to the French language’ is less scathing than that of frenchify, but he includes by way of illustration a citation which condemns the use of such constructions: In English I would have Gallicisms avoided, that we may keep to our own language, and not follow the French mode in our speech. (Johnson, 1755: s.v. gallicism) Again, the OED provides an 18th-century citation which exemplifies the association of gallicisms with affectation in this period: 1759 LADY M.W. MONTAGU Let. to Sir J. Steuart 19 July, I hope you won’t think this dab of Italian . . . an affectation like his Gallicisms. Criticism of French influence on the English language in the 18th century also extended to unanglicized pronunciations of French loanwords. The most successful elocutionist of this period, John Walker, condemns this practice, again accusing such speakers of affectation: Some affected speakers, either ignorant of the rules for pronouncing English, or over-complaisant to the French, pronounce physiognomy, cognizance and recognizance, without the n3; but this is a gross violation of the first principles of spelling. The only words to keep these speakers in countenance are poignant and champignion, not long ago imported from

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France, and pronounced poiniant and champinion. The first of these words will be probably hereafter written without the g; while the latter, confined to the kitchen, may be looked upon as technical, and allowed an exclusive privilege. (Walker, 1791: 45) Here and elsewhere, Walker objects to the ‘affected’ pronunciation of those who maintain or attempt French pronunciation of established loanwords. Walker has no objection to French per se. He was clearly well acquainted with the language, as he provides French equivalents for the English sounds he describes, cites Gilles Ménage as an authority for his etymology of cravat, and includes lengthy, untranslated quotes from the French Encyclopédie. It is the inappropriate use of French pronunciation to which he objects, as we can see from his entry on envelope: A wrapper, an outward case.  This word signifying the outward case of a letter is always pronounced in the French manner by those who can pronounce French, and by those who cannot the e is changed into an o. Sometimes a mere Englishman attempts to give a nasal vowel the French sound, and exposes himself to laughter by pronouncing g after it, as if written ongvelope. This is as ridiculous to a polite ear as if he pronounced it, as it ought to be pronounced, like the verb to envelop. (Walker, 1791: s.v. envelope) Walker’s criticism here is not of those who cannot speak French: if anything, the last line implies that he prefers an anglicized pronunciation. His ridicule is directed at those who try to put on airs and graces by attempting a ‘French’ pronunciation and failing. As with so many normative statements of this and the following century, the target is the nouveaux riches. In his entry for courier, Walker relates how the ‘plain Englishman’, honest John Bull, is liable to be embarrassed in society by mispronouncing a French word that, according to Walker, has not yet been naturalized in ‘polite’ usage. I suspect here that Walker is torn between his desire to record the ‘correct’ pronunciation and his sympathy for the plain Englishman: A messenger sent in haste.  This word is perfectly French, and often makes a plain Englishman the object of laughter to the polite world by pronouncing it like Currier, a dresser of leather. (Walker, 1791: s.v. courier) We will see later how the character of the ‘plain Englishman’ is often evoked in anti-French writings. Walker’s remark here echoes a trope found in a

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number of humorous anecdotes appearing in 18th-century newspapers, where the butt of the joke is the provincial, rustic, or just ‘plain’ Englishman, who exposes himself to ridicule by attempting to use French. The following extract from The World is an example of this: There is a solitary Bathing Place in the EAST RIDING OF YORKSHIRE called FILEY BAY, where the People live, much against their inclination, upon the finest Fish in the World. A Man, of some little property there, has built an Inn, over which he has written – Hot-hell! – as he understands French words much about as well as TOM PAINE. (The World, 19 October 1792) World seems to be the late 18th-century equivalent of celebrity magazines like Hello! or OK: full of gossip about the rich and famous. The people of Filey are portrayed here as the naive inhabitants of a paradise. It is the man of property attempting to cash in on the new tourist boom who is censured and ridiculed here, along with a gratuitous dig at the radical Tom Paine from this pro-government publication.

Words of War: Attitudes to French Military Terms In a century dominated by war between Britain and France, it is perhaps not surprising that a great deal of attention was paid to the use of French military terms. Walker discusses the pronunciation of corps as follows: A body of forces.  Perhaps it is the unpleasing idea this word suggests, when pronounced in the English manner, that has fixed it in the French pronunciation. Nothing can be more frightful to an elegant ear than the sound it has from the mouths of those who are wholly unacquainted with its fashionable and military usage. (Walker, 1791: s.v. corps) Here, Walker again suggests that anglicized pronunciation, homophonous with corpse, constitutes a major social faux pas. However, in this case he refers to the word’s ‘fashionable and military’ usage. In the rule for pronunciation of

in his introductory material, Walker writes: ‘in the military corps (a body of troops) both p and s are mute, as custom has acquiesced in the French pronunciation of all military terms’ (Walker, 1791: 49). If we turn now to examine attitudes to loanwords, we will see that there was a perception that French military terms were being introduced in unacceptable

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numbers. Not surprisingly, there were strong objections to using the language of the enemy to discuss the military actions in which the two nations were engaged. A review of Edwin Hugill’s translation of The Field Engineer is critical of the translator’s overdependence on French loanwords: He seems frequently to consider himself as translating the work into French, for so many French words occur, as to render his version unpleasing to an English ear, and inconvenient to a mere English reader. . . . We acknowledge that tactics, as a science, exists chiefly in the French language and that many of the words are almost naturalized by adoption; but it surely need not be crowded with those which admit of a translation, as the terms we have mentioned, and many others, which we have marked would do. (Critical Review, May 1789: 329–330) This review of an English translation of a French book on military tactics is less emotive than some of the comments we will see shortly. What is noticeable here is that the author of the review acknowledges the pre-eminence of the French in this field and the need for some loanwords, but suggests that too many French words make it ‘unpleasing to an English ear’ and that French terms should be translated wherever possible. Note the date here: Britain and France were not actually at war in 1789 and in May of that year the Bastille had not yet been stormed, but relations between Britain and France would hardly have been cordial at this point. The review of Le Blond’s Military Engineer (1759), from which the following extracts are taken, is more forcefully anti-French: The French are so much acknowledged superior to other nations in siege warfare that their technical terms are adopted by all the continent; insomuch that a general can neither give instructions to his officers, nor make a report of military operations to his sovereign, without using a multitude of French words and phrases. . . . Why . . . should we be so complaisant to the French, as to use their terms of carcasse, cavalier, chamade, chauffe-trappe, bivouac, chevaux de frise, abatement, enfilade, feu-razant, manoeuvre and coup de main; when we can say fire-ball, mount, parley, crow’s foot, blocking guard, turnspikes, tree-felling, flanking-fire, grazing-fire, operation and bold stroke. (Critical Review, September 1759: 178) Like the review of the translation of Hugill, this passage acknowledges French dominance in the field of military engineering, but objects to the

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overuse of French loanwords. This earlier review was written during the Seven Years’ War and suggests that to use French words is to be ‘complaisant’ to the enemy. The same sentiment is expressed in the following extract from an article entitled ‘the humble remonstrance of the Mob of Great Britain against the importation of French Words’, which appeared in the London Chronicle on 9 September 1758 and was reproduced in its entirety in the Annual Register for the year 1758: It is with infinite concern that we behold an inundation of French words pouring in upon us, and this at a time too when there is some sort of merit in detesting every thing that is French. Coup de Main and Manoeuvre might be excusable in Marshal Saxe, as he was in the service of France, and perfectly acquainted with both; but we cannot see what apology can be made for our officers lugging them in by head and shoulders, without the least necessity, as a sudden stroke might Reconnoitre have done for one, and a proper motion for the other. is another. . . . We therefore most humbly pray, that French words, as well as French dress and French manners, may be laid aside, at least during the continuance of the present war; for we are apprehensive, should their language and customs descend to us, we should be taught by their example, on the day of battle to f . . . te [sic] le camp. (Annual Register, 1758: 373–374) What is noticeable here is the explicit argument that British people should not use French words ‘when there is some sort of merit in detesting every thing that is French’, that is in the middle of the Seven Years’ War and the suggestion in the final paragraph that the adoption of French words might undermine the war effort by infecting the troops with French cowardice. A year later ‘the Mob’, represented by the signatory ‘P.L.C. Secretary’, sent in a further letter of remonstrance to the London Chronicle. Here, the objection is not to military terms per se, but to fashionable French words for which there are English equivalents. In the extract below, a banal example of 18thcentury road rage is used to highlight the pretension of using a French term for such a run-of-the-mill occurrence: Some time ago we took the liberty to offer a remonstrance, in order to prevent the further importation of French words; but we have the mortification to find it has but little effect . . . Should any two draymen meet in a narrow street, and from locking wheels fall to loggerheads . . . this would be considered a rencontre; but an English bystander would say, they met and fought . . .

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In a word, Sir, we think it a Bizarrerie (allow us a French word in our turn) or strange whim, to borrow words and phrases from a people we hate as we do the Devil, when we have some of our own much more significant. (London Chronicle, 4 September 1759) Although military words are not the focus here, the author invokes patriotic feelings again in the final paragraph, referring to ‘a people we hate as we do the Devil’. A satirical article in the New Year’s Eve edition of the Whitehall Evening Post gives tongue-in-cheek advice to British army officers. The article is introduced as follows: ‘this entertaining little piece of raillery yields to its model, Swift’s ‘Advice to Servants’ in nothing but having come after it’. Officers are advised: ‘In your first official letter you must ingraft a tolerable number of French words, tho’ there be English ones equally proper, to give people an idea of your military talents’. The satirical tone of this advice to use French words recalls Addison’s ‘spoof’ letter in the Spectator (165, 8 September 1711) written to his father by a young man serving in the British army during the War of the Spanish Succession (1702–1713). The father castigates his son for using so many French words that he cannot understand the letter, but later relents when he sees ‘all the prints about three days after filled with the same terms of art, and that Charles only wrote like other men’. By the end of the 18th century, the predilection of the military for using French terms had become an easy target for satire. Addison’s letter points the blame at ‘the prints’, that is the newspapers, and a correspondent to the True Briton makes this point more explicitly: In truth, Sir, you and your brother Newswriters, much as you differ about French Politics, and warmly as some of you show a just detestation of French Principles, yet all so agree in a predilection for French Orthography, and even for French Words, that you often put honest John Bull to a strange difficulty to know how he should speak of what he reads. (True Briton, 21 December 1798) The author then goes on to give a humorous anecdote about ‘John Bull’ mispronouncing the word depôt: Other great men have very needlessly foisted upon us the word depot; but if you had not circulated it universally without a translation, John Bull would not have been put to the blush by Miss from the Boarding School, by being told that p o t no longer spelt pot but po. (True Briton, 21 December 1798)

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Loanwords from French: Perception versus Reality Beal and Grant (2006), investigating the effect of war on the borrowing of words from the ‘enemy’s’ language, produced the following statistics: Between 1746 and 1755, 902 first citations are listed in CED, of which 192 (21%) are listed as ‘French’, whilst in the period of the Seven Years’ War (1756–63), only 91 of 548 first citations, or 16.6% are given this etymology . . . between 1783 and 1792, the CED lists 892 first citations, of which 162, or 18% are from French, whilst from the war years [1793–1802] there are 1393, of which 269 or 19% are from French. (Beal & Grant, 2006: 59–60) With regard to 18th-century borrowings from French, we concluded that, contrary to the perceptions of commentators such as those cited above, borrowing from French did not increase during periods of war between France and Britain. Rather, awareness of loanwords was heightened by their frequent appearance in news reports about the wars. Table 8.1 shows the dates of first citations in the OED for the words to which the reviewer of Le Blond’s Military Engineer objected. We can see that most of these words were not new in 1759, the only exceptions being coup de main and manoeuvre, both of which have as their first citation in the OED the ‘Humble remonstrance’ article, here given as in the Annual Register.4 Chauffe-trappe and feu-razant are not in the OED, and so presumably never became naturalized. If we look at the extent to which French military terms went on to be used by prominent British military figures, we can see that the fears of ‘the Mob’ cited above (p. 149) were unfounded. The list of citations from the

Table 8.1 First Citations in OED for French loanwords mentioned in the (1759) review of Le Blond’s Military Engineer (1759) Word

First citation date

Bivouac Carcasse Cavalier Chamade Chevaux de Frise Coup de Main Enfilade Manoeuvre

1706 1684 1598 1684 1688 1758 1706 1759

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OED below demonstrates how the ‘Iron Duke’ himself, the Duke of Wellington, used these French military terms in his letters, yet, far from being encouraged to f . . . te le camp, he was to be Napoleon’s nemesis at Waterloo. These words represent French innovations in military strategy and were adopted despite the objections of patriotic commentators: 1810 WELLINGTON in Gurw. Disp. V. 11, I shall be very glad to see the chevaux de frise. 1810 WELLINGTON Let. in Gurw. Disp. VI. 577 No opportunity of trying the 24 pound carcasses which you have been so kind as to offer him. 1801 WELLINGTON in Gurw. Desp. I. 365 This place can be taken by a coup de main, and probably in no other manner. 1811 WELLINGTON in Gurw. Disp. VIII. 21 The bivouac which Hill quitted this morning appears to be an excellent situation for the cavalry to-morrow. 1803 WELLINGTON in Gurw. Disp. II. 286 You would have iron guns instead of brass for your enfilade. Although, as we have seen, resentment of French influence on English was widely expressed in the 18th century, there were dissenting voices. ‘A Journalist’, writing in the Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser, advocates a more balanced approach to French loanwords: I have observed in your paper, and not merely in your’s [sic], a variety of peevish objections to the ease with which we accommodate ourselves with a foreign term, by which we may either more forcibly or more laconically express an idea than in English. That there are coxcombs in writing as well as in conversation, who unnecessarily introduce foreign phrases and words, I am free to acknowledge; but that the practice should be totally abolished, I will not agree. (Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser, 27 December 1787) The author gives a list of French words that we cannot do without, including amateur, debut and naivety, all of which have stood the test of time. Other authors, such as Johnson and Campbell, criticized the excessive use of gallicisms but, as Gilmore (1981: 259–260) points out: ‘although Johnson’s attitudes toward French influence on the English language were multiple and complex . . . they were not nearly as hostile as some vehement passages in the preface to the Dictionary would suggest’. Gilmore goes on to state that ‘there are forty-one French words or senses in the Dictionary that

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Johnson definitely or almost certainly objects to’ and ‘there are approximately thirty-eight others of French derivation toward which Johnson’s hostility is more qualified or less certain’ (Gilmore, 1981: 249, 250). Gilmore considers this not to be a large number as a proportion of the total number of entries in Johnson’s Dictionary, which he estimates at 41,443. Gilmore concludes that, for Johnson, ‘the important test of the acceptability of French words was, above all, that of actual usage or usefulness’. Thus, despite widespread prejudice against all things French, some, such as Johnson and ‘A Journalist’, took a more practical and empirical view.

Conclusion In conclusion, we have seen how attitudes to French in 18th-century Britain were often contradictory. Knowledge of French was a necessary accomplishment for both ladies and gentlemen of the aristocracy: according to Eagles ‘it was still largely the language of polite society in England, and more so for written communication’ (Eagles, 1995: 131). Eagles also cites borrowing figures from Bristol public library as proof that ‘a surprisingly large number of Bristol’s middling sort were reading (or feigning to read) in French’ (Eagles, 1995: 131). We have also seen evidence from Walker indicating that the ‘incorrect’ pronunciation of unnaturalized French loans was considered an embarrassing social gaffe. On the other hand, to use too many French words and pronunciations laid a speaker open to the charge of being a coxcomb. Lexicographers such as Johnson and Walker and other scholarly commentators on language would admit French loans to a certain extent, but expressed fears about the ‘genius’ of the language being altered by these: a clear case, so long after the Norman Conquest, of closing the stable door after the horse had bolted. However, of all the attitudes discussed in this chapter, only the notion that the use of French is seditious and/or unpatriotic is peculiar to this time of extended hostility between Britain and France. We might suppose that such an attitude has no place in these times of entente cordiale, but the zeal with which American patriots changed French fries to freedom fries to express their dismay at the lack of French support for US military activity in Iraq shows how closely intertwined attitudes to language and politics/patriotism can still be.

Notes (1) Habeas Corpus is defined in the OED as a writ ‘requiring the body of a person restrained of liberty to be brought before the judge or into court, that the lawfulness of the restraint may be investigated and determined’. Acts allowing the suspension of habeas corpus have been passed at various times of crisis.

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(2) This text has been attributed to Richard Owen Cambridge, and is cited under his name in Tucker (1961: 93). (3) Presumably, Walker intended this to be ‘without the g’ since his examples of ‘French’ pronunciation still contain /n/ but not /g/. (4) It is strange that a first citation date of 1758 is given for one of these words and 1759 for the other. In fact, since both appear in the London Gazette in 1758, this date should be given for both.

References 17th and 18th-century Burney Collection Newspapers. Online at http://gdc.gale.com/ products/17th-and-18th-century-burney-collection-newspapers/ Beal, J.C. and Grant, A. (2006) Make do and mend: An online investigation into processes of neologisation and the dearth of borrowing in newer English wartime vocabulary. In C. Dalton-Puffer, N. Ritt, H. Schendl and D. Kastovsky (eds) Syntax, Style and Grammatical Norms: English from 1500–2000 (pp. 55–72). Bern: Peter Lang. Buchanan, J. (1753) The Complete English Scholar. London: A. Millar. Carew, R. (1602) The Survey of Cornvvall. Written by Richard Carew of Antonie, Esquire. London: Printed by S.S [tafford] for Iohn Iaggard. Cohen, M. (1996) Fashioning Masculinity: National Identity and Language in the Eighteenth Century. London: Routledge. Colley, L. (1992) Britons: Forging the Nation 1707–1837. London: Pimlico. Database of Linguistic and Stylistic Criticism in Eighteenth-century Periodical Reviews. Online at http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/reviews/ [email [email protected] for access]. Eagles, R. (1995) Francophilia in English Society, 1748–1815. Basingstoke: Macmillan. Early English Texts Online. http://eebo.chadwyck.com [subscribers only]. Eighteenth-century Collections Online. http://find.galegroup.com/ecco/ Gilmore, T.B. Jr. (1981) Johnson’s attitudes to French influence on the English language. Modern Philology 78 (3), 243–260. Hunt, I. (1781) Sermons on Public Occasions. London: R. Foulder. Johnson, S. (1755) A Dictionary of the English Language. London: R. Dodsley. Oxford English Dictionary Online. http://www.oed.com [subscribers only]. Pringle, Sir J. (1775) A discourse on the torpedo. Critical Review 39 (January), 49. Tombs, R. and Tombs, I. (2006) That Sweet Enemy. Britain and France: The History of a LoveHate Relationship. London: Heinemann. Tucker, S. (1961) English Examined: Two Centuries of Comment on the Mother Tongue. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Walker, J. (1791) A Critical Pronouncing Dictionary. London: G.G.J. and J. Robinson, and T. Cadell.

9 Pronouncing Dictionaries between Patriotism and Prescriptivism: Perspectives on Provincialism in Webster’s America Massimo Sturiale

Introduction This chapter explores the tension between democratic ideals and the desire for a national language in the early American republic. It focuses on the competing lexicographers Noah Webster and Joseph Worcester, and particularly on their conflicting attitudes to a London-based standard of English pronunciation and its relevance to Americans. As the most popular and influential orthoepist of the age, the English John Walker was the primary index to these lexicographers’ attitudes: Worcester featured Walker in his works, while Webster often criticized Walker’s observations by contrasting them explicitly with those of such other orthoepists as the Scottish William Perry, who Webster claimed was a more accurate transcriber and who I will argue had a more relaxed attitude than Walker towards variation and towards provincial pronunciation. Webster’s rejection of British standards was consistent with his promotion of democratic ideals, but it was more difficult for him to reconcile this desire for democracy and usage with a desire for a national standard language: as Montgomery observes, ‘Webster disliked provincial speech and sought uniformity in American English as a matter of national honor’ 155

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(Montgomery, 2001: 99). This chapter argues that, by supporting Perry over Walker, Webster was not only rejecting England but implicitly promoting descriptivism and thus democracy. I will conclude by contextualizing Webster more broadly: although linguistic prescriptivism and prejudice often coexist and conflict with more descriptive attitudes to language, the discourse of democracy is characteristically American.

From Purism to Prescriptivism: The British Background The desire to standardize spoken English was a phenomenon that began in the later 18th century. There were much earlier debates about linguistic purism, of course. As Blank has reminded us, in the 16th century some commentators argued that the English at court was superior to other dialects: The centralization – and unification – of English in and around the language spoken at Court, locating ‘southern’, ‘northern’, and ‘western’ dialects was more than a matter of mapping the site of linguistic differences. It was about distinguishing the ‘best’ English from its inferiors, ‘true’ English from the confusion of ‘Englishes’ which could be heard around the nation. (Blank, 2006: 214–215) The most prominent 16th-century debates concerned vocabulary. For instance, in the paratext to his 1561 translation of Castiglione’s Il Cortegiano [The Courtier], Thomas Hoby included John Cheke’s now famous 1557 letter urging him to keep ‘our own tung . . . cleane and pure, vnmixt and vnmangled’ by limiting the flood of borrowed terms from ‘other tunges’ which were entering the language at the time (Cheke 1900 [1557]: 12; see Nocera Avila, 1992). The same words, ‘clean’ and ‘pure’, recur in quite different contexts: Lippi-Green uses them while reconstructing linguistic discrimination against accents other than American in the contemporary United States (Lippi-Green, 1997: 45). These examples illustrate that the desire to protect the purity of a ‘national’ English language has persisted through time, but that the terms of the debate change with the context. The context of the 18th century saw the concern with pure English extend from lexis to grammar and particularly to pronunciation, intensified by a new desire to standardize. For the lecturer and orthoepist Thomas Sheridan, ‘it was the variability of pronunciation, more than any other linguistic feature, which signalled the “decline” of English as a language’ (MacMahon, 1998: 382). Sheridan acknowledged variation in London and

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preferred court to cockney speech, or at least the speech of ‘people of education at court’ (Sheridan, 1762: 30, 247; see Fisher 2001: 73; MacMahon, 1998: 383) Between the Renaissance and the 18th century, then, the pronunciation of the London court had shifted from the best English to a potential standard for English (e.g. Beal, 2004a: 169). Scholars have attributed this desire to standardize language to a variety of factors. For Bronstein, standardization was a feature of the Enlightenment: We know that the ‘age of reason’ was reflected in the attitudes of the language molders of the period – an antipathy for irregularity and a strong sense of what has been called ‘gentlemanly culture’. (Bronstein, 1986: 23) The rise of a London standard also reflected profound social changes in the period, from a system where ‘caste’ was determined by birth to a more fluid one where ‘class’ was determined by wealth and occupation (e.g. Fisher, 2001: 72). Surveying English Pronunciation in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, Jones describes this ‘sea-change in the way linguistic usage is perceived to relate to criteria such as social status and place of geographic origin (the two often vitally interconnected)’ (Jones, 2006: 117). Sheridan was Irish: this chapter interprets some of the connections between provincial origins and linguistic authority.

Standard Ideology and 18th-century Pronouncing Dictionaries Starting from the last quarter of the 18th century, a considerable number of pronouncing dictionaries were published in Great Britain whose mutual aim was the standardization of a British accent, most often under an English accent (see, e.g. Beal, 1999, 2004a; Mugglestone, 2003). The reliability and the influence of these works have often been questioned. However, 18th-century pronouncing dictionaries do generally offer important evidence both for language variation and change (e.g. Beal, 2004a; MacMahon, 1998) and for the marginalization and stigmatization of variants deemed vulgar or provincial such as the absence of the FOOT–STRUT split, the presence of the ‘Northumbrian Burr’, and /h/-dropping (Beal, 2004b). According to Jones, ‘by the 1780s and 1790s it is difficult to find writers dealing with pronunciation characteristics who do not address them in a judgmental, prescribing or attitudinal fashion’ (Jones, 2006: 117). John Walker’s Critical Pronouncing Dictionary (1791) provides early evidence for both the perception and the stigmatization of /r/-dropping (e.g. Beal, 2004a: 153) and of /ɑ/ in

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words like BATH, features that are now prestigious in British English and separate ‘reference varieties of English and American English’ (Beal, 2004a: 153, 138–142, 153–157; Fisher, 2001: 75–77). Walker, whose career as an orthoepist began on the stage and in the schoolroom, is generally agreed to be the most influential compiler of the period, not just in Britain but also, as we will see, in the United States. Walker was English, but some other influential orthoepists were originally provincial. The Irish actor and lecturer Thomas Sheridan, whose General Dictionary of the English Language was finally published in 1780, is usually regarded as the second most influential orthoepist, despite the fact that provincial orthoepists were not considered reliable models to be followed (Fisher, 2001: 72; MacMahon, 1998: 375ff). The prejudice against provincial orthoepists and varieties of English, along with the desire for a standard of proper English, can be illustrated by William Kenrick’s prefatory remarks to his 1773 New Dictionary which contained ‘Not only the Explanation of Words . . . BUT . . . Their Pronunciation in SPEECH, according to the present Practice of polished Speakers in the Metropolis’: There seems indeed a most ridiculous absurdity in the pretensions of a native of Aberdeen or Tipperary, to teach the natives of London to speak and to read. Various have been nevertheless the modest attempts of the Scots and the Irish, to establish a standard of English pronunciation. That they should not have succeeded is no wonder. Men cannot teach others what they do not themselves know. (Kenrick, 1773: i) In hindsight, Kenrick’s claim would be disproved not only by Sheridan’s eventual success but also by the popularity and influence of William Perry. A former schoolteacher in Scotland, Perry produced textbooks and reference works. Of these, as guides to pronunciation, The Royal Standard English Dictionary (1775) and The Only Sure Guide to the English Tongue: Or, New Pronouncing Spelling Book (1776) were particularly popular not only in Great Britain but also in the United States (Sturiale, 2006: 144–150). Americans eventually produced their own spelling books and dictionaries, but a key issue in the long ‘War of the Dictionaries’ (Wells, 1973: 26) between Noah Webster and Joseph Worcester was the extent to which Americans should rely on British codifiers. Earlier in the history of the United States, many textbooks and reference works had been imported from Britain (e.g. Finegan, 2001: 365). Perry’s popularity in America was due to the Worcester, Massachusetts publisher Isaiah Thomas (Nichols, 1899: 443–444). According to Smith (1979: 37), the 18 editions of Perry’s spelling book made it the third best-selling book in this category, though well behind the English Dilworth and the American

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Webster. Perry was not only popular but influential. His transcription system had a deep influence on Jonathan Fisher (1768–1847), whose manuscripts show that he devised and used a ‘phonetic writing system, to represent the sounds of his speech’ (Smith, 1975: 34, 43–44). Perry’s more obvious influence is on the early American lexicographer Samuel Johnson Jr. (1757–1836), whose School Dictionary (dated by Worcester ‘(about) 1798’) heads that lexicographer’s list of ‘American Dictionaries of the English Language’ (Worcester, 1847 [1846]: lxxi). This Samuel Johnson was very dependent on Perry’s Royal Standard dictionary which itself ‘so completely dominated the New England field’ (Gibson, 1936: 290n; see also Micklethwait, 2000: 133–134). Perry was no exception to the general trend of using the best speech of London as a model for his readers. In Beal’s words, prescribing norms based on the London accent was the ‘major selling-point’ of 18th-century pronouncing dictionaries (Beal, 2004b: 332). The title page of the first, 1775 edition of Perry’s Royal Standard English Dictionary claimed to record the ‘True Pronunciation, According to the Present Practice of Men of Letters, Eminent Orators, and Polite Speakers in London’. Perry’s emphasis on both ‘Men of Letters’ and ‘Polite Speakers’ is significant and typical. As reported by MacMahon, in the second half of the 18th century the speech of ‘the socially secure and the learned, rather than the genteel speech of the Court, became increasingly recommended’. Walker (1791) made ‘respectable usage’ even more elusive by doubting its connection with either ‘the court’ or ‘the schools’ (Walker, 1791: vii–viii, quoted in MacMahon, 1998: 386). For many 18th-century Britons, the imaginary standard for English speech was an elite but elusive variety of London English.

Standards of English in an Independent America By the end of the 18th century, the United States was politically independent from Great Britain. However, as MacMahon has observed, there was disagreement among Americans over whether linguistic independence should necessarily follow: From the late eighteenth century onwards, in the United States considerable differences of opinion emerged over the desirability of regarding a form of English English pronunciation as a standard which Americans should acknowledge (tacitly if necessary). (MacMahon, 1998: 396) Noah Webster was one American codifier who expressed his political nationalism linguistically. While he aspired to a national standard of language, that

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standard was not a British one. His 1789 Dissertations on the English Language recommended ‘reforming the mode of spelling’ (Webster, 1789: 391) and rejected British English as ‘on the decline’: Great Britain whose children we are, and whose language we speak, should no longer be our standard; for the taste of her writers is already corrupted, and her language on the decline. (Webster, 1789: 20) That not everyone agreed with Webster might be inferred from the fact that in the introduction to his 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language he was continuing to express similar opinions: In a few instances, the common usage of a great and respectable portion of the people of this country accords with the analogies of the language, but not with the modern notation of English orthoepists. In such cases, it seems expedient and proper to retain our own usage. To renounce a practice confessedly regular, for one confessedly anomalous, out of respect to foreign usage, would hardly be consistent with the dignity of lexicography. The time can not be distant, when the population of this vast country will throw off their leading-strings, and walk in their own strength; and the more we can raise the credit and authority of principle over the caprices of fashion and innovation, the nearer we approach to uniformity and stability in practice. (Webster, 1828: Introduction: Pronunciation) Indeed, in the same year that Webster produced his American Dictionary of the English Language (1828), his onetime colleague and eventual competitor Joseph Worcester published an edition of Johnson’s English Dictionary . . . with Walker’s Pronouncing Dictionary. The title of Worcester’s first lexicographical work illustrates his sense that there was still an American market for British dictionaries. Worcester’s positive attitude to British spelling and pronunciation has been summarized by Bronstein (1986: 25): in contrast to Webster, Worcester believed that ‘British pronunciations were “better”, “more accurate”, “more harmonious and agreeable”’. In the often-reprinted introduction to his own 1830 Comprehensive Pronouncing and Explanatory Dictionary of the English Language, Worcester justified his opinion that ‘with regard to the many millions who speak the English language’, although ‘the usage of the best society of the particular country or district where one resides is not to be disregarded’, ‘the usage of London is entitled to far more weight than that of any other city’ (Worcester, 1830: xiii–xiv). In later publications, Worcester

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extends his defence of London standards for ‘American writers and speakers’: How far is it proper for the people of the United States to be guided, in their pronunciation, by the usage of London? To this it may be answered, that it is advisable for American writers and speakers to conform substantially to the best models, wherever they may be found; and so long as London holds its rank as the great metropolis of the literature of the English language, so long it must have a predominating influence with respect to writing and speaking it. If the influence of the usage of London were discarded, where should we seek for a usage that would be generally acknowledged as entitled to higher authority? There is no one city in the United States which holds a corresponding rank, as a centre of intelligence and fashion, – no one which is the central and undisputed metropolis of Anglo-American literature, as London is of English literature. The pronunciation in the United States is, indeed, now substantially conformed to the usage of London. The works of the English orthoëpists, who have regarded the usage of London as their standard, have been as generally circulated and used in this country, as they have been in England; and there is, undoubtedly, a more general conformity to London usage in pronunciation throughout the United States, than there is throughout Great Britain. (Worcester, 1847 [1846]: xxii) For Worcester, ‘[t]he standard of pronunciation’ should be ‘the present usage of literary and well-bred society’. Although Worcester acknowledges that neither ‘the usage of good society’ nor the observations of ‘orthoëpists’ in London are ‘uniform’, he believes that as ‘the great metropolis of English literature’ London should ‘giv[e] law, in relation to style and pronunciation, to the many millions who write and speak the language’, including ‘American writers and speakers’ (Worcester, 1847 [1846]: xxii). John Pickering’s review of Worcester’s edition of Johnson’s dictionary (1828) highlights the conflict between Worcester and Webster over whether ‘two distinct nations’ should share one linguistic standard (Pickering, 1828: 16–17). That opposition was especially reflected in their attitudes to John Walker (MacMahon, 1998: 398–400; Pickering, 1828: 18–32). Pickering shared and defended Worcester’s assumption of British linguistic authority, having himself codified an apologetic Vocabulary of Americanisms in 1816 (e.g. Fisher, 2001: 66). Pickering drew on his own ‘residence of two years in London’ to undermine Webster’s claim that Walker’s dictionary both ‘deviate[d]’ from the ‘tolerably uniform’ ‘standard’ of pronunciation among

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‘respectable people’ and that ‘the attempt to make Walker’s work “a standard, has done more to corrupt the language, than any event that has taken place for five hundred years past”’ (Pickering, 1828: 19–21). Webster was extraordinarily critical of Walker, who was an obvious symbol of a British standard for pronunciation. Throughout the introduction to his 1828 dictionary, Webster objected to norms prescribed in Walker’s Critical Pronouncing Dictionary, deeming Walker’s observations irrelevant and sometimes inaccurate. One of the ‘evils’ to be resisted, for example, was the phenomenon of front-glide insertion after velar consonants; this, as Wright (2008) has recently argued, was becoming a feature of 18th-century London speech, though it provoked conflicting commentary and was never to acquire prestige. As Wright summarizes, Walker records the front glide in guard in the 1791 and 1794 printings of his first edition, and was ‘prescriptively enthusiastic about the sound-change’; in contrast, the orthoepists Robert Nares (1784) and Thomas Batchelor (1809) warned against it (Wright, 2008: 222). Webster likewise rejected Walker’s recommendation of front-glide insertion as ‘polite’, noting that Walker’s dictionary entry for particular words fails to reflect his recommendations and that the glide insertion is in any case ‘affected’ and not ‘manly’: Walker, Principles No. 92, lays it down as a rule, that when a is preceded by the gutturals hard g or c, [he should have said palatals,] it is, in polite pronunciation, softened by the intervention of a sound like e, so that card, cart, guard, regard, are pronounced like keard, keart, gheard, regheard. Now it is remarkable that in the vocabulary or dictionary, the author has departed from his rule, for in not one of the following words, except guard, . . . has he directed this sound of e before the following vowel. . . . It is an affected pronunciation . . . wholly incompatible with that manly enunciation which is peculiarly suited to the genius of the language. Perry and Jameson have rejected it. (Webster, 1828: Introduction: Pronunciation) Webster also disagreed with Walker with respect to an ongoing sound change that would ultimately distinguish American from British English and that Walker seems to have resisted, the BATH ‘class of words . . . in which a has what is called, its Italian sound, as we pronounce it in father’ (see Beal, 2004a: 140; Mugglestone, 2003: 78–79). Here too Webster claims that Walker made errors that ‘Jones and Perry have corrected’. These examples are typical: when criticizing Walker, Webster often approved of William Perry.

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Provincialism and American Prescriptivism: Perry in America It is clear that the Scot William Perry was represented favourably by Webster principally because some of his observations contradicted those of Walker, an authoritative English codifier. But did the Scottish orthoepist have any positive significance for Webster? Like the British, Americans disparaged ‘provincial’ English: the Scottish emigrant John Witherspoon had coined the term Americanism in 1781 (Fisher, 2001: 68), and Webster himself desired ‘a sameness of pronunciation’ within America because ‘provincial accents are disagreeable to strangers and sometimes have an unhappy effect upon the social affections’ (Webster, 1789: 19–20, quoted in MacMahon, 1998: 398). In this section, I argue that Perry’s observations differed from the more prescriptive Walker’s in a way that Webster exploited as he attempted to codify a paradoxically democratic standard. Irish and Scottish orthoepists were popular in Britain and America despite the concern about the potential ‘corruption’ of provincial accents. In early American dictionaries, for instance, the observations made by the Irish Sheridan authoritatively appear in charts in the introductions to both Webster’s American Dictionary of the English Language (1828) and Worcester’s Universal and Critical Dictionary of the English Language (1846). Webster selected Sheridan (1784), Walker (1794), Jones (1798), Perry (1805) and Jameson (1827) to represent ‘the principal schemes of orthoepy’ and their treatment of such words with variable pronunciation as vulture: Vultshure (Walker, 1794) or Vulture (Perry, 1805). Perry never concealed his Scottish status as ‘Lecturer at the Academy at Edinburgh’. That phrase is featured on the title pages of American editions of his work (e.g. the Worcester 1796 edition of his Royal Standard English Dictionary), and Walker, in 1787, referred to Perry as ‘a very industrous [sic], accurate, and ingenious writer on English pronunciation, at Edinburgh’ (Walker, 1787: 36n; see Sturiale, 2006: 150). However, in 1828, Webster does not identify Perry as either English or Scottish; Sheridan, in contrast, is described as ‘an Irish gentleman’. Worcester’s survey of ‘ENGLISH ORTHOËPISTS’ is similar: Perry is mentioned, but (unlike Sheridan) is not identified as ‘a native’ of any country (Worcester, 1847 [1846]: lxv). For both Worcester and Webster the provincial origins of an orthoepist are definitely relevant when they disagree with him. Webster criticizes Sheridan harshly, for instance, for what he constructs as both the inaccuracy

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of this Irishman’s observations about English pronunciation and the unjustified influence of his works: Either he was not well acquainted with the best English pronunciation, or he had a disposition to introduce into use some peculiarities which the English did not relish. (Webster, 1828: Introduction: Pronunciation) While Webster claims that English usage was not affected by Sheridan’s failure to distinguish words like bar and barren by rejecting ‘the Italian sound of a, as in father’, he does blame Sheridan for ‘contribut[ing] very much to propagate the change of tu into chu, or tshu; as in natshur’ (Webster, 1828: Introduction: Pronunciation) and in other respects corrupting the usage of both Britain and America: Yet as his Dictionary was republished in this country, it had no small effect in corrupting the pronunciation of some classes of words, and the effects of its influence are not yet extinct. (Webster, 1828: Introduction: Pronunciation) Worcester for his part, as reported by the sympathetic Pickering, attributed what he constructed as the deviation of the pronunciation of ‘Old and New England’ to the influence of ‘the Scotch dictionary of Perry’. The language of this paragraph is relatively neutral: Pickering concludes it by asserting that ‘where we [Americans] differ from the English, particularly in some of the vowels, it will be found that we agree with the Scotch’ (Pickering, 1828: 29). However, when he had earlier observed that it is necessary to know the origins of ‘the different orthoëpists, who are held up as authorities’, Pickering feels ‘no great deference for any Scottish authority, as to the pronunciation of English’ (Pickering, 1828: 24). Pickering defends Walker as an authoritative recorder of English pronunciation, rebutting charges ‘that Sheridan and Walker introduced a pronunciation which was entirely new’ (Pickering, 1828: 29), while also suggesting that the provincial Perry has changed American pronunciation. In contrast, Webster’s respect for Perry seems based on his perception that Perry was more ‘descriptive’ than Walker. It is beyond the scope of this chapter to prove this claim. We have seen above that Webster objected to Walker giving a ‘its short sound’ rather than ‘its Italian sound’ in ‘two or three hundred’ words likely of the BATH set (Webster, 1828: Introduction: Pronunciation; cf. Beal, 2004a: 140). MacMahon observes that ‘there is much evidence to show that John Walker was sometimes prone to adopt

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an authoritarian and highly prescriptive view of what constituted an acceptable current English English pronunciation of certain words’ (MacMahon, 1998: 378; see also Beal, 2003). Holmberg (1964: 26) has described Perry as ‘a somewhat more independent judge of Standard English’. Indeed, despite Perry’s explicit aim ‘to fix a standard for the pronunciation of the English language’ (Perry, 1775: iv), in a prominent place at the end of the preface to his Royal Standard English Dictionary he presents himself as tolerant of variation: Words differently pronounced by our best speakers, as kno˘wl‘eˇdge, or kno¯w'leˇdge; go¯ld or gôld, &c. are particularly taken notice of and every person may pronounce them as he thinks most conformable to etymology, analogy or euphony, without betraying his provinciality, or deviating from the present mode of pronunciation. (Perry, 1775: xiv) Webster presents a similar image of Perry as more descriptive than prescriptive, claiming that of ‘the five authorities’ surveyed, ‘the notation of Perry, with the exception of a few words ending in ure, is most nearly accordant to the present usage in England, as far as my observations, while in that country, extended. That of Walker is by far the most remote from that usage’. Webster’s earlier description of Perry claimed that his pronouncing dictionary ‘has rejected most of the peculiarities of Sheridan, Walker, and Jones, and given the language nearly as it was spoken, before those authors undertook to regulate the pronunciation’ (Webster, 1828: Introduction: Pronunciation). Perry’s own works suggest that pronunciation was changing: Worcester regarded the pronunciations in Perry’s Synonymous, Etymological and Pronouncing Dictionary (1805) as more authoritative than the Royal Standard (1775) ‘published many years before’ (Worcester, 1830: xv). Any difference between American and British pronunciation over the period of the Revolutionary War could be attributed to the rise of pronouncing dictionaries and their influence in England (e.g. Fisher, 2001: 73; Webster, 1828: Introduction: Pronunciation). Perry’s relative conservatism with respect to words like card and vulture might therefore have been more representative of American usage; in his Vocabulary of Americanisms (1816), Pickering had claimed that American English was more archaic and therefore purer than British English (e.g. Montgomery, 2001: 105). In any case, Webster’s claim that Perry’s dictionary recorded the language before it was influenced by prescriptivists makes Perry (for Webster) doubly descriptive. For Webster in this context, the provincial Perry represents purity rather than corruption.

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The American Democratic Approach Webster’s use of Perry helped him characterize his prescriptive activities as democratic. In the wake of the American Revolution, Webster claimed that ‘an attempt to fix a standard on the practice of any particular class of people is highly absurd’ (Webster, 1789: 25); statements like this seemed to distance Webster from the standardizing activities of his British colleagues. Yet in his 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language, Webster presented himself as an arbiter and a codifier of an American standard. In the preface, he asserts a rather prescriptive agenda, that ‘the language can be improved in regularity, so as to be more easily acquired by our own citizens’ and its ‘anomalies’ ‘reduce[d]’ and ‘redeemed from corruptions’. However, later in the introduction he claims that this process will differ from what he portrays as British linguistic authoritarianism, perhaps implicitly epitomized by Walker: ‘[t]he language of a nation is the common property of the people, and no individual has a right to make inroads upon its principles’ (Webster, 1828: Introduction: Pronunciation). Instead, Webster characterizes Americans as already having democratically levelled some ‘difference of dialect’ through such factors as ‘mutual aid’ and ‘common schooling’ (see also Fisher, 2001: 78), and encourages them to see his standardization process as both transparent and necessary by contrasting the conflicting observations of Sheridan, Walker, Perry and two other orthoepists in a multi-page chart. It is beyond the scope of this chapter to assess the accuracy of Webster’s claim that Perry’s notations were ‘most nearly accordant to the present usage in England’ and Walker’s ‘the most remote from that usage’ (Webster, 1828: Introduction: Pronunciation). However, it is clear that the Scottish Perry’s difference from the perhaps more prescriptive Walker allowed Noah Webster to portray his own linguistic selections as in some way democratic. Even Worcester had a relatively relaxed attitude towards linguistic variation, which I argue had become a basis of the American approach to usage. While arguing that as a spoken standard for Americans ‘the usage of London is entitled to far more weight than that of any other city’, as we have seen, Worcester also defends what we might think of as provincial usage: [t]he usage of the best society of the particular country or district in which one resides, is not to be disregarded. If our pronunciation is agreeable to the analogy of the language, and conformed to the practice of the best society with which we have intercourse, we may have no sufficient reason to change it, though it should deviate, more or less, from the existing usage of London. A proper pronunciation is, indeed, a desirable accomplishment, and is indicative of a correct taste and a good education;

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still it ought to be remembered, that, in speech as in manners, he who is the most precise is often the least pleasing, and that rusticity is more excusable than affectation. (Worcester, 1830: xiv; also 1847 [1846]: xxii) Despite Worcester’s association of education with the best English pronunciation, he nevertheless claims to prefer provincial ‘rusticity’ to ‘affectation’. Webster’s self-consciously American discourse of descriptivism and democracy can be seen in later works on pronunciation. In 1859, Laidlaw used Webster’s discourse of democracy to justify departing from Webster: Wherever the author in this respect differs from Webster or Worcester, he does it to give a voice to millions in the Middle, Southern, and Western States, who have a claim equal to that of inhabitants of New England to have their preferences regarded. On account of the first position defined in the last sentence, and for the purpose of localizing the author and the point of view from which his picture of the language has been delineated, the work has been called ‘An American Pronouncing Dictionary’. (Laidlaw, 1859: 5) J.S. Kenyon described a widespread ‘General American’ accent in American Pronunciation (1924), without presenting it as a standard: Probably no intelligent person actually expects cultivated people in the South, the East, and the West to pronounce alike. Yet much criticism, or politely silent contempt, of the pronunciations of cultivated people in other localities than our own is common. (Kenyon, 1924: 5, quoted in Kachru, 1992: 51) This observation suggests that not all Americans shared what Kachru describes as Kenyon’s ‘distaste for linguistic homogeneity’ (Kachru, 1992: 51). MacMahon summarizes the debates among Kenyon and his contemporary codifiers Krapp and Kurath as to the existence and nature of regional or national standards of pronunciation (MacMahon, 1998: 401–402). Kenyon contrasted his attitudes with British ones. In 1944 Kenyon and Knott, co-editing A Pronouncing Dictionary of American English, contrasted their work with Daniel Jones’ English Pronouncing Dictionary (1917). While their preface takes for granted the connection between reference varieties and education, they claim to have recorded more varieties of English in a less prejudiced way: More than ten years ago several scholars especially interested in American English suggested to one of the present editors the making of a phonetic

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pronouncing dictionary of the speech of the United States that might serve, both in the United States and elsewhere, the purpose served for Southern British English by Professor Daniel Jones’s English Pronouncing Dictionary [1917]. About six years ago the editors became associated in this work. Although as a pioneer in the field great credit must go to Professor Jones, who has placed all later lexicographers under inescapable obligation to him, our task is much different from his. He records the pronunciation of a limited and nearly homogeneous class of people in England in a type of speech identical with that of the editor himself. Our problem has been to record without prejudice or preference several different types of speech used by large bodies of educated and cultivated Americans in widely separated areas and with markedly different backgrounds of education and culture. Here let it be emphasized once and for all that we have no prejudice whatever either for or against any of these varieties of American speech. (Kenyon & Knott, 1944: v; my emphasis) Other American scholars had also contrasted the usage traditions on either side of the Atlantic. In 1927, Grattan was somewhat critical about the BBC’s role in the direction of standardization: Excellent work in the direction of a clear and uniform pronunciation is already being done by the Advisory Committee of the British Broadcasting Corporation. There is a risk, however, that a committee of only six members will tend to press a too rigidly uniform and a too personal and local pronunciation upon the listeners-in of these islands, and will thus widen the gaps between England, Greater Britain, and the United States. (Grattan, 1927: 439) Grattan’s witty and sharp comment also echoes Webster’s claim that the supposed ‘general or national’ standards codified by conflicting English orthoepists instead reflect ‘local or particular practice’: It has been in this manner, by presenting to the public local or particular practice, or mere innovation, for a standard, instead of general or national usage, that the authors above mentioned have unsettled the pronunciation of many words and multiplied diversities of practice. These attempts to obtrude local usage on the public, and bend it to the general or national usage, are the boldest assumptions of authority in language that the history of literature has ever exhibited . . . How long the citizens of this country will submit to these impositions, time only can determine. (Webster, 1828: Introduction: Pronunciation)

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Exploiting the stigma of the ‘provincial’, both Webster and Grattan undermine the received standard by characterizing it as merely local. And all of these quotations, which cover a time span of over a century, reinforce the ideology that that this particular strand of the American prescriptive perspective is self-consciously democratic. A patriotic concern with purism remains in contemporary Britain, although some features of the language debate have changed. Having developed ‘from a colonial substandard to a prestige language’, in the words of Kahane (1992), American English is now perceived to be ‘corrupting’ British English: The Prince of Wales’s claim yesterday that American English has ‘a very corrupting’ effect upon the language will be applauded by many who treasure our mother tongue. (Times, 1995) Social and linguistic prejudice also pervades modern America, of course: just one example is Lippi-Green’s English with an Accent: Language, Ideology, and Discrimination in the United States (1997). Colonialism, immigration, and globalization change the contexts, but a desire to protect and purify the variety chosen to represent the national language has stayed the same.

References Algeo, J. (ed.) (2001) The Cambridge History of the English Language. Vol. 6: English in North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Beal, J.C. (1999) English Pronunciation in the Eighteenth Century. Thomas Spence’s ‘Grand Repository of the English Language’. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Beal, J.C. (2004a) English in Modern Times. London: Arnold. Beal, J.C. (2004b) Marks of disgrace: Attitudes to non-standard pronunciation in 18thcentury English pronouncing dictionaries. In M. Dossena and R. Lass (eds) Methods and Data in English Historical Dialectology (pp. 329–349). Bern: Peter Lang. Blank, P. (2006) The Babel of Renaissance English. In L. Mugglestone (ed.) The Oxford History of English (pp. 213–239). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bronstein, A. (1986) The history of pronunciation in English-language dictionaries. In R.K. Hartmann (ed.) The History of Lexicography. Papers from the Dictionary Research Centre Seminar at Exeter, March 1986 (pp. 23–33). Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Cheke, J. (1900 [1557]) A letter of Syr J. Cheekes to his loving frind, Mayster Thomas Hoby. In W.E. Henley (ed.) The Tudor Translations (pp. 12–13). London: Nutt. Finegan, E. (2001) Usage. In J. Algeo (ed.) The Cambridge History of the English Language. Vol. 6: English in North America (pp. 358–421). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fisher, J. (2001) British and American, continuity and divergence. In J. Algeo (ed.) The Cambridge History of the English Language. Vol. 6: English in North America (pp. 59–85). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Gibson, M.J. (1936) America’s first lexicographer: Samuel Johnson Jr., 1757–1836. American Speech 11 (4), 283–292. Grattan, J.H.G. (1927) On Anglo-American cultivation of standard English. Review of English Studies 3, 430–441. Holmberg, B. (1964) On the concept of standard English and the history of modern English pronunciation. Acta Universitatis Lundensis Nova Series 56 (3), 1–88. Jones, C. (2006) English Pronunciation in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Jones, D. (1917) An English Pronouncing Dictionary. London and Toronto: Dent. Kachru, B.B. (1992). Models for non-native Englishes. In B.B. Kachru (ed.) The Other Tongue: English across Cultures (2nd edn) (pp. 48–74). Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press. Kahane, H. (1992) American English: From a colonial substandard to a prestige language. In B.B. Kachru (ed.) The Other Tongue: English across Cultures (2nd edn, pp. 211–219). Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press. Kenrick, W. (1773) A New Dictionary of the English Language. London: Printed for John and Francis Rivington. Eighteenth-century Collections Online [ECCO]: http:// find.galegroup.com/ecco Kenyon, J.S. (1924) American Pronunciation. Ann Arbor: George Wahr. Kenyon, J.S. and Knott, T.A. (1944) A Pronouncing Dictionary of American English. Springfield, MA: G. and C. Merriam. Laidlaw, A.H. (1859) An American Pronouncing Dictionary of the English Language. Philadelphia: Crissy and Markley. Lippi-Green, R. (1997) English with an Accent: Language, Ideology, and Discrimination in the United States. London: Routledge. MacMahon, M.K.C. (1998) Phonology. In S. Romaine (ed.) The Cambridge History of the English Language. Vol. 4: 1776–1997 (pp. 373–535). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Micklethwait, D. (2000) Noah Webster and the American Dictionary. Jefferson and London: McFarland and Company. Montgomery, M. (2001) British and Irish antecedents. In J. Algeo (ed.) The Cambridge History of the English Language. Vol. 6: English in North America (pp. 86–153). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mugglestone, L. (2003) Talking Proper: The Rise of Accent as Social Symbol (2nd edn). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Nichols, C.L. (1899) Some notes on Isaiah Thomas and his Worcester imprints. American Antiquarian Society 13, 429–447. Nocera Avila, C. (1992) The language of Hoby’s Courtyer. In C. Nocera Avila, N. Pantaleo and D. Pezzini (eds) Early Modern English: Trends, Forms and Texts. Papers read at the IV National Conference of History of English, Catania, 2–3 May 1991 (pp. 235–251). Fasano: Schena. Perry, W. (1775) The Royal Standard English Dictionary. Edinburgh: Printed for the author by David Willison. Eighteenth-century Collections Online [ECCO]: http://find. galegroup.com/ecco Pickering, J. (1828) Review of ‘Johnson’s English Dictionary . . . with Walker’s Pronouncing Dictionary Combined . . .’ J.E. Worcester (ed.) Boston: Examiner Press. Online at http:// books.google.ca/books?id = YPgvAAAAYAAJ&dq = pickering%20review%20johnson’s %20walker’s&pg = PA1#v = onepage&q&f = false

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Sheridan, T. (1762) A Course of Lectures on Elocution. London: For A. Millar, R. and J. Dodsley, T. Davies, C. Hender, J. Wilkie, E. Dilly. Eighteenth-century Collections Online [ECCO]: http://find.galegroup.com/ecco Sheridan, T. (1780) A General Dictionary of the English Language (2 vols). London: J. Dodsley, C. Dilly, J. Wilkie. Online at http://find.galegroup.com.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/ ecco Smith, R.M. (1975) The philosophical alphabet of Jonathan Fisher. American Speech 50 (12), 36–49. Smith, R.M. (1979) The interest in language and languages in colonial and federal America. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 123 (1), 29–46. Sturiale, M. (2006) William Perry’s The Royal Standard English Dictionary (1775): A provincial’s attempt to ascertain and fix a standard to the pronunciation of the English tongue. Historiographia Linguistica 33 (1/2), 139–168. Times (1995) English abroad. The Times, 24 March, 1. Walker, J. (1787) A Rhetorical Grammar, or Course of Lectures in Elocution (2nd edn). London: Printed for the author. Eighteenth-century Collections Online [ECCO]: http://find. galegroup.com/ecco Walker, J. (1791) A Critical Pronouncing Dictionary and Expositor of the English Language. London: G.G.J. and J. Robinson, T. Cadell. Eighteenth-century Collections Online [ECCO]: http://find.galegroup.com/ecco Webster, N. (1789) Dissertations on the English Language: With Notes, Historical and Critical. To Which Is Added, By Way of an Appendix, an Essay on a Reformed Mode of Spelling. Boston: I. Thomas and Company. Eighteenth-century Collections Online [ECCO]: http://find.galegroup.com/ecco Webster, N. (1828) An American Dictionary of the English Language . . . in Two Volumes (Vol. 1) (n.p.). New York: S. Converse. Sabin Americana, 1500–1926. http://find.galegroup. com/ Wells, R.A. (1973) Dictionaries and the Authoritarian Tradition. A Study in English Usage and Lexicography. The Hague and Paris: Mouton. Worcester, J.E. (1830) Comprehensive Pronouncing and Explanatory Dictionary of the English Language. Boston: Hilliard, Gray, Little and Wilkins. Online at http://books.google. ca/books?id = D_qfMYuoXasC&pg = PR1#v = onepage&q&f = false Worcester, J.E. (1847 [1846]) A Universal and Critical Dictionary of the English Language. Boston: Wilkins, Carter and Company. Online at http://books2.scholarsportal.info/ viewdoc.html?id = /ebooks/oca3/30/universalcritica00worcuoft Wright, L. (2008) Social attitudes towards Londoners’ front-glide insertion after velar consonants and before front vowels. In J.C. Beal, C. Nocera and M. Sturiale (eds) Perspectives on Prescriptivism (pp. 215–235). Bern: Peter Lang.

Part 4 Re-defining Boundaries: Ideology and Language Norms

10 Patriotism, Empire and Cultural Prescriptivism: Images of Anglicity in the OED Lynda Mugglestone

Dictionaries and Dictionary-making: Patriotism and Philology ‘A good language’, stated Thomas Wilson in 1724, ‘is both an Honour and of great Use to a Nation’. Conversely, he added, ‘an imperfect and unimproved Tongue, will for ever be a mark either of Carelessness, or of a low Genius of the People’ (Wilson, 1724: 36). Dictionaries, as Wilson indicates, were equally important in these images of national deficit or national praise. Here, however, his patriotic pride lay in tatters. Whereas ‘undertakings in other Countries have had the Countenance and Assistance of the greatest Men’, the British ‘have yet no good Dictionaries’. No counterpart existed for the apparently definitive works produced by the Académie française or, in Italy, by the Accademia della Crusca, which Wilson here commends.1 The consequences were far reaching: ‘for want of these Helps our best Words lie scattered in dark Corners, and are not easy to be found by the Youth and others that want them’. It was, Wilson continued (1724: 23–24), ‘as if we had a padlock upon our Tongues’ such that ‘Silence, and Roughness, and Spleen, are a kind of Character upon our nation’. That the good nation should have a good dictionary is here made axiomatic, while patriotism and prescriptive concerns also dovetail with precision 175

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(the dictionary which England lacks, Wilson adds, should be able to bring order to words, and stamp authority upon usage, as well as tackling that ever-vexed issue of linguistic change). Just over 30 years later, Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary would determinedly engage with matters of this kind; his ‘idea of an English dictionary’, as his 1747 Plan confirmed, was (at least initially) one by which the purity of English ‘may be preserved, its use ascertained, and its duration lengthened’ (Johnson, 1747: 32). Moreover, in terms of patriotism, the aim was now to wrest the ‘palm of philology’ back to England: ‘I have devoted this book, the labour of years, to the honour of my country, that we may no longer yield the palm of philology to the nations of the continent’ (Johnson, 1755: C2v). David Garrick, Johnson’s friend, consolidated these images of patriotic one-upmanship in a celebratory poem in which Johnson, with his pen as weapon, had ‘beat forty French/ And will beat forty more’ (see De Maria & Kolb, 1998: 38–39). French lexicography was, in Garrick’s martial imagery, hence firmly vanquished while the ‘low genius’ and ‘carelessness’ which Wilson had berated were, in England, now defiantly cast aside. Nineteenth-century narratives – of nationhood and lexicography, and of patriotism alongside philology – are nevertheless rather different. Discussions within the London Philological Society in the 1870s, for example, make plain new anxieties about the location of that ‘palm of philology’ which Johnson had earlier claimed. For Henry Sweet, phonetician and president of the Society in 1877 and 1878, it was, for example, ‘the inability to grasp general principles’ which unfortunately now appeared as ‘one of the most marked characteristics of English philologists’ – and particularly, he argued, when compared with ‘that admirably exhaustive and scientific style which we naturally look for in German work’ (Sweet, 1878: 416; 1877: 5). Indeed, as he added in a telling comment on national shame in this respect: ‘we might go on for ever in our present rut, until German investigation has completely exhausted the subject of English philology’ (Sweet, 1878: 416). The French too were in the ascendant. ‘The rapidity with which scientific Romance philology has established itself . . . in the last few years is very remarkable’, Sweet noted (1877: 6): ‘the present school of French philology . . . is far ahead of the English’. The early history of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) only seemed to confirm this lack of achievement. Originally proposed by the Philological Society in the 1850s (Mugglestone, 2008), by 1874, as Alexander Ellis, one of Sweet’s predecessors as president, admitted, the dictionary instead ‘remains, and may remain merely one of the things we have tried to do’ (Ellis, 1874: 354). As he added: ‘Several things, indeed, make me inclined to think that a Society is less fitted to compile a dictionary than to get the materials collected’. Not a single entry had been published, and

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materials collected for its making were, as the next few years would prove, scattered in disarray across Britain and Europe.2 A new editor for the dictionary – James Murray, appointed in 1878 – and a firm contract for publication (signed with Oxford University Press in March 1879) nevertheless brought new promise of redress, for patriotism and philology alike.3 The eminent linguist Friedrich Max Müller (1878), advising the Delegates of Oxford University Press on whether or not to publish the dictionary, already stressed the potential significance of the OED in these terms. As he contended, the proposed work was ‘an undertaking of such magnitude, in which one might almost say the national honour of England is engaged’. Public reception of the dictionary regularly revealed the operation of similar sensibilities. ‘When the work is completed there will be no fear of unfavourable comparison between the English dictionary and the French’, The Times stressed, reviewing the dictionary’s progress into the letter C (Times, 1889: 4). While the OED represented, as the reviewer conceded, ‘the first serious attempt by English scholars’, national triumph seemed assured. Comparing the OED with Emile Littré’s Dictionnaire de la langue française (completed in 1873, 10 years after publication began),4 it was, with some satisfaction, Littré’s work which the Times now found wanting. An earlier review in John Bull made the patriotic challenges vested in the OED still more explicit. As it made plain, the ‘French Academy may again hide their diminished heads as they did when Dr. Johnson, single-handed, undertook the task which had taxed their united powers . . . the great work of Littré himself cannot compare in completeness with that of his English compeer’ (John Bull, 1885: 819).

The OED: Patriotism and National Pride As these and other examples confirm, the OED was often to be constructed as a quintessentially patriotic commodity. It was a work done ‘for the sake of the England they all loved’, as Frederick Furnivall – one of the founding fathers of the dictionary – affirmed (Times, 1900: 14); ‘It is a patriotic act to order it’, a review in the Speaker stressed one year earlier, undoubtedly spurred on by new national rivalries which accompanied the publication in America of Isaac Funk’s expansive Century Dictionary. Even in 1928, as the OED reached its final fascicle, a transparently British patriotism infused public commendations. The dictionary was, as The Times declared, ‘one of the noblest possessions the nation has’ (Times, 1928: 17); it was ‘a great national dictionary’, the Manchester Guardian similarly stressed on 2 March. Comments by Murray himself can draw on similarly partisan concerns. His sense of affront was, for example, all too evident in a private letter which

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he wrote on finding out that it was the French Littré which that most English of institutions, the House of Lords, had used in discussing the meaning of the word suzerainty: My Lord, I observe that a question was put in the House of Lords last night as to the meaning of the word Suzerainty and that in lack of an English authority your Lordship referred to the Dictionary of M. Littré. As Editor of the New English Dictionary of the Philological Society, which is intended to do for English more than M. Littré has done for French, I am able to give you plenty of English authority for the word. (MP/JAHM/ draft of a letter/n.d.)5 More to the point, as Murray also stressed, it was essential that suzerainty be used and understood ‘in the English sense which is over-lord-ship’. The Frenchderived sense (in which suzerainty instead meant ‘supremacy’) was, he added, entirely obsolete in English use. ‘English authority’ thereby assumed pride of place, and Murray supplied a set of canonically English reference points as proof: ‘this is the sense in which the word has been used by Mr Gladstone, and Lord Beaconsfield, by Scott, and Byron . . . by the Times and other newspapers’.6

Describing the World of Words While national sympathies, and national pride, therefore frame the OED in a number of ways, a similarly clear alliance of patriotism, the OED and prescriptivism is perhaps rather more problematic. The OED was, after all, deliberately founded on principles of impartiality and inclusiveness, of objectivity and descriptive rigour. As in the lectures describing the ideological and methodological foundations of the dictionary which Richard Trench delivered to the London Philological Society in November 1857, the dictionary was to be an ‘inventory’ of the language, characterized by its ‘impartial hospitality’ to empirically documented words and senses. It was, moreover, to be a work in which the lexicographer was a ‘historian’ rather than a ‘critic’ (Trench, 1860: 4–5), a scholar responsive to the demands of data (and evidence-based descriptivism) above personal predilections about whether a given word was ‘good’ or ‘bad’, admissible or otherwise. Prescriptivism was itself thereby formally proscribed (though see further Mugglestone, 2002c, 2005: 110–142), while the nationalistic purism which patriotism often prompts (evident in, say, Johnson’s Gallophobic comments

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under frenchify – ‘to infect with the manner of France; to make a coxcomb’ – or manage – ‘To treat with caution or decency: this is a phrase merely Gallick; not to be imitated’) was also cast aside. Instead, patriotism for Murray could lead to a striking celebration of the diversity, pluralism and global reach of English. Murray’s search for source materials for the dictionary presents a particularly useful example: the 1879–1880 Appeals for citational evidence were, for instance, explicitly directed to ‘English-speaking’ and ‘Englishreading’ people across the globe.7 As Murray stated, ‘readers in Great Britain, America, and the British Colonies’ were all urged to aid in the construction of ‘a lasting monument of our language’ by submitting quotations from written texts spanning 1150 to the present day (Murray, 1879: 3). Rather than fostering insularity, English, as Murray’s extant notes for his 1911 Oxford faculty lectures confirm, was likewise to be seen in markedly inclusive terms – as the language not only of those ‘who remain in Eng.[land] – but also of the people who go abroad, taking with them their language’. This remained true, he stressed, irrespective of whether the destination in question was ‘politically attached to [the] mother country, or like the American colonies’, was one which had become a territory ‘broken off, [to] form a diff[erent] state’ (MP/JAHM/Ms draft of a lecture/n.d.). The heterogeneous structure of the English lexicon also met with marked commendation. Murray noted with approval that ‘The language of Englishmen is now in its Vocabulary the most mixed language that the world has ever known’ (MP/JAHM/1911 Lectures/Lecture 1, 13). Indeed, as Murray pointed out, a recent double section of the dictionary had included over 150 words from foreign sources which, in turn, derived from a total of 55 other languages. Diversity prompts celebration rather than censure. As Murray concluded (MP/JAHM/1911 Lectures/Lecture 1, 16): ‘To every patriotic Englishman and Englishwoman, the history of this language, the fates of these words, may well be a subject of enthralling interesting, a wonderful page in the history of our people’. A ‘core of undisputed Anglicity’ was of course acknowledged as a defining element of English. Outside it, however, stretched a penumbra of usages in a language which had, throughout its history, been ‘indefinitely-extended’ in ways which could never be computed with ‘mathematical accuracy’. Murray’s rhetorical probing of the identity of ‘English’ (a topos evident in his work on a number of occasions between 1884 and 1911) would in fact repeatedly explore the geographical spread of the language, as well as the border territories of usage and the lexicographical difficulty of ‘drawing the line’. Is English, as he demanded, ‘all that all Englishmen speak, or some of what some Englishmen speak?’ Or, he ventured, ‘is it all that some Englishmen speak, or is it some of what all Englishmen speak?’ His questions went on: ‘Does it

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include the English of Lancashire & Yorkshire, of Somersetshire and Devonshire, the English of Ireland and Scotland, as well as that of London? Does it include the English of Great Britain, the English of Australia, and of South Africa, and of those most assertive of Englishmen, the Englishmen in India, who live in bungalows, hunt in jungles, wear terai hats or puggeries, and pyjamas, write chits instead of letters, and eat chutni and kedgeree?’ (MP/ JAHM/1911 Lectures/Lecture 1, 19). Murray’s answer to all these questions was a resounding ‘Yes’: ‘in its most comprehensive sense, and as an object of historical study, it includes all these; they are all forms of English’ (MP/JAHM/1911 Lectures/Lecture 1, 19). As in the celebrated diagram with which the ‘General Explanations’ of the OED began, it was the compass of English which remained of prime importance – the ‘vast aggregate of words and phrases’ which make up a ‘widely-diffused and highly-cultivated living language’ (Murray, 1888: xvii). Patriotism in this respect therefore leads to the sense of a transcendent form of English, spanning use across the globe. Words such as bungalow (from Hindustani bangla¯) and chutney (from Hindi chatni) were therefore fully represented in the OED, as were words such as aardvark (deriving from the usage of Dutch colonists in South Africa) – present in spite of objections raised by the Delegates of Oxford University Press that the latter was surely not really ‘English’.

Cultural Prescriptivism and the ‘Core of Anglicity’ Murray’s chosen images of ‘cultivation’ and Englishness are, however, worth examining in more detail. Patriotic pride informs not only the geographical reach of English – particularly important, as we will see, in the days of Empire – but also its cultural construction. As Murray stressed in his own presidential address to the Philological Society in 1880, English was to be seen as ‘a great, cultivated, civilized language’ (Murray, 1880: 131); it was, he elaborated, ‘the language of a civilized nation, the individuals of which are constantly growing in their knowledge of the objects, actions, and customs of other climes and other times’ (Murray, 1880: 131–132). He returned to the same idea in the following year, again defining English as ‘the language of a civilized nation, the members of which are prosecuting philosophy, science, art, trade, or sport, and constantly in these pursuits, discovering or creating new objects, and new properties of the old’. As such, he noted, English speakers must be ‘constantly increasing its words for these new processes of discovery’ (Murray, 1881: 132). As Murray’s lectures illustrate, however, English can also be defined by what it is not. Indeed, as a ‘great, cultivated, civilized language’, English is,

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Murray contended, also necessarily ‘distinct from the scanty idiom of a barbarous tribe, isolated by mutual hostility from the other barbarous tribes around it’ (Murray, 1880: 131). Images of linguistic and cultural deprivation (‘scanty’, ‘barbarous’) are here made to act as antonyms, elaborating English through antithesis. As Murray’s entry for barbarous in the dictionary likewise made plain,8 to be barbarous is indeed to be ‘uncultured, uncivilized, unpolished’, to be ‘rude, rough, wild, savage’. It is, Murray adds, ‘the usual opposite of civilized’ (OED1: barbarous, sense 3). In what can at times prove an uneasy co-existence with the OED’s rhetoric of descriptive impartiality, cultural dyads of this kind – of civilization against barbarism, and of culture against savagery – would in fact repeatedly recur in the diction and defining practices of the first edition of the dictionary. The evaluative prominence of civilization within the metalanguage of particular entries can, for example, be striking. Tattoo in a modern dictionary is, as the relevant entry in the Encarta Dictionary of World English (Rooney, 1999) illustrates, simply ‘to mark the skin with a tattoo, or form a tattoo on the skin’ (tattoo1). The corresponding entry for tattoo (v2) in OED1 conversely reveals rather different structures of meaning in which the making of such ‘permanent marks or designs upon the skin’ is identified as something ‘practiced by various tribes of low civilization’. Calibrated in terms of the kind of spatial metaphor (‘low civilization’) common in Victorian discourses on race,9 the entry crafts a clear sense of cultural normativity (and cultural hierarchy). Entries for words such as king and chief are similarly illuminating. The former in OED1 designates ‘the title of the ruler of an independently organized state called a kingdom’ – at least when used ‘in European and other more or less civilized countries’. The sense is quite different, the entry nevertheless suggests, when referring to ‘the native rulers of petty African states, towns or tribes, Polynesian islands, and the like’. The role of civilization as cultural index in chief is, in turn, both plain and to the point: ‘The head man . . . of a small uncivilized community’. As such examples indicate, what is described, and the point of view which such descriptions can enact, can readily reveal particular aspects of cultural and ideological positioning. Even in entries for such ostensibly neutral words as day, the ‘civilized’ can emerge as a critical part of the definition. As Murray explained, only ‘in civilized countries’ does day signify ‘the period from midnight to midnight’ (OED1: day [sb], sense 6). Outside, by implication, stand a range of meanings (and countries) evidently less ‘civilized’ (and in which the conceptualization of time is both other and profoundly alien). Bed can partake in similar processes of cultural division whereby the neutrality of modern definitions (as in the Encarta Dictionary’s bed, sense 1: ‘a piece of furniture on which to sleep, usually consisting of a rectangular frame with

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a mattress on top’) is self-evidently remote from Murray’s decision in OED1 to specify that a bed is ‘a regular item of household furniture in civilized life’. The play of signification in blanket is similar. The phrasing of dictionary entries is rarely accidental; syntax and semantics act in careful symbiosis. Here, for instance, a significant difference clearly lurks in the gap between the declarative statement that a blanket is, by definition, ‘the principal covering of a bed’ (especially when beds have, as we have seen, already been defined in terms of their indexical role in civilization) – and the information that blankets are ‘used by savages and destitute persons, for clothing’ (a turn of phrase which deftly suggests divergence from their ‘true’ role – and especially when compounded by use of the culturally loaded ‘savages’). Similarly ethnocentric notions of civilization split the sense division of nouns such as petticoat. Here the ‘civilized’ discourse of European dress defines sense 2a (‘a skirt as distinguished from a bodice, worn either externally, or beneath the gown or frock . . . and trimmed or ornamented’). Sense 2d is, however, strikingly different in tone: ‘applied also to the rudimentary garment worn by women among primitive or uncivilized peoples’. Both ‘applied’ and ‘rudimentary garment’ deliberately act as distancing devices within the defining strategies at work; in other words, while one might be able to ‘apply’ petticoat to these ‘rudimentary garments’, the underlying sense is clear. These are not really petticoats, in the true and English sense of the word. History and historical principles here refract the dictionary’s own historical positioning (just as discourses of gender, class, race and sexuality also make their appearance in the dictionary, reflecting contemporary social mores and the role of dictionary-maker as a writer of history in ways which extend beyond the kind of neutrality envisaged by Trench).10 As Chaudhuri (2000: 56) argues, for instance, ‘something as specific as dress can embody . . . the values and preconceptions of nineteenth-century British imperialism’ with ease. And within the dictionary, too, clothing (or the specification of that which can be used as clothing) readily acts as a prime cultural divide, further delineating the territories of a wide-ranging cultural normativity. We can think equally of the entry for pagne in OED1, where the chosen definition inescapably foregrounds images of otherness and cultural deficit as viewed through a dominantly anglocentric lens: ‘A cloth; the piece of cloth forming originally the single item of clothing variously worn by the natives of hot countries: . . . by uncivilized races’, the entry states (those deemed ‘more civilized’ are, however, allowed to have ‘retained this as part of their costume’). A glance at the strategically rewritten versions of this entry in OED2 (1989) and OED Online (2000–) reveals a rather different orientation. In the former, ‘civilized’ is replaced by ‘westernized’ while the derogatory diction of the ‘uncivilized’ is silenced entirely (OED2 pagne: ‘a loin-cloth, or

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a short petticoat, worn by primitive peoples, or retained by the westernized as part of their costume’). Still greater cultural revision is evident in the redrafted text dated September 2009 in OED Online: ‘In West Africa: a length of cloth, esp. one worn draped around the waist or forming a tunic (now chiefly by women)’. In a similar way, and in a strategic renegotiation of the history of the OED itself, the diction of ‘savages’ is elided from blanket in OED2, while ‘primitive peoples’ emerges as the wide-ranging euphemism of choice, again intentionally sanitizing these uncomfortable association of ‘civilized’ and ‘other’ within earlier iterations of the dictionary.11 In the unsanitized diction of the first edition, however, savage (glossed as ‘uncivilized; existing in the lowest state of culture’) was widely – and revealingly – used as a term of cultural proscription and difference. The definitions of words such as pottage, hut and house, for example, repeatedly set anglicity against otherness, framed (respectively) in images of cultural development or distance.12 Pottage, Murray notes, while ‘no longer a term of English cookery’ (OED1, pottage, sense 1) can still be used to refer to ‘the soups of savage peoples’; likewise, if houses act as prototypical dwellings for ‘families’ (and are thereby unmarked within the dictionary),13 the hut is ‘ruder’ and ‘meaner’ and, we are told, ‘inhabited by savages’. The changing narrative presented by OED2 and OED3 is again of interest. ‘Savages’ are clearly no longer tenable in defining practice (being carefully elided in favour of ‘primitive societies’ under hut); pottage becomes: ‘A thick soup or stew, typically made from vegetables, pulses, meat, etc., boiled in water until soft, and usually seasoned’. Medicine offers us another telling example. Civilized meanings of medicine are located in its status as ‘the department of knowledge and practice which is concerned with the cure, alleviation, and prevention of disease in human beings, and with the restoration of and preservation of health’ (OED1, medicine, sense 1). ‘Savages’, however, are deemed to be incapable of understanding the application of scholarship of this kind. Or, as the fourth sense states: ‘As savages usually regard the operation of medicines as due to what we should call magic, it is probable that their words for magical agencies would often be first heard by civilized men as applied to medicine, and hence it would be natural that “medicine” should be regarded as their primary sense’.14

‘Us’ and ‘Them’ in OED1 Who, precisely, ‘we’ are assumed to be is, in dictionaries as in any other discourse, often highly revealing. As the pronominal patterning of medicine in OED1 makes clear, for instance, here ‘we’ are allied with ‘civilized men’

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(and how ‘we’ perceive the world) rather than with ‘savages’ whose conceptions are rendered semantically remote. In a similar way, ‘we’ do not have fetishes (‘An inanimate object worshipped by savages on its account of its supposed magical powers’), engage in dirt-eating (‘The eating of some kinds of clay or earth as food, practiced by some savage tribes’), nor perform wardances (‘a dance performed by a savage tribe before a warlike excursion’). Such forms are both made English, by being incorporated within the dictionary (and attested within works by English writers) – but also rendered profoundly un-English by the nature of their definition and its all too negative tenor. As in these examples, the hegemonic ‘we’ (versus the non-hegemonic ‘savage’) would serve to enact a particular set of cultural images throughout the first edition of the dictionary. This cultural polarization within the details of definition, phrasing and framing of entries can therefore exist uneasily with Murray’s rhetoric of inclusivity, his celebration of a pluralist and global English. If we return, however, to Murray’s imaging of English at this point, further facets – and undercurrents – of meaning should now start to become clear in ways which inform both a more cohesive reading, as well as one which is historically situated in the realities of empire and Britain’s role as a global and colonial power during the making of the first edition of the OED. Murray’s diction in his Oxford lectures of 1911 is, for instance, explicitly that of ‘the Englishman’ as in his reference, as we have seen, to ‘those most assertive of Englishmen, the Englishmen of India, who live in bungalows, hunt in jungles, wear terai hats, or puggeries and pyjamas, write chits instead of letters, and eat chutni and kedgery’. At first glance, it might of course be tempting to read this as a recognition of Indian English (and, by extension, as a wider legitimization of Englishes), not least given the etymologies of the words to which Murray here refers.15 If we take terai as a test case, however, rather different readings emerge in which the concerns of patriotism and cultural prescriptivism instead come to the fore. OED2 provides a neat rewriting of the original entry: ‘A wide-brimmed felt hat with double crown and special ventilation, worn in sub-tropical regions where the heat is not so intense as to necessitate the use of the sola topee or pith sun-helmet’. The entry in OED1 is far more revealing: ‘A wide-brimmed felt hat with double crown and special ventilation, worn by travellers, hunters, and white men generally in sub-tropical regions where the heat is not so intense’. As this makes clear, the Englishmen of India who hunt in jungles and wear terai hats do not use Indian English (‘The form of English used by an inhabitant of South Asia, esp. one whose native language is not English’, as the OED now notes) but, as ‘white men’ within ‘British India’, use ‘Anglo-Indian’ (‘the form of English used by British

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people resident in India (esp. during British rule), characterized by frequent adoption of words and phrases from Indian languages’). In OED1, AngloIndian – in precisely this sense – served as frequent usage label (as indeed for chit and bungalow, both of which Murray picks out for comment here). While this label too was often elided from OED2,16 it nevertheless remains part of the ‘fabric of facts’ (Murray, 1884: 509) which continues to underpin the wider history of the OED, locating usage in this respect in ‘British India’, and the expatriate community abroad.17 For a dictionary written on historical principles, it is of course history – and in a particularly patriotic sense – which hence comes to the fore. It is in this context that, in OED1, for example, ‘colonial’ (and the associated politics of empire) act as intentionally descriptive labels in entries such as dudeen (‘. . . in the colonies the residence of the owner or manager of an estate’), canteen (‘. . . in Indian and colonial use, applied to a victualling house or refreshment house resembling this’) or dust (‘to pass [any one] on the road, to expose him to the dust of one’s horse or wheels; to make one “take the dust”; to outride. U.S. and Colonial’). Historical (and profoundly ideological) images of power and deference, of sovereign and subject state (and their respective polarities) are likewise evident in entries for words such as sahib in OED1: ‘A respectful title used by the natives of India in addressing an Englishman or other European . . .; in native use, an Englishman, a European’. What becomes clear as a result is that such forms are not necessarily encountered through a receptiveness to Englishes per se, but instead emerge through discourses of conquest and exploration (in ways which can be disturbingly reminiscent at times of the kind of colonial narratives which dominate the later decades of Victorian England in which explorers such as Stanley Livingstone and Richard Burton journeyed through ‘dark continents’ and ‘savage Africa’ in their own processes of discovery). Setting OED1 within its own history reveals therefore the ways in which this too, as a cultural document, is profoundly embedded in discourses of both patriotism and cultural prescriptivism as they existed in Victorian England and in the early decades of the 20th century. Contemporary discourses on civilization, savagery and the ‘colonial question’ can, for instance, reveal a marked consonance with the kind of diction used in OED1. ‘What is the Duty of the Mother Country as regards the protection of Inferior Races in her Colonies and Dependencies?’ as a section heading within a disquisition on England and her Subject-Races demanded (Roundell, 1866: 3), commenting on ‘the vices incident to savage nature and society’ and on ‘the fundamental distinctions between civilized and uncivilized modes of thought, habits of life, and states of society’ (Roundell, 1866: 8, 10). ‘The ordinary savage system of tribal chiefs is and must be unprogressive’, a Colonial Office document likewise averred in 1907,

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pondering whether some means could be devised for affixing some ‘special stigma’ to ‘special forms of crime and misconduct to which native races are addicted’ (Colonial Office, 1907: 9, 16). Even children’s reading primers could refract the ethnocentric image of empire, as in the highly memorable An ABC for Baby Patriots (Ames, 1899), in which children learning their alphabets could simultaneously learn their empire, as in the entries under E (‘E is our Empire/ Where sun never sets/ The larger we make it/ The bigger it gets’; Ames, 1899: 12) or K (‘K is for Kings/ Once warlike and haughty/ Great Britain subdued them/ Because they’d been naughty’; Ames, 1899: 24). As Robert MacDonald (1994: 4) has stressed in his own work on the language of empire, ‘the imperial struggle had the world for its stage, its “master” drama the continuing struggle between civilisation and savagery’. It was a stage on which the OED also therefore perhaps inevitably played its part, one in which ‘the colonies’ and colonialism make frequent appearances, and in which contemporary images of cultural normativity can take meanings (and the construction of meaning) in certain directions rather than in others. Ideological insularity can, in these terms, co-exist with inclusiveness; the appearance of a word within a list of headwords may not, in the last analysis, guarantee equality of representation. The rhetoric of descriptivism may, in such analyses, exist alongside the construction of meanings which are at some remove from the lexicographical ideals of objectivity and neutrality which Trench’s lectures had articulated. For OED1 (if no longer within the targeted revisions of OED2 and OED Online), the consciousness of empire was ineluctable, framing a pervasive set of images of patriotism and cultural prescriptivism, as well as leading, in a final point, to Murray’s own deployment of a patriotic Gallophobia in terms of both conquest and colonialism.

The Empire and the World of English Words Dictionaries have, of course, long been seen as presenting a world of words. Renaissance lexicographers, in keeping with their own historical configurations (and attendant narratives of discovery), often presented this as a world traversed across an ocean where the lexicographer might offer a helpful compass, a guide to comprehension. Victorian narratives of discovery were somewhat different. As in the titles of works by Burton and Livingstone, the hero-explorer ventured into the colonial unknown, hacking through the jungle and bringing the light of civilization in what became a classic formulation of adventure.18 Significant too is the way in which Murray drew on discovery narratives of this kind as he conceptualized the writing of the

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OED, likewise marked with ‘abysses’ and ‘deep pits’, as well as weary labour. Like the colonial explorers of ‘darkest Africa’, he too saw himself as a ‘pioneer’ – and his explorations in the world of words were located metaphorically – but nevertheless explicitly – in ‘an untrodden forest’ where ‘no white man’s axe has been before’ (Murray, 1884: 509). Murray’s appropriation of the diction of the ‘white man’ – used equally in his entry for terai as well as in the prefatory note to K (Murray, 1901: v)19 – can here combine to reveal an unselfconscious assimilation of an imperial discourse seen as both natural and naturalized. While Murray might therefore formally deny the validity of patriotism (‘patriotism, like other sentiments, is often short-sighted, and blind to the true interests of the nation’ [MP/JAHM/1911 Lectures/Lecture 2, 2]), its pull could therefore remain evident. Johnson’s anti-French sympathies of 1755 here receive an unexpected correlate. For the French, as Murray pointed out in another lecture, Joan of Arc was, in 1909, an incipient saint (she would be formally canonized 11 years later). For Murray, however, she was instead a ‘brave but misguided Maid’ who had ‘put the final spoke in the wheel of the advance of their language’. As a result, as he firmly explained to his audience, the French ‘ought really to have been cursing her, as the final destroyer of the chance, that French then had, of becoming the language of England’ – and, as Murray adds, ‘thus eventually of the world’ (MP/JAHM/1911 Lectures/Lecture 2, 2). ‘But for Joan of Arc’, he continued, offering alternative configurations of both nation and history, ‘Henry VI, a native of Paris, & son of a French mother, would have peaceably reigned in Paris, England would have been an insular portion of France and, at this day, all you Englishmen would have written & spoken French’ (MP/ JAHM/Ms of lecture on dictionaries/n.d.). Patriotism – and a global English vested in a British and not a French empire – here remain hand in hand to the end. As Murray concluded, returning to the historical realities of early 20th century Britain: ‘as Englishmen and Englishwomen, we accept the facts as they are, & hail them as the best; we love and cherish our mother tongue, we are deeply interested in its fortunes, & deeply interested in all the efforts wherewith successive investigations have tried to comprehend and compass the World of English Words’.

Notes (1) The Accademia della Crusca, established in 1582, published the first edition of its Vocabulario (spanning over 1000 pages) in 1612; a further expansive edition followed in 1624. Two editions of the Dictionnaire de l’Académie française had been published by 1718. (2) On the early history of the OED, see Mugglestone (2002a,b; 2008).

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(3) The dictionary began publication in 1884 with the fascicle containing the words in A–Ant, and under the title A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles Founded Mainly on the Materials Collected by the Philological Society. Three further editors would join Murray as the years advanced: Henry Bradley, appointed in 1888; William Craigie, appointed in 1901; and Charles Onions, appointed in 1914. On the history of the title (and its change), see Mugglestone (2002b: 1n). (4) On Littré and the OED, see Osselton (2002). (5) Murray’s reference to the fact that ‘The term is to be used in the Treaty with the Boers’ suggests a date for this letter of some time shortly after the end of the Boer War (1899–1902). (6) Suzerainty was included in the fascicle Supple–Sweep in 1918, three years after Murray’s death. (7) Murray’s Appeals for readers and reading for the dictionary can be found at: http:// ezproxy.ouls.ox.ac.uk:2277/public/appeal79/april-1879-appeal (for April 1879); http://ezproxy.ouls.ox.ac.uk:2277/public/appeal792/June-1879-Appeal (for June 1879); and http://ezproxy.ouls.ox.ac.uk:2277/public/appeal80/January-1880-appeal (for January 1880). (8) Barbarous is included in the fascicle Ant–Batten, edited by Murray and published in November 1885. (9) For the use of similar spatial metaphors in the Victorian writing of race, see, for example, The Expansion of England by J. Seeley (Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge), in which readers were informed that ‘the native Australian race is so low in the ethnological scale that it can never give the least trouble’ (Seeley, 1883: 47). Equally revealing is the quotation from the anthropologist John Lubbock’s The Origin of Civilisation and the Primitive Condition of Man (Lubbock, 1870: 3) included under savagery in the OED: ‘A tribe which had sunk from civilisation into barbarism would by no means exhibit the same features, as one which had risen into barbarism from savagery’. (10) See, for example, Mugglestone (2007). (11) Blanket (OED2) 2a: ‘A large oblong sheet of soft loose woollen cloth, used for the purpose of retaining heat, chiefly as one of the principal coverings of a bed; also for throwing over a horse, and, by primitive peoples or destitute persons, for clothing’. (12) For popular Victorian constructions of these ideas, see, for example, Brantlinger (1988); Porter (1996: 183ff). (13) OED1, house, sense 1. This entry appeared in the fascicle Horizontally–Hywe, edited by Henry Bradley. (14) In the corresponding entry in OED2, ‘civilized men’ is replaced by ‘outsiders’. (15) Chutney, kedgeree and puggery (defined in OED1 as ‘A light turban or head-covering worn by Indian natives’) all derive from Hindi. Pyjamas has a complex heritage in Persian and Urdu; bungalow is from Hindustani bangla¯. (16) On the rewriting of definitions between OED1 and OED2, see Mugglestone (2005:165–166; 2007), as well as note 15 above. (17) ‘British India’ acts as a prime focus in entries such as district (in which sense 3a describes sense relationship ‘In England’, against sense 3c ‘In British India’), or fanam where the territorial implications are particularly clear: ‘No longer used in British India; in some native states gold and silver fanams are still current. . . .’). (18) See, for example, works such as Reade (1862), Kingston (1878) and Decle (1898). The Victorian writer W.A. Henty’s many adventure stories for children are also of interest in this context.

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(19) ‘It would have been easy to double their number, if every such word occurring in English books or current in the English of colonies and dependencies, had been admitted; our constant effort has been to keep down, rather than exaggerate, this part of “the white man’s burden”’ (Murray, 1901: v).

References Ames, M. (1899) An ABC for Baby Patriots. London: Dean & Son. Brantlinger, P. (1988) Rule of Darkness: British Literature and Imperialism, 1830–1914. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Chaudhuri, N. (2000) Issues of race, gender and nation in Englishwomen’s Domestic Magazine and Queen, 1850–1900. In D. Finkelstein and D.M. Peers (eds) Negotiating India in the Nineteenth-Century Media (pp. 51–62). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Colonial Office (1907) Native Races in the British Empire. London: Printed for the use of the Colonial Office. Craigie, W.A. and Onions, C.T. (eds) (1933) Introduction, supplement, and bibliography. In J.A.H. Murray, H. Bradley, W.A. Craigie and C.T. Onions (eds) A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles. Founded on the Materials Collected by the Philological Society. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Decle, L. (1898) Three Years in Savage Africa. London: Methuen. De Maria, R. and Kolb, G. (1998) Johnson’s ‘Dictionary’ and Dictionary Johnson. Yearbook of English Studies 28, 19–43. Ellis, A. (1874) Third annual address of the president to the Philological Society. Transactions of the Philological Society 15, 354–460. John Bull (1885) The New English Dictionary. John Bull, 12 December, 819. Johnson, S. (1747) The Plan of a Dictionary of the English Language. London: J. and P. Knapton. Johnson, S. (1755) A Dictionary of the English Language: In which the Words are Deduced from Their Originals, and Illustrated In Their Different Significations By Examples From the Best Writers (2 vols). London: W. Strahan. Kingston, W.H.G. (1878) The Two Supercargoes, or, Adventures in Savage Africa. London: Thames Nelson. MacDonald, R.H. (1994) The Language of Empire: Myths and Metaphors of Popular Imperialism, 1880–1918. Manchester: Manchester University Press. MP/JAHM/1911 Lectures/ (1911) Unpublished manuscript. Lectures delivered to School of English, University of Oxford, Murray Papers, Oxford: Bodleian Library. MP/JAHM/draft of a letter/ (n.d.) Unpublished manuscript. Murray Papers, Oxford: Bodleian Library. MP/JAHM/Ms draft of a lecture/ (n.d.) Unpublished manuscript. Murray Papers, Oxford: Bodleian Library. MP/JAHM/Ms of lecture on dictionaries/ (n.d.) Unpublished manuscript. Murray Papers, Oxford: Bodleian Library. Mugglestone, L. (ed.) (2002a) Lexicography and the OED: Pioneers in the Untrodden Forest. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mugglestone, L. (2002b) Pioneers in the untrodden forest: The New English Dictionary. In L. Mugglestone (ed.) Lexicography and the OED: Pioneers in the Untrodden Forest (pp. 1–21). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mugglestone, L. (2002c) ‘An historian and not a critic’: The standard of usage in the OED. In L. Mugglestone (ed.) Lexicography and the OED: Pioneers in the Untrodden Forest (pp. 189–206). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Mugglestone, L. (2005) Lost for Words: The Hidden History of the Oxford English Dictionary. New Haven: Yale University Press. Mugglestone, L. (2007) ‘The indefinable something’: Taboo and the English dictionary. In M. Gorji (ed.) Rude Britannia (pp. 22–32). London: Routledge. Mugglestone, L. (2008) The Oxford English Dictionary: 1857–1928. In A. Cowie (ed.) The Oxford History of English Lexicography (Vol. 1, pp. 230–260). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Müller, F.M. (1878) Observations by Professor Max Müller on the Lists of Readers and Books Read for the Proposed English Dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Murray, J.A.H. (1879) An Appeal to the English-Speaking and English-Reading Public to Read Books and Make Extracts for the Philological Society’s New Dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Murray, J.A.H. (1880) Ninth annual address of the president to the Philological Society, delivered at the anniversary meeting, Friday, 21st May 1880. Transactions of the Philological Society 18, 117–176. Murray, J.A.H. (1881) Report on the dictionary of the Philological Society. Transactions of the Philological Society 18, 260–268. Murray, J.A.H. (1884) Thirteenth annual address of the president to the Philological Society, delivered at the anniversary meeting, Friday, 16th May 1884. Transactions of the Philological Society 19, 501–527. Murray, J.A.H. (1888) Preface to Volume I. In A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles, Founded Mainly on the Materials Collected by the Philological Society. Vol. 1: A and B (pp. v–xiv). Oxford: Clarendon Press. Murray, J.A.H. (1901) Preface to Volume V. In A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles. Vol. V: H to K. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Murray, J., Bradley, H., Craigie, W.A. and Onions, C.T. (eds) (1884–1928) A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Osselton, N. (2002) Murray and his European counterparts. In L. Mugglestone (ed.) Lexicography and the OED: Pioneers in the Untrodden Forest (pp. 59–76). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Porter, B. (1996) The Lion’s Share: A Short History of British Imperialism, 1850–1995 (3rd edn). London: Longman. Reade, W.W. (1862) Savage Africa: Being the Narrative of a Tour in Equatorial, South-Western and North-Western Africa. London: Smith, Elder & Co. Rooney, K. (ed.) (1999) Encarta Dictionary of World English. London: Bloomsbury. Roundell, C. (1866) England and Her Subject-Races With Special Reference to Jamaica. London: Macmillan and Co. Seeley, J.R. (1883) The Expansion of England: Two Courses of Lectures. London: Macmillan. Simpson, J. and Weiner, E. (eds) (1989) The Oxford English Dictionary (2nd edn, 12 vols). Oxford: Clarendon Press. Sweet, H. (1877) Sixth annual address of the president to the Philological Society, delivered at the anniversary meeting, Friday, 18th May 1877. Transactions of the Philological Society 17, 1–122. Sweet, H. (1878) Seventh annual address of the president to the Philological Society, delivered at the anniversary meeting, Friday, 17th May 1878. Transactions of the Philological Society 17, 373–455. Times (1889) The Oxford Dictionary. The Times, 26 January, 4. Times (1900) Presentation to Dr. Furnivall. The Times, 5 February, 14. Times (1928) Celebrating the dictionary. The Times, 7 June, 17.

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Trench, R.C. (1860) On Some Deficiencies in Our English Dictionaries (2nd revised edn). London: John W. Parker & Sons. Wilson, T. (1724) The Many Advantages of a Good Language To Any Nation. London: J. Knapton.

11 You Say Nucular; I Say Yourstupid: Popular Prescriptivism in the Politics of the United States Don Chapman

I can’t decide whether I like nucular or not. I definitely like the opportunity it presents to figure out why there would be such a prominent variant pronunciation (see Nunberg, 2004: 59–62), and I like seeing such a fine example of a stereotype (Wardhaugh, 2010: 148), but I don’t like the reminder that linguists have been ignored. The complaints from non-linguists against nucular have been widespread and pronounced so confidently that we can tell that the complainers must not have heard about or believed linguists’ views on variation. The clamour over nucular is another reminder that linguists still operate with a minority view on language, even if we claim for ourselves expert status. In most ways, the indignant responses to nucular are instances of what has been called ‘the complaint tradition’. The complaint tradition, as Milroy and Milroy (1999: 31) point out, consists of complaints against the ‘“mis-use” of specific parts of the phonology, grammar, vocabulary of English (and in the case of written English “errors” of spelling, punctuation, etc.)’. According to Milroy and Milroy (1999: 33), such complaints share the following assumptions: (1) that there is one, and only one, correct way of speaking and/or writing the English language; (2) that deviations from this norm are illiteracies or barbarisms, and that non-standard forms are irregular and perversely deviant; (3) that people ought to use the standard language and that it is quite right to discriminate against non-standard users, as such usage is a sign of stupidity, ignorance, perversity, moral degeneracy, and so on. 192

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Linguists have attacked all three assumptions, pointing out that variation is inherent in language, that variants are not deviant, and that variation does not necessarily show that a user is ignorant or stupid, but to date the complaints continue to be as popular as ever. The complaints over nucular add a new dimension, however, since they are often directed against powerful and prestigious people, in the form of national politicians. And it isn’t just nucular. Many other complaints have been directed against the language of various political figures,1 so that we might well observe that, besides the function of the complaint tradition to discriminate against non-standard speakers, there seems to be an additional function in popular politics to discredit political opponents. That is the topic of this paper: what do language complaints in politics in the last 20 or 30 years tell us about popular prescriptivism today? Connections between politics and prescriptivism have been examined by Deborah Cameron (1995: 78–115) and James and Lesley Milroy (1999: 133– 136), at least with regard to the national curriculum debate in Great Britain during the 1980s and 1990s. Cameron pointedly remarked that support for prescriptivism does not reside solely with one party – a position that I will maintain in this paper as well – but her analysis focused only on conservative support for prescriptivism. Cameron argued that political conservatives in Great Britain championed a strident form of prescriptivism because it was bound up with issues of tradition and control. In America, the complaints against politicians like George W. Bush and Sarah Palin suggest additional support for prescriptivism from political liberals, insofar as the broad divisions of ‘conservative’ and ‘liberal’ correspond between the UK and the US. The complaints in recent years against right-wing politicians prompt us to ask why prescriptivism wins support from the left. This paper will basically argue that support from political liberals for prescriptivism comes from the high stock they place in education and from their high confidence that language use is an effective index to a person’s education. This paper will further argue that much of that trust likely owes to sociolinguistic factors that are often ignored in discussions of prescriptivism. In general, the assumptions of the complaint tradition by Milroy and Milroy (listed above) remain widely trusted, if we are to judge from complaints on internet blogs. When searching for complaints against politicians, I found far more complaints directed against other commenters than against politicians, such as the following: Did you ever complete your GED? I think that you better brush up on your grammar and spelling a little. People might look down on you if you show them that you can’t read or write (bubbafone, comment in Carr, 2009).

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Apparently, many people still believe that a complaint against another person’s grammar is a valid tactic for dismissing the other person’s argument. This is such a common occurrence that one commenter mentioned a law describing it: I would like to refer to the Book of Internet Laws, specifically the one which states: ‘As a thread grows longer, the probability of an argument involving spelling and/or grammar approaches one’, and its more poorly documented corollary, which states: ‘Any post correcting another poster’s grammar will itself contain a grammatical error’. (Dan, comment in Queerty, 2008) It should not be surprising, then, that partisans unquestioningly accept the assumptions of the complaint tradition when they use ad linguam attacks to score political points and to discredit political opponents. At the most basic level, the complainers assume that a person holding elective office must have several qualities, such as intelligence or eloquence, and that the person’s use of language provides a good index to those qualities. Under this view, a politician’s poor use of language (however that is defined) is a liability. Sometimes that liability is cast in terms of decorum: the language of the person is seen as an embarrassment to the people who would elect such a leader. We all talk this way in private company and I’d say I talk this way entirely too much. But I can’t, I won’t have the leaders of the free world talking this way. At least not any place a recording device can hear them. (Collymore, 2008) This is a surprisingly frequent complaint. Apparently, the insecurity underlying the prescriptive tradition extends for many people beyond a fear of sounding uneducated themselves to a fear of their political representatives sounding uneducated. Others see a politician’s ‘poor’ language as a liability, because for them it reveals a weakness of intellect that we do not want in a political leader: I have to say that Palin speaks English worse than an English as a second language student. Her inane ramblings are incoherent. Does this country really want her as a presidential candidate? Someone who can’t even construct a basic English sentence? It would be a disgrace and speaks to her terrible lack of intelligence. (Anon., comment in Isenberg, 2008)

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Often, such complaints are given as a sort of a fortiori argument: using proper language takes less skill than running a country, so if the person cannot even master language skills, how can the person be smart enough to govern a nation? Those who don’t give Palin a free pass on these grammatical abuses are probably inclined to make fun of them instead. ‘Hah! She’s just like that contestant in that beauty pageant!’ But for me, this is a time for neither acceptance nor ridicule. To me, these verbal flubs must be indicative of some combination of the following: (1) She does not have the IQ to remember elementary rules of grammar; (2) She knows the rules of grammar but does not have the IQ to apply them in the moment; (3) She knows the rules of grammar but is too arrogant or lazy to apply them in the moment. I am frightened by the thought of any of those traits being so prominent in an elected official, be it at the national, state, or local level. Low IQ, poor on-your-feet thinking skills, or arrogant laziness are dangerous qualities for someone in her position. (Daily Kos, 2008a) The key feature in all these kinds of complaints is the presumption that the person’s language abilities are important in considering the person’s ability to govern. A trust in language use as an index to the speaker’s ability would not need to be a partisan issue, and indeed several complainers explicitly note that they are concerned with the language of the politician, not the political view,2 but there are several reasons to think that there is a partisan basis for many, if not most, of the complaints. One reason is that these kinds of complaints more frequently show up on left-wing forums, like the Daily Kos. Another reason is that there seem to be more complaints against rightwing than left-wing politicians. It is easy enough to think of prominent right-wing politicians who have been ridiculed for their language use (e.g. Sarah Palin, George W. Bush, Dan Quayle, George H.W. Bush), but which left-wing politicians have? Perhaps right-wing politicians are uniquely bad with grammar, but one might also suspect that a cultural expectation has been established. In fact, there seems to be a bandwagon quality to some of the complaints: Moliere pointed out that even kings must bow to grammar. Palin not only bows, she curls up in a fetal position. My friends were pointing this

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out while we were watching the debate. I admit I was squirming in my chair just a bit because grammar is somein [sic] that I ain’t always great at. (Daily Kos, 2008b) The writer knows that Palin’s grammar is supposed to be bad, even if the writer doesn’t always recognize the specific faults. To test my hunch that right-wing politicians are criticized more often, I tried searching the internet for each of the principals in the 2008 US presidential election. I simply searched for the name of each candidate followed by ‘grammar’, as in ‘Obama grammar’ or ‘McCain grammar’. Granted this method was not scientific, but the results were suggestive, so far as they went. I took the first 100 hits for each search, and by the time I sifted through false hits I found the distribution given in Table 11.1.3 At first blush, such numbers provide only slight support for the notion that right-wing politicians receive more complaints for their language. True, the two Republicans together receive more complaints than the two Democrats, but these numbers cannot be pushed very far, since their gathering was not systematic, and their difference is not great. Further, the number of complaints against Barack Obama is striking, especially since he was so widely praised for his eloquence. Nonetheless, those complaints against him point to another reason to believe in a partisan difference in the use of the complaint tradition – one that comes into view when we look more closely at the complaints. Those against Obama usually stop short of condemning his character or abilities. Here is an example of a complaint about Obama’s language from a website called Grammar Guard (2008a), which sees its mission as exposing grammatical errors made by famous people. The president-elect made a grammatical error in the opening statement of his first press conference. ‘This morning we woke up to more sobering news about the state of our economy’, he said. ‘The 240,000 jobs lost in October marks the 10th consecutive month that our economy has shed jobs’. Table 11.1 Complaints about the ‘grammar’ of 2008 US presidential candidates Candidate

Total number of complaints

Palin (R) Obama (D) McCain (R) Biden (D)

30 24 14 8

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The problem? A plural subject – in this case, jobs – requires a plural verb – mark, not marks. (Grammar Guard, 2008d) The writer points out the ‘error’, but does not impute any deficiency in Obama. In fact, the writer apparently tries to humorously link Obama’s ‘errors’ to some kind of infection from George W. Bush, concluding, ‘we advise him to keep some distance from W. in the coming weeks’. While there may be some smugness in the complainer’s comments, there is no real condemnation of Obama’s intellect, education, character or ability. These kinds of complaints share only the first two assumptions of the complaint tradition listed by Milroy and Milroy above: they apparently accept the premise that it is legitimate to criticize the language of others, but not the premise that it is legitimate to disparage the speakers. When we separate such complaints (labelled ‘partial complaints’ in the chart below) from those that embody all the assumptions of the complaint tradition (labelled ‘full complaints’), we get a less surprising distribution, as seen in Table 11.2.4 When we look at the full complaints, the two Republican candidates taken together receive more than the two Democratic candidates, and Palin receives the most by far. When we look at the partial complaints, however, Obama stands out, while the rest are mostly even. We may suspect that those making partial complaints see some cultural prestige to be gained by pointing out the errors of others, and the main reason for complaining about the politicians is simply that the candidates are widely recognized public figures. These partial complaints once again confirm the popularity of the prescriptive tradition, if indeed they come from people who think their skill in pointing out errors is admirable. The exercise is like a hobby, like being a very good butterfly collector. Indeed, there seems to be an entire cottage industry that monitors the language of public figures and points out their

Table 11.2 Criticisms of language and/or speaker in 2008 US presidential campaign Candidate

Partial complaints (language is criticized but not the candidate)

Full complaints (language and candidate are criticized)

Total

Palin (R) Obama (D) McCain (R) Biden (D)

6 22 8 8

24 2 6 0

30 24 14 8

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insufficiencies with language. They call this activity ‘peeveblogging’ on Language Log (Zimmer, 2005). In contrast to the partial complaints, the notable characteristics of full complaints are that: (1) an error is highlighted and usually ridiculed; (2) usually the speaker is considered ignorant, uneducated or stupid because of the ‘error’; (3) quite often the speaker is therefore considered unqualified for elected office; (4) similarly, the speaker is sometimes considered an embarrassment to the electorate; and (5) sometimes, the perceived ignorance of the speaker is transferred to the supporters. Anyone who could support someone who makes grammatical errors, so the logic goes, must also be ignorant or uneducated. As noted, the full complaints are levied against right-wing politicians far more than against left-wing politicians. Not only do the complaints against the language of left-wing politicians seem less frequent, they also seem less confident in a person’s language use as an index. Full complaints that discredit a left-wing politician because of the person’s language are harder to find, but there was a brief flurry of complaints against Sonia Sotomayor’s language during her confirmation hearings: And prepare to be awed at not only her pathetically lame attempts at humor, nor her elementary understanding of the law, but also her grasp of the English language – she twice said ‘eminent’ when she meant to say ‘imminent’. . . . I guess that she’s nothing less than a reflection of a good deal of us (but not me), with her lazy oratory. (Track-A-Crat, 2009) Here the writer clearly mocks Sotomayor’s language use and insinuates a lack of ability, but the writer also allows that language may not be any worse than that which ‘a good deal of us’ use. There has also been a little ridicule at some of Joe Biden’s and Barack Obama’s gaffes. For example, at a White House reception on 4 May 2009, President Obama announced, ‘Welcome to Cinco de Cuatro’. This utterance violates no canonical English prescriptions – the offence is not really even about English, just some borrowed Spanish numbers used to make a joke, since it would have been cuatro, not cinco, de mayo. But the nature of the complaints is similar to those against Sotomayor, in noting that the mistake may not be necessarily telling of the person’s abilities: I like to note these little incidents when they happen, not because I think it makes Obama an idiot because he occasionally stumbles over his words, but because his somewhat overblown reputation as the most cerebral, eloquent, utterly erudite president of all time could really use a

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pricking every now and then. Also, because if Bush had made such a blunder, it would have been the basis of a four-part MSNBC investigative series on the malapropism’s deleterious effects on the Republican Party’s attempts to woo Hispanic voters, Mexican-American relations, and our ‘place in the world’. (Ham, 2009) These complaints about left-wing political figures are less quick to explicitly connect intelligence with usage, though there still seems to be a ‘gotcha’ flavour to them. In fact, explicitly disavowing such a connection is a fairly common feature of them, unlike their left-to-right counterparts. Presumably, right-wing pundits have had to be a little more cautious about using language complaints, since the politicians they support have been on the receiving end of the ad linguam attacks for so long. They would understandably be more apt to think through whether an ‘error’ really does reveal a lack of character or intelligence, and how much of governing depends on the ability to use language correctly. Some left-wing commenters have shown a similar reluctance to sanction the complaint tradition, as shown in the following comment: I’m not a fan of prescriptive grammar; however, I am a fan of clarity, which the competent use of grammar greatly enhances. In addition to grammatical competence, it seems to me that a basic understanding of word meanings aids a speaker’s clarity. Yes, it’s easy to catch a candidate, any candidate, making a fine mess out of the English language. Run-ons, word confusion, verbs that don’t agree with the subject in number – those are par for the course, because spoken language isn’t the same as composed prose. There are also plenty of supposed rules for composing English that are completely bogus – split infinitives, anyone? (Polyglot’s Complaint, 2008) But more often, left-wing commenters seem committed to the assumptions of the complaint tradition. This is illustrated in reactions to ad linguam attacks on their own figures. There is a certain ‘say it ain’t so!’ flavour to their reactions: You have got to be kidding! Do you seriously believe that Barack Obama doesn’t know that ‘cuatro’ means four and ‘Mayo’ means ‘May’? Really? I don’t. It seems obvious to me that he used the joke phrase ‘Cinco de Cuatro’ because it RHYMES with ‘Cinco de Mayo’, not because he was unaware of how to say ‘Fourth of May’. (David, comment in Malcolm, 2009)

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It just ain’t so that Barack Obama could have slipped, even when ad-libbing in Spanish. And it really ain’t so in the following defence: The entire world is making fun of obama for saying ‘cinco de cuatro’ without actually understanding the sophistication of a joke he was making: It was ‘five minutes to four’ when he was speaking . . . thats why he looked at his watch – idiots. . . . hope that shuts up those people who thought they were smarter than Obama! (Ari Allen, comment in Malcolm, 2009) Tellingly, these remarks show that the ground rules for the complaint tradition remain intact for these incredulous defenders. They do not question whether these ‘mistakes’ are meaningless, even though that is a simpler surmise; instead they assert that the left-wing politician could not have made the mistake. The question now is why the left would seemingly trust the connection between language use and ability more than the right. One facile explanation is that the ad linguam attacks have proven more useful for the left. In general, people will want intelligent, capable leaders, and in politics we can tell if a person is intelligent if the person agrees with us. But in an election, the true believers have to convince more skeptical voters. In principle, this should lead to debate but, in practice, shortcuts are often offered instead. Since the assumptions of the complaint tradition have been widely accepted, complaints about language are ready-made shortcuts for impugning a political opponent. But I believe there are more fundamental reasons for the left’s support of the complaint tradition – reasons elucidated by sociolinguistics. I would argue that our experience with language and social identity gives all of us good reason to trust the connections between language use and ability. While a person’s language use may not necessarily be a good index to the person’s ability or character, it usually is a good index to a person’s social identity. We can readily identify whether people are part of one group or another by the way they speak. Sociolinguistics studies have shown over and over that people are capable of maintaining small linguistic differences to maintain social group status. People in the same group use language in similar ways (Chambers, 2009: 74–92, 100–104; Edwards, 2009: 21; Milroy & Milroy, 1999: 94; Wardhaugh, 2010: 120). When it comes to the complaint tradition and politics, the important social group identified by a person’s language could be roughly defined as ‘the educated’. We are used to hearing educated people speak in a certain way, so when we hear someone speak in a different way – especially if

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that person speaks like those from a less-educated group – we assume that the person cannot be educated. This connection between language use and group identification is just basic sociolinguistics, and it goes a long way to explain why the assumptions of the complaint tradition have been so durable. We definitely do make judgments about people based on their language – at least as far as group membership is concerned. That is the key mechanism that allows the complaint tradition to seem reasonable. From there, it is not much of a stretch to believe that a person in a group will share qualities that we associate with that group, such as intelligence and ability to govern. The problem with the complaint tradition, however, is that many of the complaints are about constructions that are not good indices of a person’s ability or even the person’s education. Objections over good instead of favorable (Grammar Guard, 2008c) or even ‘I wish my dad was here’ instead of ‘I wish my dad were here’ (Grammar Guard, 2008b) are probably not important in an educated style, because many educated people use the maligned forms. Furthermore, we can recognize an educated style fairly quickly – long before we hear a violation of a canonical prescription. That educated sound probably comes from things like discourse structure, information density, precision of vocabulary and complexity of argument rather than from a preference for one prescribed variant over another (e.g. different from versus different than). The language use that people are really keying in on in their complaints is probably better characterized as a style, rather than an illdefined set of prescriptions from the prescriptive canon. But for most – though not all – complainers, the difference between prescriptive rules and educated style is apparently too unimportant to worry about. Instead of recognizing the variation that defines an educated style, most complaints rely on the more monolithic language of ‘correctness’. This mistaking of the real features that identify group membership is clearly illustrated in the treatment of Palin. On one blog shortly after the election, this single line appeared: ‘She may have lost on Tuesday, but Sarah Palin’s vanguard assault on the English language continues’ (PostBourgie, 2008). There was no explanation or elaboration of this claim, except a link to an interview with Matt Lauer. But when one listens to the interview, one is hard pressed to find anything particularly objectionable about her language, much less anything violating the canonical prescriptions. It seems to have the usual number of features that one finds in conversational English. The most that can be said is that she sounds like she is talking rather than writing. Yet complaints about Palin’s language keep showing up in the blogosphere, often without reference to any specific violations of canonical prescriptions. Part of the reason for the comments might be the bandwagon

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effect, but another likely reason for these vague complaints is that the people are really noticing something about her language that does not fit with the group they consider educated or intellectual. Unfortunately, the complainers do not use a metalanguage sufficiently capable of pinpointing those language features that they can hear. Instead they speak of ‘poor grammar’ or ‘assaulting the language’. This is illustrated by a comment from Margaret Carlson, discussed on Language Log: Sarah Palin is very good at stringing words together that don’t have a subject, a verb and an object, they’re just present participles and prepositions. (Liberman, 2009) That would be good evidence indeed of poor language skills. It would also be fun to listen to, at least for a little while: jumping in, stumbling over, coming from, thinking about, falling into, getting out of, coming up with, going rogue round. Of course Palin uses more than present participles and prepositions; Carlson undoubtedly meant her remarks as hyperbole, but it was hyperbole using the metalanguage of grammar. That is typical of many complaints: the real objection is probably to the folksy, un-academic style of Palin, but the metalanguage used to describe that style – grammar and correctness – is poorly suited for the task. Using a more enlightening metalanguage, linguists at Language Log help to clarify this disconnect between Palin’s language and the complainers’ metalanguage: The feature I noticed primarily was jumping from topic to topic by way of combinations of function words that fit well with content words on each side, along with a prosody that makes sense within these regions but not on a larger scale. (Daniel Barkalow, comment in Liberman, 2008) This analysis makes much more sense and better fits the samples of Palin’s language that are trotted out in the condemnations. In reality, people will have many reasons for speaking and writing as they do, and a metalanguage that can only classify language as ‘correct/ incorrect’ or ‘grammatical/ungrammatical’ will efface too many of those reasons. Many of the complaints boil down to no more than an expectation that speech should be the same as writing. There are many reasons for speech to be different from writing, however, including the differences in the communication situation and the exigencies of producing utterances on the spot with no opportunity for revision (Milroy & Milroy, 1999: 47–59).

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Nevertheless, complaints persist about the violation of prescriptive rules in speech. As one of the more insightful commenters put it: While this sort of thing is mildly amusing, people – even smart people – make verbal gaffes quite often. Public officials who make speeches several times a day, naturally, will make a lot of them. Since these speeches are often videotaped and almost always attended by reporters, each of these slip-ups will be recorded for posterity. They prove very little about much of anything but they’re nonetheless constantly seized upon by opponents as signs of, well, something. (Joyner, 2009) Additionally we will vary our language depending on the formality of the situation or audience or purposes or many other factors. We are all capable of many styles, and complaints that ignore these reasons for variation are not very useful. That is why it is particularly unfortunate that the metalanguage of ‘grammar’ and ‘correctness’ is the dominant one in discussing the language of politicians. In essence, two substitutions are operating to make the complaint tradition seem reasonable. Prescriptive rules are allowed to stand in for more important linguistic features for identifying whether a person belongs to the ‘educated’ social group, and membership in the ‘educated’ social group is allowed to stand in for intelligence or ability to govern. The prescriptive rules are allowed to be considered important because some other features are really doing the work of identifying group membership, and group membership is allowed to stand in for ability because we are used to capable people also being educated. The sociolinguistics of usage points to a further reason why the left would more readily support the complaint tradition. In the sociolinguistic analysis so far, we have been focusing on whether language use includes or excludes one from the social group of the ‘educated’. The assumption has been that use of the educated style shows that a person has sufficient education to have acquired the style, while departures from an educated style signal insufficient education. The emphasis has been on simply identifying who is in and who is out. But there is another element to group membership that language use reveals, and that is solidarity. To the degree that speakers can choose variants indicative of a given group, their choices signal their solidarity with that group, and with an acquired style like the educated style, that degree of choice should be fairly high (Bucholtz, 1998; Eckert, 2000: 41–45; 2001; Edwards, 2009; Joseph, 2004; Milroy & Milroy, 1999: 92–93).5 So not only does the use of educated style show that one is educated, it also shows that one values being identified as educated. Conversely, failure to use an educated style

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may show a lack of education, or it may merely show less commitment to an educated identity. The assumptions of inherent solidarity may be one of the strongest reasons for the employment of the complaint tradition in politics today. Like politics, the motivation is essentially tribal. Not only are the failures to follow prescriptions thought to reveal who has insufficient education for a demanding job, they also demonstrate who is not one of us. The solidarity expressed by language use may be even more potent when associated with ‘the educated’. Increasingly, ‘the educated’ are seen as an important constituency within the left-wing coalition. After all, it is the Republican Party that is known as the Stupid Party. A few have even suggested that the use of stereotyped forms like ‘nucular’ and ‘you betcha’ and perhaps other forms proscribed by prescriptive rules may be motivated by a sort of covert prestige, where the right-wing candidate adopts forms to more readily identify with a constituency that does not value education, or at least education defined as attention to fussy rules (Nunberg, 2004: 62). On the other side of the spectrum, it seems that many who do value education see an attention to the prescriptive rules as an important part of being educated. This is colourfully illustrated by a T-shirt from the Stewart/Colbert Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear (30 October 2010): Front of the shirt: ‘Liberal Elitist*’ Back of the shirt: ‘Rational, Reality-based, Fact-finding, Sciencebelieving, Correct-spelling, Tolerant, peaceful intelligent thinker’ With the term liberal elitist, the T-shirt is co-opting a stereotype from the right. A sign from the same rally expressed similar sentiments: ‘Am I a Liberal Elitist? Or Am I Just Educated?’ (Henderson, 2010). Tellingly, the T-shirt defining a ‘liberal elitist’ links correct spelling (and we may assume by metonymy ‘correct usage’) with general intellectual hygiene and with being liberal. If ‘educated’ has become a characteristic feature of how an important segment in the left-wing coalition see themselves, as this comment suggests, we should not be surprised to see the complaints about usage take on even more importance for the left. Where education is involved, so usually is meritocracy, and in a meritocracy the more educated are more deserving of public office. The election of an outsider could easily be seen as repudiating that notion. We can see such anxiety in the preface to a book criticizing George W. Bush’s speech: When he comments on how many hands he’s ‘shaked’, or frets that quotas ‘vulcanize’ society, or claims that he has been ‘miscalculated’, he

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is of course, flaunting not his costly education but his disdain for it – much as some feckless prince, with a crowd of beggars watching from the street, might take a few bites from the feast laid out before him, then let the servants throw the rest away. (Miller, 2001: 15) The anxiety expressed here is directed toward one source of an uneducated style, namely that someone might reject the value of education. The following quote shows anxiety over another source of uneducated style, namely that the operations of a meritocracy would be out of kilter if someone with less education is elected: It isn’t easy to achieve meaninglessness in the context of leadership, but Palin is trying her best. She speaks the broken language of today’s disaffected, undereducated lower middle class. She speaks like the WIC mom in the supermarket checkout line. Her words are often indecipherable, maybe even inscrutable. (Hypes, 2008) Whether the person fails to use the educated style because she cannot or because he will not, the anxiety is strong. The election of a person who does not use the educated style is a challenge to those who value education and consider it a partisan issue. At this point, my own insecurities as a linguist reassert themselves. If language is connected with being educated, why can’t it be an educated view of language? For a liberal elitist who would wear the T-shirt quoted above, why does it have to be the popular notion of ‘correct spelling’ (or correct usage) that is connected with intellectual hygiene, instead of a deeper understanding of language variation? If the liberal elitists really value science, why wouldn’t they value the science of linguistics? If they are tolerant, why wouldn’t they be tolerant of others’ language? If they are reality-based, why wouldn’t they accept the authority of actual usage for prescriptivist questions? As I have argued in this paper, it is mainly because language use really does provide an efficient index for some things after all. The problem is not that people are making judgments because of language – we all have too much experience doing just that, when it comes to judging people’s membership in a group (Joseph, 2004: 15–40). The problem is that the judgments do not fit the sources of complaints. Nucular and complaints like it should not matter, but as long as something matters, stereotypes like nucular will likely live on. Maybe it is too much to hope that popular prescriptivists – even the educated ones – will be more careful with their choices of complaints. But we don’t have to like it.

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Notes (1) Complaints are directed against such items as split infinitives, -ing versus -in’, singular they, passive voice, taxes with a singular verb, here’s with a plural subject, contrafactual was, dangling modifiers, and neologisms or malapropisms. (2) One such example is ‘politics aside, Sarah Palin’s English is so irritating, it’s practically unethical, not to mention unpatriotic’ (Polyglot’s Complaint, 2008). (3) I performed these searches on 28–29 July 2009. The main reasons that hits were discarded were that: (1) the posts were actually praising the candidate’s grammar (mostly Obama); (2) they were criticizing someone else’s grammar (usually another commenter); (3) they were repeating complaints from other blogs verbatim; and (4) the term grammar was used for some other meaning, as in ‘grammar school’. I did not distinguish between complaints from the body of the blogs and those from the comments sections. (4) I realize that measuring the degree of criticism will be difficult, especially since criticism of language is widely regarded as ipso facto criticism of the speaker, but I tried to draw the line between those that showed strong disapproval of the person’s abilities versus those that did not. Gauging the disapproval depended on explicit remarks or other constructions showing stance. (5) Most sociolinguists emphasize the solidarity of those using non-standard varieties of English, but the same principles of solidarity ought to apply to standard English. See especially Bucholtz (1998).

References Bucholtz, M. (1998) Geek the girl: Language, femininity, and female nerds. In N. Warner (ed.) Gender and Belief Systems: Proceedings of the Fourth Berkeley Women and Language Conference (pp. 119–131). Berkeley: Berkeley Women and Language Group. Cameron, D. (1995) Verbal Hygiene. London and New York: Routledge. Carr, M. (2009) Obama touts middle-class task force led by Biden. New Orleans Metro Real-time News, 30 January. http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2009/01/obama_ touts_middleclass_task_f.html Chambers, J.K. (2009) Sociolinguistic Theory (revised edn). London: Wiley-Blackwell. Collymore, K. (2008) Sarah Palin: Every English teacher’s worst nightmare. Blue Oregon, 30 September. Online at http://www.blueoregon.com/2008/09/sarah-palin-eve/ Daily Kos (2008a) Palin’s atrocious grammar, and why it’s relevant to her qualifications. Daily Kos, 3 October. Online at http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/10/3/145357/ 137/187/619176 Daily Kos (2008b) Palin’s grammar. Daily Kos, 4 October. Online at http://www.dailykos. com/story/2008/10/4/102348/433/499/619865 Eckert, P. (2000) Linguistic Variation as Social Practice. Oxford: Blackwell. Eckert, P. (2001) Style and social meaning. In P. Eckert and J.R. Rickford (eds) Style and Sociolinguistic Variation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Edwards, J. (2009) Language and Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Grammar Guard (2008a) About the guard. Grammar Guard, 28 August. Online at http:// grammarguard.org/about Grammar Guard (2008b) Biden’s bloopers. Grammar Guard, 31 August. Online at http:// grammarguard.org/blog/bidens-bloopers

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Grammar Guard (2008c) Palin’s problems. Grammar Guard, 3 September. Online at http:// grammarguard.org/blog/palin-problems Grammar Guard (2008d) Obama’s errors. Grammar Guard, 9 November. Online at http:// grammarguard.org/blog/obamas-errors-2 Ham, M.K. (2009) Our genius president: ‘Happy cuatro de cinco!’ WeeklyStandard.com, 4 May. Online at http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2009/05/our_ genius_president_happy_cua.asp Henderson, S. (2010) Rally to restore sanity and/or fear: A comprehensive list of signs. Rally the Cause, 31 October. Online at http://rallythecause.com/2010/10/31/ rally-to-restore-sanity-fear-colbert-stewart-signs/ Hypes, B. (2008) Palin under McLuhan’s microscope. Spydersden, 4 October. Online at http://spydersden.blogspot.com/2008/10/palin-under-mcluhans-microscope.html Isenberg, D. (2008) Pic>1kword: Diagraming Palin’s Grammar. isen.blog, 2 October. Online at http://www.isen.com/blog/2008/10/pic1kword-diagraming-palinsgrammar.html Joseph, J.E. (2004) Language and Identity: National, Ethnic, Religious. New York: Palgrave. Joyner, J. (2009) Obama on that awful Austrian language. Outside the Beltway, 7 April. Online at http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/obama_on_that_awful_austrian _language/ Liberman, M. (2008) Defiant diagramming. Language Log, 5 October. Online at http:// languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p = 682 Liberman, M. (2009) Political parts of speech. Language Log, 11 July. Online at http:// languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p = 1572 Malcolm, A. (2009) El Presidente Obama celebrates ‘Cinco de Cuatro’. Los Angeles Times, 4 May. Online at http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2009/05/obamacinco-de-mayo.html Miller, M.C. (2001) The Bush Dyslexicon. New York: Norton. Milroy, J. and Milroy, L. (1999) Authority in Language. London: Routledge. Nunberg, G. (2004) Going Nucular. New York: Public Affairs. Polyglot’s Complaint (2008) Drill, baby, drill: Palin’s grammar hurts my ears. The Polyglot’s Complaint: Thoughts on Academia, 3 October. Online at http://open.salon.com/blog/ complaining_polyglot/2008/10/03/drill_baby_drill_palins_grammar_hurts_my_ears PostBourgie (2008) Sarah Palin’s grammar still on the scene. PostBourgie, 11 November. Online at http://www. postbourgie.com/2008/11/11/sarah-palins-brave-battle-continues/ Queerty (2008) GOP-loving Noonan, Murphy trash McCain, Palin. Queerty, 3 September. Online at http://www.queerty.com/todd-murphy-noonan-all-trash-mccainpalin-20080903/ Track-A-'Crat (2009) A story of eminent providence. Track-A-Crat, 15 July. Archived online at http://web.archive.org/web/20091129150813/http:/trackacrat.com/2009/07/ 15/a-story-of-eminent-providence/ Wardhaugh, R. (2010) An Introduction to Sociolinguistics (6th edn). Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Zimmer, B. (2005) Peeveblogging. Language Log, 25 October. Online at http://itre.cis. upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002581.html

Part 5 Identifying Norms and Attitudes in Postcolonial Contexts

12 English and Pidgin in Cameroon: Peaceful or Conflicting Coexistence? Jean-Paul Kouega

This paper examines the nature of the coexistence of Pidgin English (Pidgin for short) and Standard English (English for short) in Cameroon. Pidgin preceded English in the country, the former resulting from the slave trade and the latter from colonization. To characterize their coexistence, we collected data through a questionnaire and through participant observation. The informants were some 280 fluent speakers of Pidgin, a few of whom were not literate in English, as they needed assistance to fill in the questionnaire. The analysis of the returns revealed that, in matters of education, Pidgin and English are in conflict, as English has official recognition and high status in the country while Pidgin is despised and discouraged on school campuses. In business transactions, Pidgin is the preferred language, as it enables both literate and illiterate users to communicate freely; in politics, it serves as a marker of identity among anglophone Cameroonians as it is the appropriate language for discussing common problems. In short, while Pidgin is the preferred language in politics and other domains where it signals group solidarity and patriotism, its use is proscribed in educational circles, where it is held as the main cause of falling academic standards. Pidgin is a lingua franca that has been used in Cameroon for over 500 years. It has evolved alongside two other major lingua francas: Fulfulde, spoken mainly in the three northern regions of Cameroon, and Beti, a group of at least seven mutually intelligible languages that together cover the three southern regions of Cameroon including Yaounde, the capital city. Pidgin started up as a contact language spoken in the coastal regions and later spread into the hinterland, where its functions were increased, thanks to various factors including market transactions and religion. English, which 211

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came with effective resident colonization, started up as an evangelical tool. This study considers in turn: (1) the development of Pidgin and English in the country; (2) the method of data collection; (3) the survey results; and (4) a discussion section.

The Development of Pidgin and English in Cameroon Pidgin came into being in Cameroon during the slave trade (1400–1800). The first Europeans to come to this part of the world were the Portuguese. To carry out their trade efficiently, these Portuguese traders tended to enlist the services of British privateers in their ships bound for Africa (Mbassi Manga, 1973). When they arrived on the coast, the privateers had to carry out transactions with the indigenes. In the process, these coastal aborigines became exposed to the language of the privateers, that is, English, as well as that of the traders, that is, Portuguese. Little did these natives know that the Portuguese and the British spoke two distinct languages, as they seemed to look alike and to speak in the same way. This double initial input explains why the early Pidgin lexicon was made up of loans from English and Portuguese. English loans included: bush (bush), go (to go), head (head), i (he), tumuch (too much), wi (we), to cite only a few (for additional examples, see Mbangwana, 1983). Loans from Portuguese included dash (< dache: gift), kaka (< caca: dung), Kamerun (< Camaroes: shrimps), palaba (< palava: trouble), pass (< passar: to pass), pikin (< piqueno: child), sabi (< saber: to know). Even after the slave traders were gone, these words continued to be used among coastal people when they spoke Pidgin and even their indigenous languages (see Kouega, 2008a for the influence of Pidgin on indigenous Cameroonian languages). Between 1800 and 1884, British traders set up factories along the west coast of Africa, from Sierra Leone through Nigeria to Cameroon. Pidgin continued to be used as a trade language, even though the goods exchanged had changed from slaves to manufactured products. The traders were followed by Baptist missionaries, who set up missions and adopted Pidgin as the language of their evangelical work (Trudell, 2002). As Todd (1982: 6) notes, ‘between 1845 and 1887, there were 75 Protestant Missionaries in Southern Cameroon’. By 1884, when Cameroon became a German colony, Pidgin was a fully developed language. To check its spread, the Germans decreed it to be illegal, but later found it difficult to communicate with the natives without it. They hurriedly set up German-medium schools, but realized that their colonization program could not wait for the schools to turn out their first

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graduates. They had no choice but to lift the ban on Pidgin and to use it in oral transactions. Ever since, Pidgin has been growing steadily and occupies today an outstanding position in the linguistic landscape of Cameroon in terms of its spread. It is spoken mainly in the two anglophone regions of the country and the two francophone regions adjacent to them, that is, the Littoral and West regions. Elsewhere, it is jointly used with other languages of wider communication that are dominant. Ethnologue (2005) estimates the number of Pidgin speakers, mainly second-language users, to be around two million people. According to some researchers (e.g. Todd & Hancock, 1986: 99), it is spoken by ‘50% of the population’ and is ‘becoming a mother tongue in some urban communities’. These figures should be handled with care as the government is reluctant to include any information on languages and ethnicity in its censuses. In a study carried out in 1983, Mbangwana found that Pidgin was different from the other languages spoken in the country in that it was a ‘non-ethnic language’; besides, it was spoken throughout the country for out-group communication among people of all levels. Mbangwana also observed that Pidgin was used in the media, especially in advertisements, in music production among stars such as Nico Mbarga (a very popular musician in the 1970s) and in political rallies, especially in the two anglophone regions and the two neighbouring francophone regions. It was said to be the language of religion (especially of the Catholic Church, which printed materials in it) as well as the commonest code for buying and selling and for storytelling. In two recent studies, Kouega (2001; 2002) found that Pidgin was spoken by educated people in various settings: in the home with their household help, in the neighbourhood in interactions with friends, with neighbours and traders, and in the workplace, especially when giving instructions to subordinates or interacting with equals. It is used in churches, courts, marketplaces, etc., and increasingly in the spoken media, especially radio stations such as Mount Cameroon in Buea, Radio Siantou in Yaounde, FM 105 in Douala and the Northwest Regional radio station (CRTV) in Bamenda (see Kouega, 2007, 2008a for more details). Let us now turn to the development of English in Cameroon. Formal English started up in Cameroon in 1843 when Joseph Merrick, a Baptist missionary, established a mission near Douala. Together with his fellow missionaries – estimated at around 75 between 1845 and 1887 (Todd, 1982) – he moved along the coast, setting up new churches and schools. The exploration ended when Gustav Nachtigal, a German explorer, raised the German flag over the territory in 1884. In 1916, Britain returned when the Germans, having lost World War I, had to relinquish the territories they had annexed. Cameroon was shared between France and Britain. Britain’s share, called

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British Cameroons, adopted English as its official language and therefore as the language of government and education. France’s share, called French Cameroon, adopted French as its official language. In 1960, French Cameroon obtained its independence and was renamed the République du Cameroun, with French remaining its official language. In 1961, part of southern British Cameroons obtained independence by joining the République du Cameroun, but maintained English as its official language. As a result, the new country was renamed the Federal Republic of Cameroon, with each of the federal states running its own educational system. Subsequent renamings of the country – first as the United Republic of Cameroon in 1972 and then as the Republic of Cameroon in 1984 – did not affect the educational system. This system of education, like the British one, comprises three levels, that is, primary, secondary and tertiary. At the primary level, children attending English-medium schools are taught, for a period of six years, various content subjects including mathematics, health education, environmental sciences and English. At the end of the sixth year, pupils sit for the First School Leaving Certificate (FSLC) examinations. At secondary school level, pupils are offered a variety of curriculum subjects – history, geography, mathematics, chemistry and English. After five years, they sit for the General Certificate of Education Ordinary Level (GCE O-Level). Successful candidates move on to high school, where they spend two more years. They are taught all content courses in English and, at the end of the second year, they sit for the General Certificate of Education Advanced Level (GCE A-Level) examinations, which are the certificates required for admission into a tertiarylevel institution. In summary, Pidgin preceded English in Cameroon; since 1843, the two languages have been evolving together in the same set-up. This paper seeks to examine the nature of the coexistence of the one – a vehicular, mainly oral language – with the other – a joint official language used in education.

Method of Data Collection The instrument chosen for examining the coexistence of Pidgin and English in Cameroon was a 20-item questionnaire, reproduced in the Appendix. The informants were (1) to indicate in writing the types of situations or contexts in which they prefer people to use Pidgin, and (2) to explain why Pidgin should or should not be used in these contexts. The intended informants were Cameroonians of all ages who could express an opinion on the issue at stake, irrespective of their level of education, sex, background language, religion, and other such parameters. To get both illiterate

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and literate informants involved, we advised them to request the assistance of their neighbours if their hands were busy, that is, if they could not write for whatever reason. The actual set of informants chosen were travellers on buses to and from the Northwest (Bamenda) and the Southwest (LimbeBuea) regions, as these regions have the largest concentration of Pidgin speakers in the country. Travellers were chosen because, as I was travelling on a 70-seater coach to Buea a few months back, a debate on Pidgin in Cameroon erupted in the coach. The debate became very heated, with people contributing in both Pidgin and English. It became so interesting that we covered around 60 miles (one-fifth) of the journey before the topic was dropped. The questionnaire was administered by the researcher in person, on four different trips from Yaounde to these regions and back. The informants were provided with pens, which they were to keep after submitting the questionnaire. In all we received 235 returns out of the 280 that were given out, with 105 collected on the trips to and from the Northwest region and 130 on those to and from the Southwest region.

Survey Results The analysis is divided into seven subsections, focusing on: (1) the informants’ self-reported proficiency in Pidgin; (2) the use of Pidgin in selected neighbourhood environments; (3) the use of Pidgin in the media; (4) the use of Pidgin in places of work; (5) the use of Pidgin in church; (6) the use of Pidgin with children and parents; and, finally, (7) the respondents’ attitudes to Pidgin. These are considered in turn.

Respondents’ self-reported proficiency in Pidgin Respondents were asked to indicate whether they could speak (Q1), read (Q2) and write (Q3) Pidgin; they were expected to write either yes or no (Table 12.1).

Table 12.1 Self-reports on proficiency in Pidgin Responses

Speaking

Reading

Writing

Yes No Blank Total

235 (100%) – – 235 (100%)

50 (21.28%) 175 (74.47%) 10 (4.26%) 235 (100.00%)

30 (12.77%) 200 (85.11%) 5 (0.85%) 235 (200.00%)

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Table 12.2 Preferred neighbourhood contexts for the use of Pidgin Responses

Marketplace

Political rallies

With friends

With strangers

Yes No Blank Total

234 (99.57%) – 1 (0.43%) 235 (100.00%)

232 (98.72%) – 3 (1.28%) 235 (100.00%)

230 (97.87%) – 5 (2.13 %) 235 (100.00%)

228 (97.02%) – 7 (2.98%) 235 (100.00%)

All 235 respondents claimed that they could speak Pidgin. A small proportion, 12.77% of 235, added that they could write it as well. This result corroborates previous researchers’ findings, that is, that Pidgin is mainly an oral language, like most indigenous languages in the country.

Use of Pidgin in selected neighbourhood environments Informants were to indicate whether it was advisable to speak Pidgin in the marketplace (Q4), at political rallies (Q5), in the presence of friends (Q6) and in the presence of strangers (Q7) (Table 12.2). Most informants (99.57% of 235) claimed that Pidgin should be used in the marketplace because not all traders or customers could speak English or any indigenous language (see Kouega, 2008b). Pidgin should be used at political rallies (98.72% of respondents), because election candidates should be able to speak to potential voters in a language that they understand; the use of English would exclude illiterate people, while the use of any indigenous language would be divisive. Pidgin is to be used among friends (97.87% of 235 respondents), because friends may have different linguistic backgrounds. Lastly, Pidgin should be spoken with strangers (97.02% of 235 respondents), because strangers do not usually speak the language of a given community.

Use of Pidgin in the media Q8 and Q9 asked whether respondents would recommend the use of Pidgin in the media, specifically radio and television (Table 12.3). Over 98% of 235 respondents answered ‘yes’ for each type of media. They suggested that crucial issues such as HIV/AIDS campaigns, agricultural extension work and political campaigns, to name only a few, be discussed in Pidgin as well so that a greater number of people could be informed.

Use of Pidgin in places of work Respondents were asked whether they would like Pidgin to be used in places of work (Q10), in hospitals (Q11), in courts (Q12) and at police

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Table 12.3 Pidgin in the media Responses

Radio

Television

Yes No Blank Total

233 (99.15%) 1 (0.43%) 1 (0.43%) 235 (100.00%)

232 (98.72%) 2 (0.85%) 1 (0.43%) 235 (100.00%)

Table 12.4 Pidgin in selected places of work Responses

Places of work

Hospitals

Courts

Police stations

Yes No Blank Total

229 (97.45%) – 6 (2.55%) 235 (100.00%)

232 (98.72%) – 3 (1.28%) 235 (100.00%)

234 (99.57%) – 1 (0.43%) 235 (100.00%)

233 (99.15%) – 2 (0.85%) 235 (100.00%)

stations (Q13) (Table 12.4). The vast majority of informants (over 97%) agreed. They reported that they needed Pidgin in the workplace to interact with their equals as well as their bosses, even though they would write reports exclusively in English. In hospitals, not all patients can speak English, so doctors and nurses should be able to use Pidgin with such patients. The same goes for the courtroom and police stations, where illiterate people may be convicted or held in custody just because the judges or policemen do not use Pidgin, the only outgroup language they know.

Use of Pidgin in church Respondents were asked whether Pidgin should be used in church; most of them did not fill in the ‘yes’ or ‘no’ slot. Instead, they indicated the contexts in which Pidgin should be used. One such context was a mass at which the participants were old people (who, usually, are illiterate in English) – such mass services are offered early on Sunday mornings. Another context mentioned is any important message given out during an ordinary mass service, like the gospel or a major announcement, the substance of which needs to be summarized in Pidgin to ensure that everyone understands.

Use of Pidgin with children and parents Asked (Q15) whether Pidgin should be used in the presence of children, 100 respondents (42.55% of 235) said ‘yes’ and 134 (57.02%) said ‘no’ (Table 12.5).

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Table 12.5 Pidgin in selected home contexts Responses

Children

Parents

Yes No Blank Total

100 (42.55%) 134 (57.02%) 1 (0.43%) 235 (100.00%)

180 (76.60%) 54 (22.98%) 1 (0.43%) 235 (100.00%)

Those who said ‘no’ explained that when children are around, one should speak either in the mother tongue or in English, whereas those who said ‘yes’ claimed that children speak Pidgin among themselves and, for that reason, one can speak it in their presence. Regarding parents, 76.6% of 235 respondents (note that these respondents were adults, which means that their parents were not young people) indicated that Pidgin should be used in their presence, especially in contexts of mixed marriages, that is, contexts where husbands and wives speak different indigenous languages. A small proportion (22.98% of 235) rejected the use of Pidgin, claiming that parents understand indigenous languages better.

Respondents’ attitudes to Pidgin The data is available in Table 12.6. Asked whether Pidgin should be used in school (Q17), the respondents were divided: 14.89% of 235 said ‘yes’, and explained that children usually speak Pidgin in the school playground when they are together or in the classroom when they have to talk to one another, but they do not speak Pidgin to the teachers. The majority (84.68%) rejected the use of Pidgin in school, as it would ‘surely’ affect pupils’ acquisition of English, as a few research works have pointed out (Fontem, 2004; Fontem & Oyetade, 2005; Munang, 1996). Regarding watching a play in Pidgin (Q18), 65.96% of 235 respondents said ‘no’, putting forward the allegation that a play in Pidgin would corrupt their children’s English; those who said ‘yes’ (32.77%) added that the theme of the play would have to be highly topical, Table 12.6 Respondents’ attitude to Pidgin Responses

Q17

Q18

Q19

Q20

Yes No Blank Total

35 (14.89%) 199 (84.68%) 1 (0.43%) 235 (100.00%)

77 (32.77%) 155 (65.96%) 3 (1.28%) 235 (100.00%)

15 (6.38%) 218 (92.77%) 2 (0.85%) 235 (100.00%)

10 (4.26%) 223 (94.89%) 2 (0.85%) 235 (100.00%)

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like health (e.g. sexually transmitted diseases) or environmental problems (e.g. waste disposal), to name only a few. As for letting children read books in Pidgin (Q19), the vast majority (92.77% of 235 respondents) objected very strongly, claiming that Pidgin texts would unavoidably interfere with English texts in the children’s minds. Asked (Q20) whether they would send their children to schools with reduced fees but with some subjects like history or civics taught in Pidgin (a sort of English–Pidgin bilingual school), 94.89% of 235 respondents rejected the offer, claiming that such schools would surely produce children with very limited proficiency in English. Some respondents remarked that if, in English-only schools today, some children have difficulty in expressing themselves in English, then a worse situation would surely prevail in English–Pidgin bilingual schools.

Discussion From the analysis, a number of interesting facts can be put forward. Firstly, in the minds of Cameroonians, Pidgin is associated with illiteracy on the one hand and with informality on the other. Consequently, in all contexts where the intended participants are likely to include illiterates (both young and old), Pidgin is the preferred language; such contexts include the marketplace, political rallies, the church, courtrooms and police stations, to name only a few. Conversely, English is associated with literacy and formality; it is the exclusive language to be used in the domains of education and literacy, and the appropriate language to use in government and public offices, as well as in official and private educational institutions. Secondly, while many parents claim to be reluctant to speak Pidgin in the presence of children, these children end up picking up the language from interactions with peers in the neighbourhood or the school playground. In the same light, some people prefer to speak indigenous languages rather than Pidgin in the presence of their parents except in mixed marriage situations. Thirdly, Pidgin lacks written materials for language education and literacy, but even if these materials existed, they could not be used since very few people know how to read and write the language. An orthography and grammar texts on the language already exist, but literacy in Pidgin is not part of the school curriculum (see Kouega, 2008a for details). Fourthly, the government attitude to Pidgin is neutral; its use is neither encouraged nor prohibited, except at the University of Buea, where notices explicitly warn students against its use. Speakers’ attitudes towards Pidgin are positive in most domains but highly negative in one specific domain. In

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matters of politics, anglophone Cameroonians regard it as their symbol of group identity; it is this feeling that pushes any two anglophones, educated or not, to quickly switch to Pidgin when they meet in both francophone and anglophone regions of Cameroon. In the domains of education and literacy, Pidgin is viewed as a hindrance, as it is strongly believed to influence the acquisition of English, hence the prohibition of its use in the premises of the University of Buea and the production of textbooks showing learners how to ‘keep Pidgin off their English’. Because of this negative attitude, linguistic activism for the development and fortification of Pidgin is non-existent in the country in general and among anglophones in particular. In short, Pidgin and English coexist peacefully in Cameroon, simply because their users know which language is appropriate for which domains of use.

Conclusion This paper has examined the contexts of use of Pidgin and English in Cameroon and has outlined the features that underlie the peaceful coexistence of these two languages in the country. These features include above all the selection of the appropriate domain of use for each language: while Pidgin is an oral language to be used in informal settings and in specific domains such as the marketplace and politics, English is both a written and spoken language to be used in formal contexts, especially in education. While Pidgin signals group solidarity and patriotism, English is the language that the Commonwealth speaks, the language of social mobility and economic opportunity.

References Ethnologue (2005) Languages of Cameroon. Online at http://www.ethnologue.com/ show_country.asp?name=cameroon Fontem, A.N. (2004) Pidgin influence on anglophone English language proficiency in Bamenda, NW Cameroon. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Ibadan, Nigeria. Fontem, A.N. and Oyetade, S.O. (2005) Declining anglophone English language proficiency: What factors should be considered? In E.N. Chia, K.I. Tala and H.K. Jick (eds) Globalisation and the African Experience: Implications for Language, Literature and Education. Limbe, Cameroon: ANUCAM Publisher. Kouega, J.P. (2001) Pidgin facing death in Cameroon. Terralingua-Langscape 21, 11–12. http://www.terralingua.org/publications/Langscape/LS21.pdf Kouega, J.P. (2002) Uses of English in Southern British Cameroons. English World-Wide 23 (1), 93–113. Kouega, J.P. (2007) The language situation in Cameroon. Current Issues in Language Planning (CILP), 1–94.

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Kouega, J.P. (2008a) A Dictionary of Cameroon Pidgin English Usage: Pronunciation, Grammar and Vocabulary. Munich: Lincom Europa. Kouega, J.P. (2008b) Market transactions in Cameroon Pidgin English (CPE). Annals of the Faculty of Arts, Letters and Social Sciences, University of Yaounde 1 (8), 113–136. Mbangwana, P.N. (1983) The scope and role of Pidgin English in Cameroon. In E.L. Koenig, E. Chia and J. Povey (eds) A Sociolinguistic Profile of Urban Centers in Cameroon (pp. 79–92). Los Angeles: Crossroads Press. Mbassi Manga, F. (1973) English in Cameroon: A study of historical contacts: Patterns of usage and current trends. PhD thesis, Leeds University. Munang, I.A. (1996) Cameroon Pidgin English (CPE) interference in Standard English (SE) lexical usage: A case study of language use among anglophone Cameroonians. Unpublished Maitrise Dissertation, University of Yaounde I. Todd, L. (1982) Varieties of English around the World T1: Cameroon. Heidelberg: Julius Groos. Todd, L. and Hancock, I. (1986) International English Usage. Beckenham: Croom Helm. Trudell, B. (2002) Language choices of the Catholic missions in the Southern Cameroons: Influences on decisions by missionaries and Cameroonians, 1914–1939. Unpublished MA thesis, University of Edinburgh.

Appendix Questionnaire Fellow traveller, I am planning to visit the towns of Bamenda, Buea and Limbe, to discuss the use of Pidgin and English with people who live in these towns. I want to first hear what you – travelling on this bus with me today – have to say about these two languages. I have a paper here with questions for you to answer. If your hands are busy, you can get your neighbour to write your answer to each question for you. I will provide each row of five people with one pen. You should take turns at writing your answers. I appreciate your cooperation. If you have any questions, just raise your hand and I will rush to come to you. Thank you. In what types of situations or contexts do you prefer that people should use Pidgin? Why do you think they should or should not use Pidgin in these contexts? (1) Do you speak Pidgin? (2) Can you read Pidgin? (3) Can you write Pidgin? (4) Should people use Pidgin in the market place?

Why?

(5)

. . . in political rallies?

Why?

(6)

. . . in the presence of friends?

Why?

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(7)

. . . in the presence of strangers?

Why?

(8)

. . . on the radio?

Why?

(9)

. . . on television?

Why?

(10)

. . . in their place of work?

Why?

(11)

. . . in hospitals?

Why?

(12)

. . . in court?

Why?

(13)

. . . at the police station?______

Why?

(14)

. . . in church?

Why?

(15)

. . . in the presence of children?

Why?

(16)

. . . in the presence of parents?

Why?

(17)

. . . in school?

Why?

(18) Will you let your children watch a play in Pidgin?

Why?

(19) Will you let your children read a book in Pidgin?

Why?

(20) If the State donates books and reduces the fees in schools where some subjects (e.g. history or civics) are taught in Pidgin, would you send your children to such schools?

Why?

13 Susu not Sousou: Nationalism, Prescriptivism and Etymology in a Postcolonial Creole Language Orthography Lise Winer

Introduction For centuries, the vernacular language varieties of the non-indigenous population of the Caribbean region have been characterized as ‘broken’ or ‘debased corruptions’ of standard metropolitan languages such as English and French. Efforts by linguists and educators have led many to recognize these vernacular languages as having been formed by normal processes of creolization, and to be as rule-governed as any others. These efforts began at the very end of the 19th century, but did not really take root until the 1960s, concomitant with political movements for independence within the region. In the ensuing decades, creole languages, including Haitian, Jamaican, Papiamentu, St Lucian and Trinidadian, have become increasingly recognized as legitimate media for expression and, to varying extents, for education and official communication. If a creole language is considered to be simply a dialect or variety of a standard language, it is consequently treated as being only minimally different from the standard, like regional or other dialects; as Mervyn Morris has noted, the predominant strategy for writing Caribbean English Creole has been ‘to write the vernacular for the eye accustomed to Standard English, but with various alterations signaling Creole’ (Morris, 1999: 10). Although a standardized spelling for Jamaican (meant to be applied to other varieties as 223

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well) was devised by Frederic G. Cassidy (Cassidy & Le Page, 1980), it has not been widely accepted, especially in popular literature. A newer and more consistently ‘different-looking’ spelling system for Jamaican has been developed and promulgated by the Jamaican Language Unit (2009) at the University of the West Indies, Jamaica.1 The establishment of a national language as a language in its own right, and by definition different from a closely related language is not a concern confined to creole societies. The twin concepts of Abstand and Ausbau were used by Heinz Kloss in 1967 to describe speech communities/countries in which more than one variant of the same language, or two separate languages, are in use, for example, Breton, Serbo-Croatian, Moldovian and Romanian, Persian and Tajik. Kloss warns that determining whether two varieties are the same or different languages must not be obscured by superficial external features ‘like script or spelling which have little or nothing to do with the corpus of the language’ (Kloss, 1967: 31). That is, would these varieties be considered to constitute one or rather two languages if they were at a preliterate stage? The concept of Abstand languages assumes that there is a way to distinguish ‘languages’ on purely linguistic grounds; in creole languages this often refers to fundamental differences in tense-aspect systems. However, the concept of an Ausbau language ‘is primarily a sociological one . . . it refers to languages which have deliberately been reshaped so as to become vehicles of variegated literary expression’ (Kloss, 1967: 30). The Ausbau concept has, implicitly or explicitly, been an important tool in creole language planning (Romaine, 2005: 102–103). It can be seen in a tendency – unconscious or conscious – to increase the (perceived) autonomy of the creole language by emphasizing its independence from the superstrate (i.e. major lexical donor languages), often by the choice of phonemic rather than historical spellings. Orthographic planning is a particularly powerful tool in the creation of distance between a creole language and its superstrate standard languages. The existence of a codified standard spelling gives a language more autonomy than it might otherwise have if it had to rely entirely on the orthography of another language. Creole writing systems based on the orthographies of their lexifier languages often do the creoles a disservice in suggesting that they are inferior, deficient versions of the languages to which they are lexically affiliated. Although the English creole of Trinidad and Tobago (TEC) is supposedly an ‘oral’ rather than a ‘written’ language, in fact it has a considerable and copious written history, within a population generally highly literate in ‘school’ English, with the result that there are frequent and long-standing written precedents for many words – sometimes variable but very familiar. Moreover, although TEC and the English of Trinidad and

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Tobago (T&T) has thousands of words that are not of English origin, by far the majority of the lexicon is in fact derived from English, and there is no reason to deny this connection. The preparation of the Dictionary of the English/Creole of Trinidad & Tobago (Winer, 2009) paid considerable attention to principles of orthography and entailed many individual decisions that were not always easily reconciled or prioritized. After considering phonemic, historical-etymological and modified English models, the two most general guiding principles of orthographic standardization decided upon were: (1) Historically precedented and accepted forms can be used where known and available, and where they do not obscure pronunciation or etymology. (2) Phonemic orthography should be used for words: (a) for which there are no established historical precedents; (b) whose etyma are unknown; or (c) whose etyma are very different in form or phonology. (Winer, 2007: 423) It should be noted that, although totally phonemically based orthographies are often favoured by linguists and nationalists, this approach was not considered a viable one in the T&T setting because of the high rate of literacy in English, significant phonological differences and variables within the overall speech community, and a general rejection by native speakers of ‘primitive’looking spellings in favour of more transparently ‘historical’ ones. This paper addresses the problem included in the first guideline, that is, the obfuscation of etymology by misleading orthography, and the ways in which recommended spellings were established for a set of 11 words with this type of problematic history. This is examined within an ideological framework of both distancing from and identifying/allying with English and other lexicon-contributing languages. The finding of this work is that, while autonomy from English – based on nationalistic and anti-colonial patriotism – is important in establishing a creole identity, other – sometimes conflicting – identities and alliances with other languages based on ethnicity are a factor in ‘word-claiming’ that can lead to the mis-ascription of etymology. Both, however, rely on prescriptivism to uphold their claims.

Language Ideology and Ascription of Etymology As Woolard and Schieffelin have observed, ‘Ideologies of language are significant for social as well as linguistic analysis because they are not only

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about language. Rather, such ideologies envision and enact links of language to group and personal identity, to aesthetics, to morality, and to epistemology . . . Inequality among groups of speakers, and colonial encounters par excellence, throw language ideology into high relief’ (Woolard & Schieffelin, 1994: 55–56). Language ideology can be defined as the set of beliefs about a language held or expressed by its speakers that indicates, explains or justifies the ways in which that language is structured, developed, used, planned and changed. As Woolard and Schieffelin note, ‘Research on self-conscious struggles over language in class-stratified and especially multilingual communities has treated language ideologies as socially, politically, and/or linguistically significant, even when the researcher’s primary interest may be in debunking such ideologies’ (Woolard & Shieffelin, 1994: 60). The incorrect ascription of an etymology can obscure a word’s true origin, whether that origin is clearly understood or not. In TEC, this is probably most noticeable with Amerindian words, which have often entered TEC not directly but through Spanish, French or French Creole (Winer, 2007: 408). If, for example, people consider a word to be ‘French’ and spell it according to what are perceived to be French orthographic rules, but the word actually derives from English, then from a historical perspective this word is misrepresented. There are two reasons why this misrepresentation should be avoided. The first is, of course, simple lexicographical correctness. The second reason has to do with the interaction of the concepts of ‘autonomy’ on the one hand, and racial/ethnic ‘alliance’ on the other. In this paper, I will show how ‘identification with’ a standard language – English, French, Spanish and ‘Hindi’ (see below) – and ‘distancing from’ a standard language (usually English) have interacted in words such that etymological origins have been obscured or distorted. TEC has been considered by some creolists to be a ‘semi-creole’ – that is, not a ‘true’ or ‘real’ creole language such as, for example, the Caribbean Englishlexicon languages Sranan, Jamaican or Guyanese. And, given the traditional negative and stigmatizing attitude towards English Creole in the Caribbean, no less in T&T, it is not surprising that, for generations, native speakers of TEC used strategies such as denying that the vernacular was a real language, denying that they themselves spoke it, denying that it was really separate from standard English or denying that it was anything other than another regional dialect. The controversies over the use of the vernacular/dialect in more formal spheres, including and especially education, are well known (Winer, 1993, 2007), as is the relatively recent movement towards greater acceptance of Creole, Patwa or ‘nation language’ in the post-postcolonial period, during which ‘the evolution of sociopolitical self-determination has

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resulted in the rejection of some aspects of foreign culture in the region. In the wake (or possibly the vanguard) of this rejection, moves a revaluation of the creole as the vehicle of protest, the badge of Antillean identity, and, consequently, a positive social force’ (Carrington, 1979: 10). Language-planning efforts have generally taken one of two general approaches to elevating the status of the vernacular: emphasizing its closeness to a standard language of generally or locally high status (a ‘dialectalization’ approach); or emphasizing its uniqueness, autonomy and distance from such standards. In a review of the controversies over the standardization of orthography for Haitian Creole, a French-lexicon language with a substantial contribution from African languages (including the lexicon), Schieffelin and Doucet (1994) point out that a key point has been whether the deviser and/or user of a particular orthography identifies Haitian as a separate language or as a kind of French. This choice leads to other choices about priorities in orthographic rules. For example, are words derived from French to be spelled in a French manner, complete with accent marks? What about words derived from languages other than French? And what about words whose etymological origin is unknown or uncertain? The multilingual roots of Caribbean creoles, particularly those of Trinidad and Guyana, can challenge the development of a ‘badge of Antillean identity’ based on a nationalist – and colonialist – model in which language and nation are equated. As Woolard and Schieffelin write, ‘Language varieties that are regularly associated with (and thus index) particular speakers are often revalorized – or misrecognized – not just as symbols of group identity, but as emblems of political allegiance or of social, intellectual, or moral worth’ (Woolard & Shieffelin, 1994: 61). However, because the relationship of ‘unity’ and ‘diversity’ is so often fraught with the idea of the ‘limited good’, in such a context ‘national’ and ‘ethnic’ recognition can be in conflict. Specifically, while struggling to establish the validity of the whole pie of national linguistic identity, each ethnolinguistic group tries to establish its rights to bigger and bigger slices. This is often viewed as a kind of zero-sum game in which the accumulation of wealth (i.e. the claimed lexicon) for one language implies privation (i.e. lost lexicon) for another. As one AfroTrinidadian woman complained to me many years ago, when I was showing her how many Indo-Trinidadian words I had been gathering: ‘If you keep doing that, there won’t be room for us’. Such competition over the language pie has two components: (1) the primary one between ‘English’ and ‘non-English’; and (2) the secondary one among ‘non-Englishes’. If one’s strategy is to gain status for the creole by allying it with English, then the more English etyma the better. If one’s strategy is to gain status for the creole by acknowledging the non-English

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contributions, then the more non-English etyma the better – within that, the more etyma from the favoured language the better. Thus, we can see a dual interaction of Abstand and Ausbau between English and non-English, and between one non-English language and another. As Luykx notes in a somewhat different situation (that of Spanish and Quechua in Bolivia), notwithstanding that there are at least two recognizably different and still extant languages involved, ‘contested orthographies are also sites of contested identity’ (Luykx, 2003: 96).

Language Sources in TEC English is, of course, not only the primary lexical source for the TEC lexicon, but it is the most recent colonial language and the main, if not the sole, medium of instruction since the mid-19th century. The T&T population is highly literate in English; regular arguments over ‘correct English’ erupt in the public arena. Obviously, older people who were well educated during colonial times made a considerable investment in their competence in standard English; this does not, however, keep them from using, let alone recognizing, the vernacular. Older people who were less well educated during colonial times may not have the same degree of competence, but may feel either respect for or, less frequently, antagonism towards ‘correct English’. With any speaker, the use of TEC, particularly in writing, can be seen, as Romaine has noted for Hawai’i, as ‘an anti-standard’; the popularity of written TEC in literary or humorous contexts would not negate the ‘antistandard’ tone of TEC used outside such contexts. Spanish was the first European language to be heard in Trinidad, but Spanish settlement was sparse. Apart from a few place-names, most of the Spanish influence derives from Venezuelan immigration from the beginning of the 19th century. The majority view of the ‘cocoa panyols’ has traditionally been quite negative (Moodie-Kublalsingh, 1994: 225). However, more recently, this situation has changed: given the widespread observance of Spanish-origin customs during the Christmas season, one might agree with the popular expression that, during this time of year, ‘everyone is a Spanish [sic]’. Spanish has historical validity, but is not really considered prestigious. French and French Creole (FC) came to Trinidad towards the end of the 18th century as the Spanish colonial rulers encouraged the settlement of Roman Catholics from elsewhere. French planters came in large numbers not only from France but from other French colonies such as Haiti and Martinique; with them came many mixed-race and black slaves, as well as free people of colour who spoke either French or FC. The latter,

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known locally as Patois, quickly became the lingua franca of the entire island and remained so until well into the 20th century. It is now moribund, but generally considered with great affection, even by those who do not speak it. French in Trinidad still has quite high prestige, at least in principle, as it does globally. If a Trinidadian is going to reject an English origin for a word, then French would be the most prestigious, and therefore acceptable, other European source. Furthermore, because of the strong lexical influence of FC in Trinidad and its prior influence on spelling, it is often difficult to distinguish French-origin words from words that derive from, for example, Amerindian or African languages (see example 11 below, susu versus sousou). ‘Hindi’ actually refers mainly to two languages spoken in the parts of northern India from which most Indian migrants came as indentured labourers between 1845 and 1915. A small percentage of these migrants were Muslim and spoke Urdu. Some came from areas where they would have spoken Tamil, Malayalam, Bengali or other languages. However, most came from the province of Bihar and spoke Bhojpuri, a language closely related to Hindi; this became the common denominator of Indian speech in Trinidad and, unless specified otherwise, words of this origin are labelled in the dictionary as H-Bh. Sometimes, words of FC origin are considered H-Bh because they have been ‘Bhojpurized’ phonologically. It was also important to return these words to their FC origin. African words have been clearly recognized as making up a small but culturally important set of TEC words. Many have only recently been investigated and their African etyma, mostly Kikongo, determined (Warner-Lewis, 2003: 303–329; Winer, 2009). The African origins of some words, such as god-horse (‘stick insect’), which are calques or loan-translations, are quite obscured by their English versions, and are particularly tricky to pin down. At the same time, pro-African nationalism or ethnic orientation has led to the identification of some words, particularly those associated with Afro-Trinidadian culture, as African rather than something else (see below). Amerindian origins are readily identifiable in place-names, some terms for flora and fauna, and a handful of other words for Amerindian objects. (There are probably more that have been obscured by transmission via one or more European languages.) Among some TEC speakers, some of partial Amerindian descent, this heritage is particularly respected either for historical or spiritual reasons and is more or less recognized in the wider population. Efforts at the ‘revival’ or ‘renewal’ of pan-indigenous peoples have led in some instances to the purposive (re)introduction of Amerindian words and customs from non-local languages (Forte, 2005: 150–213).

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Case Studies For the following 11 examples, the pronunciation is given first, including variants, followed by precedented spellings, definition(s), examples of written citations, and a discussion of the recommended spelling. All information is excerpted from the Dictionary of the English/Creole of Trinidad & Tobago (Winer, 2009). Key: BrE (British English), CdE (Canadian English), E (English), FC (French Creole, Patois), Fr (French), Ge (Gen and/or Gengbe), H-Bh (Hindi and/or Bhojpuri), NAm (North American), Ptg (Portuguese), Sp (Spanish). 1. /εnt, e˜, e˜/ spellings: aint, ain’t, ant, eh, ehn, ehn’t, ent 1 part A negator usually placed before a verb. Generally equivalent to E not, don’t, doesn’t, didn’t, is/are not, hasn’t/haven’t, etc. • ‘You ain’t seen the people inside it? Look the child’. (1937) • It had a time he was only saying he ent want to go anyway. (1977) • ‘What savings, you ent see they taxing that now?’ (1987) • ‘He ent kill nobody . . . to say kill somebody, me ent believe that’. (1993) • ‘Is only in URP you could ain’ go to the wuk an’ still get pay’. (1995) 2 part A word used before a phrase or sentence, usually indicating that the speaker is expecting a positive response or agreement. • ‘Is Mr Ramlogan whisky’. . . . ‘Ain’t is your whisky, Mr Ramlogan?’ (1958) • ‘Ent he was wokin’ as ah salesman?’ (1977) • ‘But ent these things could fit under somebody house?’ (1994) 3 part A sentence-final question word indicating an expectation of a positive answer or agreement. • ‘Dat is what de Police dere for. Ent?’ (1975) This particle is widely assumed to derive from the E ain’t. There are, however, three difficulties with this. First, we don’t really know the derivational pathway. Second, although this word could be replaced with E ain’t in some instances, for example, ‘He ent kill nobody’ (‘He ain’t kill nobody’) it could not in some other instances, for example, ‘But ent these things could fit under somebody house?’ or ‘Dat is what de Police dere for. Ent?’ Third, the use of ain’t in English immediately evokes sociolinguistic variables, mostly of low socio-economic class and lack of education. Wherever this TEC particle came from, it does not have the same grammatical functions

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and sociolinguistic signalling as in English, and is therefore a prime candidate for increased Abstand to reinforce this difference. Therefore, the recommended spellings are ent for /εnt/ and eh for /e˜, e˜/. 2. /bεkε nεg/ spellings: bacon-egg, becken-egg, beke-neg n A person of mixed-race white and black ancestry, especially someone with very light skin, reddish hair and African features. • The black neighbours were jealous of her little one, passed remarks about beke negre. (1956) • ‘Yuh thought yuh would of make a becken-egg baby? No chile, its a black bouncin baby girl’. (1972) The words beke (< Igbo beké ‘white man; European’) and neg (< Fr negre / Ptg negro ‘black person’) came into TEC via FC. They are still widely used in FC-speaking areas such as Haiti, Martinique and Guadeloupe. Although neg is close enough to nigger to be easily comprehensible to a non-FC speaking Trinidadian, beke is apparently not close enough to the more common TEC form bakra or bukra to be readily identified as such. There is no question that beke/bakra is African in origin; therefore it is appropriate to spell it with the African-signifying k (Thomas, 2007). Because the two parts have become unfamiliar, the re-interpretation of beke-neg as becken-egg (i.e. bacon-and-egg) across the original word boundaries – explained by native speakers as coming from the contrast of the yellow and white of an egg with the dark red of bacon – is completely misleading. This should simply be spelled beke-neg, as in FC, providing no difficulty in reading for TEC speakers. Since beke does not look like any French word, it is also a way to reinforce its African origin. 3. /kalpso/ spellings: calipso, caliso, calypso, cariso, kaiso, kalipso n A type of song originating in Trinidad. • 1900 Masquerade Calipso. (1900) • ‘The marksmen in Calypso’. (1900) • The leader from a position immediately in front of the stand sang to an accompaniment on guitars and cuatros a most patriotic ‘callypso’. (1902) • Both bands were seen and their calypsos heard. (1903) • The newly-evolving Cariso/Calypso [singers] – (both terms were in use in the decade before World War I) – needed quieter accompanying instruments, since each word that they sang was an important part of the performance. (1912) • The same half-dozen or so melodies, with but slight variations from time to time, have for generations been sung as calypsoes. (1944)

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• Edric Connor contends that the word ‘calypso’ comes from the African ‘Kai so’ (a word used by the Hausas in West Africa). (1945) • Calypsoes For So Tonight and Every Night at the New Brigade Tent T’Dad Calypso Club . . . Music by Steelband and Orchestra. (1955) • Calypso? The word has always grated the ears of good Creoles, and many, including far more scholarly people than me, have tried to trace the origin of the word. That, I must confess, I have not been able to do with certainty, but certainly the word Calypso is a modern corruption. Some time before the year 1900 there was a well-known Patois ‘Calypso’ which went as follows: ‘C’est Caliso qui naren en meh (repeat 3 times), Qui fait serrer mouler moen’ (‘It is the Caliso that bring me, That make the dew wet me’). This is the word our song was known by in the ‘good old days’ – ‘CALISO’. Is it too late to revert to this? (1962) • In many islands of the Caribbean, there are calypso-like songs . . . but the calypso of Trinidad and Tobago, called cariso by Atilla (Raymond Quevedo), stands apart. (1964) • I have chosen to use the term [‘the real calypso’], following Charters, in order to distinguish between Andrews Sisters and Harry Belafontetype presentations of calypso, and the Trinidadian calypso tradition . . . Trinidadians also at times make a distinction between the two by using the terms ‘calypso song’ for Harry Belafonte style calypso. (A third distinction, ‘kaiso’, is also sometimes used to connote the best calypsos.) (1991) There is no other local word whose origin has been the subject of as much debate – and it is by no means clearly settled, although many have stated that it is. Suggested origins include: the Greek muse Calypso – highly unlikely, except perhaps in influencing spelling in English, and reflective of a bizarre Eurocentrism; Carib cariso, carieto ‘joyous song’ – possible, but there is no evidence of extensive Amerindian–African contact nor Amerindian musical influence in Trinidad; and Hausa kaiso ‘bravo! well done!’ In the earliest written references to songs associated with Carnival, the word is spelled calipso or calypso, clearly reflecting a pronunciation like /kalpso/. While this type of song was almost certainly present in various forms earlier on, it is likely that the word calypso itself developed towards the end of the 19th century. The strong desire to claim calypso as African in origin – via the music, the type of lyrics, and/or the function of the songs (e.g. social criticism) – is very clear, and there is no question that the art form developed in Trinidad among people of African birth or descent. Some citations, especially the reminiscence from 1962, seem to indicate an older term caliso or cariso (the

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l/r distinction being non-phonemic in some traditional TEC varieties), but it is not easy to see how the /p/ could have been introduced. This goes double for the presumed derivation from kaiso, which would have had to add both /l/ or /r/ and /p/. Emotional support for this important, almost defining, element of T&T culture as being African is understandable, but the word itself cannot definitively be demonstrated as deriving from an African etymon. Given the widespread use, acceptability and transparency of pronunciation of the form calypso, I have recommended this spelling. Although I have not seen instances of *kalypso, it would not be unexpected from an African-oriented viewpoint. 4. /lanjap/ spellings: lagniappe, lanyap, laniappe, Lan Yap, largniappe, lonioc n An additional bit which the vendor gives free of cost, usually to a valued customer. (< Fr lagniappe < Sp prob < Quechua) • Lonioc or Lomoe, extra goods given to a buyer by a seller. (1883) • Largniappe, something added or something extra. (1956) • ‘Laniappe’ meaning ‘something extra’. (1970) • He had thrown in two bottles of rum and three pounds of saltfish as lagniappe. (1980) • Cooks who got ‘lan yap’ (langniappe) (extra for good custom) at the market gave them to neighbours as forms of appreciation. (2004) • Win cash instantly with Play Whe Lan Yap, Another Whe to win! (2006) This happy custom, still honoured by some traditional market and roadside vendors, is most usually spelled lagniappe, reflecting a French orientation. The word was extensively used in FC, which is probably why many people consider it French. The fact that it is also found in Louisiana and has a fairly well-established spelling as lagniappe in American English – from Mark Twain to the New Yorker – reinforces this. This word, however, came into French from Spanish la ñapa /la njapa/, which in turn probably derives from an unknown Quechua etymon. There being no difference in pronunciation between the Fr and FC variants, and French having only a transmitting role, it does not seem right to give it the full French-style orthography. In the 2004 citation, the writer is clearly torn between a phonemic representation (lan yap) and showing knowledge of the presumed French etymology (langniappe), with influence from the Fr langue. The spelling lan yap is especially interesting in the 2006 citation, in the context of Play Whe, a government lottery based on traditional Whe-Whe, well known to be of Chinese origin; Lan Yap, spelled in two capitalized, monosyllabic words, appears similar to common Chinese names in this form.

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I recommended that lanyap be used as the recommended spelling in order to emphasize the actual pronunciation, as it is not possible to link it directly to the presumed original etymon, and both Sp and Fr acted as transmitters. The separated form lan yap should be avoided, although it might be argued that this is marginally closer to the Sp version and can be considered a deliberate joke in a ‘Chinese’ context. 5. /bhaƭi/ spellings: baajee, bargee, bhaagi, bhaaji, bhagee, bhagi, bhaji, bhargee, bhargi n Cooked, usually boiled, leaves of green leafy plants. • Rice or baji, which was made by stewing the leaves of various varieties of spinach with cocoanut oil, butter or pork fat, formed our principal diet. (1909) • But there are ways that they can be easily fed, Like the coolies, on bhargee, pelauri, dalbhat and dalpouri, Channa, parata and the aloo ke talkaree. (1936) • A very common dish eaten with rice and dhal . . . was ‘bhagi’. The ‘bhagi’ may be made up of a number of different plants. (1975) • [T]hey would set forth for the fields after a modest meal of tea and roti, carrying a big-sized saddha roti with bhaji (spinach) or pumpkin for their breakfast. (1999/2000) Often glossed as ‘spinach’, this is a standard feature of Indo-Trinidadian cuisine. The leaves of numerous plants are used, often identified by modifiers, for example, chowry bhaaji, marsa b., marwa b., pani ni b., small sarhaachi b., sarhaachi b., poi b., karmi b. marmi b. nona b., nuniya b., gouma b., makci b. and fowl-foot b. There is no question that this derives from the H-Bh bha¯jı¯ ‘fried; cooked’. The four questions about spelling this word are on the choices for: initial b versus bh; the lengthened first vowel a versus aa; g versus j; and ee versus i for /i/. As Mohan and Zador (1986) have noted, although much original Bhojpuri pronunciation is disappearing in Trinidad, there are still some regularly produced and remarked-upon features, non-phonemic in English but phonemic in Bhojpuri. One of these is the presence of aspirated consonants such as /bh, k h, ph / in words of Indian origin, for example, bhoray ‘eat with the fingers’, bhowji ‘older brother’s wife’, khanjri ‘a small drum’, and phua ‘father’s sister’. Although many of these words are used almost entirely within the Indo-Trinidadian community, quite a few are known throughout the general population. For these words, the aspiration is kept even by non-Indo-Trinidadians. Since this is the case here, bh is chosen over b.

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The lengthened first vowel /a/, marked by a double a as in baajee or bhaaji, reflects the original Bh ‘long’ vowel. Lengthened or double vowels are common and phonemic in Bh, and designated so in writing. In English, this type of lengthening almost always occurs in cases of r-omission, as in British or Southern American English star /sta/ or apart /apat/. This regular pattern is not represented overtly in standard English spelling, but often appears in eye dialect portrayals of ‘drawls’. In Trinidad, the pattern is recognized phonologically but not as part of some standard Englishes as well; thus, it is common to see words like bad spelled bard and hard spelled haad. I have advised against doing this in spellings of English words, as this is a regular dialectal function of phonotactics; however, in words of Indian origin where the lengthened vowel is retained, it should be retained in the Trinidad spelling, partly to ensure its pronunciation in all instances, and partly to link it to the source. Note that in the final vowel in this word, the original lengthening of the /i/ in the H-Bh etymon is not usually marked in written forms, as its word-final position makes it sound long in any case. Whereas the English spelling ee is always pronounced /i/, a decision was made to use the spelling i for this sound in words not of English origin, partly because double vowels can be cumbersome in words with more than one, for example simidimi versus seemeedeemee. The choice of j over g was made on the grounds that it was less confusing for English readers as to whether the ‘hard’ // or the ‘soft’ /ƭ/ was intended. Thus, the recommended spelling for this word is bhaaji. This retains the original H-Bh aspirated initial consonant and double initial vowel. 6. /kalalu/ spellings: calaloo, calalou, calaloux, calalue, calilou, calilue, callaloo, calliloe, colaloo, kalalu, kallaloo n A thick soup, made with green leaves, usually DASHEEN, and OCHRO, seasoned with crab or salt meat. • Ocres and Tannia Sprouts, Guma and some other Bush herbs mixed with Pork, Salt fish, Land Crabs, and Peppers make a favourite Soup called Calliloe. (1843) • She was wiping down the table at the time to prepare some calilou. (1844) • An old French lady . . . had occasion to find fault with her female cook (a slave) who in spite of repeated warnings allowed the Calalou for the Sunday breakfast to burn. (1896) • Beef steak, Colaloo and pung plantain followed next. (1904) • Menu To-day . . . Callaloo Crab . . . (1907) • Kallaloo. A creole soup. (1922) • From the day you give me the callaloo, You had me just like your kunumunu. (1939)

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• All your fowl and turkey stew, Can’t compare with my Callalloo. (1956) • [T]he slimy oyoyo leaf was used to make kalalu. (1974) • . . . callaloo swizzled to superfine smoothness. (1985) • Coconut milk and crab always enhance the true flavour of ‘callaloo’ – a popular vegetable dish. (1991) This soup is widely considered to be African in origin and hence in name. This is reinforced by its traditional association with people of African descent, for example for Sunday breakfast, and by the common use of ochros (E okra), which provides a slimy consistency and is unarguably of African origin. One additional ingredient to throw into this pot is evidence, as in the 1974 citation, that while sliminess was considered an intrinsic part of the dish, it was not always provided by ochros. Etymologically, the word appears to come in a somewhat roundabout way via Latin American Spanish calalú < Portuguese carurú ‘a rich soup or stew in which one or more kinds of leaves are the chief ingredients’ < TupiGuarani caàrurú ‘a thick leaf’. That is, an Amerindian food/term was transmitted via Ptg to West Africa, where some slimy ingredient was either added or changed to indigenous ochros. The food/name was then re-imported into the Caribbean with enslaved Africans. African words such as Ge kalalu ‘broth, soup’ are probably loans from the original Amerindian via Portuguese. This historical proposal has little validity for modern-day Trinidadians, who consider the dish to be essentially African, hence the occasional spelling kalalu, especially in ‘creole’ (i.e. local Afro-creole) contexts. The spelling calaloux is obviously a French-oriented spelling, although it is, interestingly enough, used for Calaloux Press, a publisher with a strong Afro-Trinbagonian identification. (The reason for the choice of spelling is not known.) Nonetheless, the spelling callaloo is recommended for two reasons. First, it is far and away the most common and consistently used in writing during the 19th and 20th centuries. Second, given the somewhat uncertain history of the word, and the probability of its having had multiple influences, it seems appropriate to have a spelling that is not oriented toward any particular source language. There is obviously some English influence in callaloo, parallel to, well, parallel. Why this spelling was chosen by earlier writers is not clear, as the spelling calaloo would surely have produced the same pronunciation. It may be that they simply wished to indicate it as a possible, but not probable, English word. 7. /dal, dal/ spellings: daal, dahl, dal, darl, dhal, dhall, dhöl, dholl n Dried yellow split peas.

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• For Sale . . . Yellow Dholl. (1907) • Sale of dhöl and split peas at the American Steamers’ Warehouse. (1919) • Preparing the evening meal of darl, bhat (rice) and bhajee (spinach). (1970) • Cowsil was swizzling the dhal in the blue enamel pot on the choolha . . . She turned to him, abandoning the pot; the dhall dripping from the ghotney (swizzle). (1983) • She went home, cleaned the fish . . . cooked it nice. Bath, dahl, roti and fish. (1988) • ‘We done start picking rice and daal already’. (1993) • She boiled rice, made a ‘dal’ of split peas. (1994) This word is from the H-Bh da¯l ‘pulse prepared for use by being split’. Two features are notable here. The first is the question of whether or not there should be an h after the initial d. Aspiration of consonants, common and phonemic in the source languages, is still found in TEC, and should be recognized and kept in the spelling where appropriate, as in bhaaji (discussed above), and the words ghotney and bath (i.e. bhaat) in the 1983 and 1988 citations, respectively. Although it is not uncommon to find the spelling dhal in English, neither the original nor the local pronunciations have aspiration. However, the somewhat indiscriminate sprinkling of h where there is no aspiration is often simply used to signify ‘Indianness’, that is, distance from English and closeness to H-Bh. The long vowel is represented in the citations by aa, ah or ar (see discussion for bhaaji, above). The original pronunciation does have a long vowel, but the local pronunciation does only sometimes. Therefore, a recommendation is made for dal, with a second choice of daal. 8. /mvela/ spellings: mauvais langue n Critical, slanderous talk. • That was the proper technique for dealing with the creole mauvais langue . . . If you ignored it the public did likewise; if you engaged it you set a thousand more in motion instantly. (1945) • Mauvais langue: The language of dirty politics. (1986) • Vindictiveness, acrimony, envy, hate, jealousy, covetousness and mauvaislangue are characteristics found in the bosom of evil people. (1986) • ‘Joining the Scouts will make a man of you, not a mouse, like somebody I know’ . . . ‘If he wants to join the bloody scouts, OK, OK, but leave out the mauvais langue’. (1995) • It is a pity that some sections of the media, rather than lending a helping hand, should seek to invent mischief and heap mauvais langue on some. (1996)

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This item is clearly derived from Fr (< Fr mauvaise langue ‘bad tongue’, ‘malicious, gossipy or slanderous utterances’). It is widely recognized that this lexical item is originally from French, hence the Fr spelling langue ‘tongue’. However, this word has undergone a sea-change from the original Fr mauvaise langue, with the modifier in the feminine (pronounced /mvez la/), as it has really come into TEC more directly via FC, whence the pronunciation without the /z/, /mvela/, spelled in FC as mové lang or in a style without accents as mauvay lang. Reaction to this latter suggestion is generally negative, as many people know that mauvais/mauvaise in Fr is spelled with an s, pronounced or not, and wish to acknowledge its ‘French’ origins. This can be seen as a type of hyper-French – making something as French as possible – but although I have recommended mauvay lang, the spelling mauvais langue is so common that it will probably stand. 9. /pastεl/ spellings: pastel, pastelle n A spiced, ground meat filling in a soft corn flour dough crust, wrapped in banana leaves and steamed. • That night Aurelia bought chicken pilau and pastelles. (1952) • [At Christmas] payme, pastels, wines and preserves . . . assume great prominence. (1974) • Preparation had begun on the stuffed chicken, the leg of pork . . . the pastelles. (1984) • Christmas time brings the opportunity for women in our country to revel in the preparation of dainties like pastelles. (1992) This is one of the most widespread and well-known local dishes associated with Christmas festivities, and is widely recognized as being of Spanish (Venezuelan) origin (< Sp pastel ‘sweet- or meat-stuffed cornmeal crust’). It is therefore puzzling to find so many instances of pastelle, a hyper-French spelling. Such a spelling supports the view of French as more prestigious than Sp (pastel). Perhaps pastel is avoided to create distance from the homophonous but clearly different E pastel ‘light colour’. The spelling pastelle should be discouraged; there is no reason not to spell this word pastel, as in the identical Spanish original. 10. /sav/ spellings: chive, cive, cyve, sayv, sive n Allium schoenoprasum, a thin onion-like plant, the bulbs and leaves of which are used for seasoning. • Chives . . . largely used in Trinidad, for seasoning and salads. (1941) • Ingredients for the ‘Callaloo’ – coconut, pepper, chive, ochroes, pumpkin, onion, crab, and dasheen leaves. (1971–1972)

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• [They] sell mostly chive, tomatoes and avocadoes by the roadside. Valerie’s plaintive voice called to passers-by, ‘Siiive ah dollar, siiive ah dollar!’ (2001) This plant is the same species, though not the same variety/cultivar, as the North American chive /ư/, and actually resembles more closely the E green onion, spring onion or CdE shallot, in that the NAm chive is used only for the very thin, hollow green leaves, whereas the T&T plant, like the green onion, has a thicker white bulb just above the roots and enveloping green leaves; the T&T variety is usually dark purplish-red near the roots. The word probably derives from a combination of E chive and Fr ciboulette or civette; the item it resembles more closely, however, is usually known in French as eschalotte. In this case, it seems that a too-ready identification of two plants with similar uses and similar names has been made, partly because the botany is inherently confusing, and partly to lessen the distance for English-speakers reading T&T cookbooks (in the same way that shado beni is often glossed as ‘coriander’, when it is not). In order to distinguish the T&T plant, it should be spelled more phonemically, as sive, and glossed in cookbooks as ‘similar to a green onion, etc’.. 11. /susu/ spellings: sou-sou, sue-sue, susu n A cooperative savings system in which each person contributes a fixed amount each week, and the whole amount, the hand, is taken by a different member each time. • Claim for 18s 9d, ‘sou-sou’ money. Judgment for plaintiff for the amount claimed with costs. (1919) • [He] based ‘sue-sue’ as his defence and . . . said that the marks were in connection with a sweepstake. (1936) • Susu . . . a kind of mutual aid affair . . . each week one member draws his ‘hand’ – the total for that week, which means that he has ready money to buy things he would otherwise not save for. (1939) • This month, say, Juana would get her ‘hand’, fifty dollars, a purse made up by ten sou-sou members at five dollars a head. Next month it would be Popito’s turn, and the next Aurelia’s. (1952) • Yes, just whisper into that better ear of hers that there is a S-A-L-E on . . . and, taking up the rent money plus the sou-sou money, she will use the shortest and fastest route to that store. (1954) • Let’s thro up a soo-soo between we, ah brokes. (1956) • [T]he problem of collection is of major concern to all shopkeepers. This particular shopkeeper solves it by insisting that all customers join a ‘susu’ for the five months of crop-time . . . The shopkeeper holds all

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susu money. When the ‘hand’ falls due, he keeps whatever is necessary to pay the accrued debt, giving the customer the remainder. (1961) • Shango members [of Spiritual Baptists] say that they make ‘susu’ with African gods. (1983) • ‘Is five years we runnin’ dis sou-sou an’ not ah man ever miss ah hand’. (1984) • [He] has been ‘ripped off’ the sum of $1,500 in a ‘sou-sou’. He has been paying his ‘hand’ but still cannot collect. (1986) • One of the big purchasers over the last two years has been Sou-Sou Land Limited, a company which has been buying land and developing on behalf of the landless for housing. Sou-Sou is a patois word meaning penny by penny, and is a traditional form of banking among low income groups in Trinidad. (1988) • ‘The Chinese relied on private sou-sous to obtain funds for business. Family and friends also lent money. No interest was charged’. (1993) • The sou-sou did not hold assets and had no expenditure charged upon the participants. Very few had more than thirty members; they were localized, informal and easily dissolved. It was a system based on absolute trust and a strong sense of responsibility. (2004) This is still a widespread custom, particularly among people of African descent. It has survived into the 21st century, especially among the less economically advantaged. The derivation of the word is also African, < Yoruba èsúsú, osúsú, which designates exactly the same system. The main mis-ascription of this word has been French, as explicitly stated in the 1988 citation: ‘SouSou is a patois word meaning penny by penny’. Such ascription of a word – and custom – to French rather than African sources is indeed misleading, and the spelling susu is therefore recommended.

Conclusion As Patrick has written, the Dictionary of Jamaican English’s careful attention to etymology irrefutably argued the case for the West African ancestry of the Jamaican lexicon . . . parallel to the rich heritage of West African material and folk culture in Jamaican life. At the same time the DJE showed in detail that Jamaicans had both retained elements and usages from earlier English and contributed innovations of form and meaning, in the process evolving a distinct language of which British English was only the major lexical source among several. (Patrick, 1995: 227)

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In Deuber and Hinrich’s comparative study of written Jamaican English Creole and Nigerian Pidgin English, they note that both rely primarily on the orthography of English, the common lexifier of these P/Cs, as a model, and deviate from it where this is considered necessary. The deviations result in the expected variation but some non-StE spellings are remarkably well established . . . non-standard spellings are used only sporadically for the symbolic purpose of indicating distance from English. The forms chosen for such non-standard spellings are often arbitrary, at least in Jamaica, where writers are not familiar with a phonemic orthography. Nigerian writers tend to prefer phonemic spellings like those they are familiar with from indigenous languages for these purposes. (Deuber & Hinrich, 2007: 40). From the examples given above and other similar instances, it seems that there is reasonably clear agreement that TEC is a language distinct from standard metropolitan or international standard English, and should have a spelling that reflects its historical etymologies, particularly in words deriving from sources other than English. This view, which emphasizes autonomy, distances TEC from English by using non-English spelling features, as in flambeaux, etc., and is certainly reasonable in cases where the word actually comes from correctly identified non-English sources. On the other hand, an identity-driven view of language can make people eager to support a particular etymological source even erroneously – thus, sou-sou from Fr rather than African, mauvais langue from Fr not FC, pastel and lagniappe from Fr rather than Sp, and kalalu from African rather than Amerindian. As particular speakers identify with one or more heritage ethnic/linguistic groups, or hold ideological positions supporting the rebalancing or redress of insufficient recognition, the words of the national anthem, ‘Here every creed and race find an equal place’ should hold qualitatively, not quantitatively, for lexicography.

Note (1) For a review of orthographic standardization and patterns in Trinidad and Tobago, see Winer (1990). For an excellent overview of the social dimensions of orthography – both popular and official – across languages, see Sebba (2007).

References Carrington, L.D. (1979) Linguistic conflict in Caribbean education. Paper presented at the International Congress of Psychology of the Child, Paris. Cassidy, F.G. and Le Page, R.B. (1980) Dictionary of Jamaican English (2nd edn). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Deuber, D. and Hinrichs, L. (2007) Dynamics of orthographic standardization in Jamaican Creole and Nigerian Pidgin. World Englishes 26 (1), 22–47. Forte, M.C. (2005) Ruins of Absence, Presence of Caribs: (Post)colonial Representations of Aboriginality in Trinidad and Tobago. Gainesville: University of Florida Press. Jamaican Language Unit (2009) Writing Jamaican the Jamaican Way/Ou fi rait Jamiekan. Kingston, Jamaica: Arawak Publications. Kloss, H. (1967) ‘Abstand’ languages and ‘Ausbau’ languages. Anthropological Linguistics 9 (7), 29–41. Luykx, A. (2003) Whose language is it anyway? Historical fetishism and the construction of expertise in Bolivian language planning. Current Issues in Comparative Education 5 (2), 92–102. Mohan, P. and Zador, P. (1986) Discontinuity in a life cycle: The death of Trinidad Bhojpuri. Language 62 (2), 291–319. Moodie-Kublalsingh, S. (1994) The Cocoa Panyols of Trinidad: An Oral Record. London: British Academic Press. Morris, M. (1999) Is English We Speaking and Other Essays. Kingston: Ian Randle. Patrick, P.L. (1995) Recent Jamaican words in sociolinguistic context. American Speech 70 (3), 227–264. Romaine, S. (2005) Orthographic practices in the standardization of pidgins and creoles: Pidgin in Hawai’i as anti-language and anti-standard. Journal of Pidgin and Creole Linguistics 20 (1), 101–140. Schieffelin, B.B. and Doucet, R.C. (1994) The ‘real’ Haitian Creole: Ideology, metalinguistics, and orthographic choice. American Ethnologist 21 (1), 176–200. Sebba, M. (2007) Spelling and Society: The Culture and Politics of Orthography around the World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Thomas, M.C. (2007) K is for de-kolonization: Anti-colonial nationalism and orthographic reform. Comparative Studies in Society and History 49 (4), 938–967. Warner-Lewis, M. (2003) Central Africa in the Caribbean: Transcending Time, Transforming Cultures. Kingston, Jamaica: UWI Press. Winer, L. (1990) Standardization of orthography for the English Creole of Trinidad and Tobago. Language Problems & Language Planning 14 (3), 237–268. Reprinted in Winer, L. (2007) Badjohns, Bhaaji and Banknote Blue: Essays on the Social History of Language in Trinidad & Tobago (pp. 397–428). St Augustine, Trinidad: School of Continuing Studies, University of the West Indies. Winer, L. (1993) Trinidad & Tobago. Varieties of English around the World (Vol. 6). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Winer, L. (2009) Dictionary of the English/Creole of Trinidad & Tobago. Montreal: McGillQueens University Press. Woolard, K.A. and Schieffelin, B. (1994) Language ideology. Annual Review of Anthropology 23, 55–82.

Part 6 Prescribing Norms Beyond Borders: Foreign Language Teaching

14 Rules for the Neighbours: Prescriptions of the German Language for British Learners Nicola McLelland

Introduction: What Can Materials for Non-native Speakers Tell Us? Research in the area of language prescriptivism has generally focused on prescriptions aimed (implicitly and predominantly, if not exclusively) at native speakers. The theme of this volume – patriotism and prescriptivism – likewise invites reflection on the relationship between a national or regional language and the construction and maintenance of national or regional identity. A good illustration of that relationship is the foreign-word purism – a manifestation of prescriptivism that is directed at the lexicon – which was one key outlet of 17th-century German cultural patriotism. Such purism has continued to feature, more or less prominently, in the centuries since, culminating most recently in the puristic efforts of the Verein Deutsche Sprache (VDS, ‘Society for the German language’, founded in 1997 ‘um sie [=die deutsche Sprache] als eigenständige Kultur- und Wissenschaftssprache zu erhalten und vor dem Verdrängen durch das Englische zu schützen’, ‘in order to preserve it [the German language] as an autonomous language of culture and language of science, and to protect it from being supplanted by English’ (McLelland, 2009; Stukenbrock, 2005). The VDS claims to have a membership of over 31,000. Significantly, it also boasts on its website (http://www.vds-ev.de/) that one-third of that total consists of members from Asia and Africa. That high proportion should draw our attention to the relevance of linguistic prescriptions for non-native 245

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speakers of a language, who learn and use the language in other countries and who, after all, can neither rely on their native-speaker intuition, nor enjoy the immediate and full access to the ‘target’ culture that might allow them to form their own judgments with confidence. Prescriptions for such non-native speakers, then, are my focus here. Advanced non-native speakers can make use of the same texts where the language is codified as those used by native speakers (for the German context, one thinks first of the Duden series). However, the vast majority of learners of a foreign language (certainly in the UK) do not attain that standard, and remain at the level of school learners who will be mainly or solely reliant on pedagogical materials.1 Examining representations of the target language and culture directed at foreign-language learners in such pedagogical works is useful, therefore, in contributing to understanding constructions of the nation outside the nation itself. It is arguably particularly pertinent to do so in the case of British learners of German, given the complex history of Anglo-German relations at least since unification in 1871. (For overviews of this history, and for studies by historians of British images of Germany, see Brechtken, 2000; Nicholls, 1997, 2005; Robbins, 1999.) The study of foreignlanguage textbooks can also offer an illuminating comparison with textbooks aimed at native speakers, although that is beyond the scope of the present paper. For instance, representations of life under National Socialism in the 1930s textbook Deutsches Leben III (Macpherson & Strömer, 1934; Macpherson, 1939), a widely used work that continued to be used – in revised editions – into the 1960s (and even into the 1990s in at least one school)2 can be compared with those in textbooks of German for native speakers of the same period (of which the University of Nottingham holds a collection; McLelland, forthcoming a). Turning to representations of the target language rather than culture more widely, the study of resources targeted specifically at foreign learners of German can also contribute to the history of German grammatography (e.g. Langer, 2002, 2004; McLelland, 2005, 2008). At the very least, ‘the effectiveness of prescriptive grammarians might [. . .] be measured on the basis of their success in influencing or convincing language teachers to use their, rather than somebody else’s variety of German’ (Langer, 2002: 79). We know, for instance, that the major 17th-century German-language theoretician Justus-Georg Schottelius (1612–1676) had a direct influence on the very first German grammar for English speakers, Aedler (1680) (Van der Lubbe, 2007b). When, nearly a century later, Gebhardt Friedrich August Wendeborn, the minister of the German Chapel in Ludgate Hill, London, published The Elements of German Grammar (1774), his work – which ran to 11 editions – was in effect an abridgement of Gottsched’s grammar (1748) (11th edn,

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1849; Carr, 1935: 481). Later in the 18th century, Johann Christoph Adelung’s school grammar for German pupils (Adelung, 1781; 1782) was in turn an influence on George Henry Noehden’s German Grammar. Adapted to the use of Englishmen (1800). Finally, in the 19th century, W.G. KlauerKlattowsky’s Deutsches Handbuch (1831) is, according to Carr, a ‘slavish copy’ of a grammar widely used in German schools of the 19th century, Heyse (1816) (Carr, 1935: 483). Foreign-language grammar writers are not always slavish imitators, however, and foreign-language grammars may even anticipate innovations in the native-speaker grammatical description. (The syntax of the adverb in German is an example; see McLelland, 2008: 51). For all these reasons, it is both legitimate and important to study foreignlanguage grammars in linguistic historiography, as Carr (1935, 1937), Blamires (1990), Langer (2002) and Van der Lubbe (2007a, 2007b, 2008) have done. On the other hand, school textbooks of German as a Foreign Language – a genre that really only emerged in the later 19th century and burgeoned in the 20th century – have received virtually no attention to date in German linguistic historiography, despite the fact that they too contain more or less full grammatical descriptions of German. One notable exception is Durrell’s examination of how language variation is represented in four 20th-century textbooks of German for British learners (Durrell, 2005); see now also McLelland (2012). A borderline case is Langer (2008), whose corpus consists chiefly of schoolbooks aimed at the immigrant German community in the USA, 1800–1918, and whose focus lies on cultural rather than linguistic issues. While language textbooks have been studied by educationalists of their own era who measured them against the latest educational theory (e.g. Byram, 1993), the neglect of textbooks in linguistic historiography is symptomatic of their neglect more widely in the historiography of individual disciplines and in the history of education. Textbooks have low status as a genre; they are viewed as merely ‘formalizing yesterday’s knowledge’ (Issitt, 2004: 683). However, their value in the history of education for documenting changing ideas about other nations (especially within Europe) has been recognized over the last quarter of a century (Berghahn & Schissler, 1987; Schissler & Soysal, 2005). The present paper, then, seeks to contribute both to the study of German linguistic prescriptivism and to the nascent historiography of language textbooks for British school pupils. As an early foray into this largely uncharted territory, I draw some comparisons in two dimensions: both between the tradition of German grammar writing for British learners over the period 1680–1800 and selected textbooks and grammars from the period 1934–2000, and between the British and native-speaker traditions. I focus on three small details of grammatical description. Firstly I examine how an area of the language undergoing diachronic change is dealt

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with: the conjugation of the verb backen ‘to bake’ (an instance of a verb moving from the strong conjugation to a mixed, but predominantly weak or regular, conjugation). Secondly, I examine an area of the language subject to variation but not to stigmatization: the formation of the second person imperative singular. Finally, as an instance of an area of the language where there is variation, corresponding uncertainty and also strong stigmatization of certain forms deemed incorrect, I examine the grammatical accounts of case governance following certain prepositions. Pragmatically, in the face of variation, the textbook author need only present the learner with forms that will not be wrong, rather than with all possible forms (and indeed Ölinger (1573 [1975]) already did just that for foreign, particularly French, learners of German for adjective declension and comparison, at a time when the German noun phrase was a similar sea of variants; McLelland, 2001). To what extent do authors of texts in the British Isles simplify in this way, and what forms do they select? Before turning to this grammatographical study, however, I must at least register two other types of prescription directed at non-native learners of German (and indeed, any modern foreign language): the prescription of an attitude towards the target language and culture; and what is prescribed, implicitly or explicitly, as ‘the’ German language to be learnt – written or spoken, literary or utilitarian, uniform or rich in variation.

Prescribing attitudes While not the focus of this paper, representations of the target culture in textbooks must merit a mention here before we turn to language description and prescription. Foreign-language textbooks and teaching often ‘prescribe’ (at least strongly encourage) not only certain grammatical forms, but also a certain attitude to the target language. A positive attitude towards the target culture has even become an explicitly desired outcome of foreign-language instruction since the 1990s. The ‘National Curriculum’ for England, Wales and Northern Ireland3 has for some years prescribed the development of ‘cultural awareness’ (QCA, 1999: 8) or ‘intercultural understanding’ (QCA, 2007: 3). Using the National Curriculum as their basis, the three separate examining boards devise their own syllabi which teachers preparing pupils for their examinations will follow; the 2008 syllabus for the largest of the three, the Assessment and Qualifications Alliance (AQA), specifies as one aim for AS/A-level students (i.e. pupils in the last two years of high school) that the course should ‘develop positive attitudes to foreign language learning’ (AQA, 2006: 10). Particularly in the light of European history and politics, the tendency to encourage positive views of the target language and culture would merit closer attention than I can give it here. It is worth

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noting, however, that already the first grammarian of German for English speakers, Martin Aedler (1643–1724), asserted in a more narrowly patriotic vein ‘the Excellency of the Highdutch most Copious and Significant, Majestick and Sweet, Perfect and Pure, Easie and Usefull, Antient and Universal Toung’ (Aedler, 1680: first page of Contents, n.p.). To take another example, Macpherson and Strömer (1934: v), writing their preface shortly after Hitler had won power in Germany, state that ‘their [i.e. the authors’] one aim is to arouse an intelligent and sympathetic interest in the conditions and problems of present-day Germany’. While most authors may be less openly partisan than Aedler and less explicit than Macpherson and Strömer about their aim, my inspection of over 100 textbooks used for teaching German leads me to believe that inculcating a positive attitude towards the target language and culture is almost always a goal of German textbook authors, who are often either German native speakers (like Aedler and Strömer), or teachers who have devoted their lives to the subject. Clearly, the representation of the ‘other’, the target culture, would warrant further study in a complete history of foreign-language textbooks,4 but let us return now to the linguistic prescription that is the focus of this paper.

What is ‘the’ German language as it is represented to English learners? Choices about what details of the grammar of a language to prescribe, describe or present to learners, and what to ignore and exclude have changed according to the prevailing ideas about what language teaching was aiming to achieve. Without attempting to offer a history of modern foreign-language teaching methodology in the UK here (see, for instance, Hawkins, 1987), some background about the perceived purpose of German-language teaching may therefore be useful, in order to illuminate what is selected by teachers, examiners and textbook authors to represent ‘the’ German language. The first grammars of German in the late 17th century are aimed at those seeking a practical spoken knowledge of the language. Just under a third of Aedler’s work (1680: 177–254) consists of a list of everyday idioms, English and German, included by Aedler ‘[so] that we do not commit either a Soloecisme, or a Germanisme and Anglicisme’ (fourth page of Contents, n.p.). Historically, Britain had enjoyed far more contacts with Low German- and Dutchspeaking areas (Glück, 2002: 323) and so, at this early stage in the history of High Dutch (i.e. ‘High German’) as distinct from Low German and Dutch, Aedler’s title made the case for High Dutch as a practical language for the traveller, ‘the neatest Dialect of the German MOTHER–LANGUAGE used throughout ALL EUROPE’. A few years later, the second work of this kind

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for British learners, Offelen (1687), also presented German as a practical spoken language for the traveller, with dialogues covering, as the title page proclaimed, ‘Especially what is to be seen for a Stranger, at Versailles in France, and England; with a Compendium on the Estate of the German Empire’ (see, in particular, Offelen, 1687: 209, 215, 234), but also topics like ‘Between a Sea-man and a Gentleman’ (p. 189), ‘To Ask the Way’ (p. 191), ‘Being in an Inn’ (p. 193), ‘With a Merchant about a Bill of Exchange’ (p. 194), ‘About taking a Lodging’ (p. 195), ‘Of Eating and Drinking’ (p. 197), ‘Of Buying and Selling’ (p. 198), ‘With a Taylor’ (p. 200), ‘With a Shoe-Man’ (p. 202), ‘With a Coachman’ (p. 203), ‘With a Horse-Courser’ (p. 204), ‘Between a Sick Gentleman, his Servant, and a Physician’ (p. 205) and ‘With a Laundress’ (p. 206). Such dialogues continued the tradition of German-language learning materials for practical purposes that goes back to the 8th century, attested in earlier centuries first by early medieval phrasebooks for Romance learners of German, and then by late medieval dialogue books for Italian cloth merchants (McLelland, 2004, and references there). Neither Aedler nor Offelen offered longer prose reading passages, and it was not until the 1730s that Beiler (1731) recommended reading German literature and plays. Bachmair (1771: 302ff.) included passages for reading and translation practice, but only with Wendeborn (1774), who included a list of recommended works for reading, did the portrayal of German as a literary language become established (Van der Lubbe, 2007a). By 1800, we find Noehden including examples from the contemporary writers Christoph Martin Wieland (1733– 1813), Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803), Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1813) and Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805). Up to this point, it had been assumed that the learner of German was an adult, or at least a youth, perhaps preparing for travel around Europe (and indeed the first Chair of German in the world, endowed at Trinity College, Dublin, in 1775, was founded to save young men the expense of the educational grand tour; see Raraty, 1966). Only in the mid-19th century did German become established as a subject for children in British schools; examinations were first set by the Cambridge Examination Board, for example, in 1858 (University of Cambridge, 1858 [2008]; see Proescholdt, 1991). When German did become established in schools, it was in the guise of the literary language that Wendeborn and others had only relatively recently begun to present. The papers from 1858 included translation passages from Goethe and Schiller for the seniors and Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729–1781) and Gottfried August Bürger (1747–1794) for the juniors. Presenting a German language to be spoken in everyday situations, which had characterized the 17th-century grammars, yielded, then, in the 19th century to teaching literary German – but also increasingly to the philological analysis of German and

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its history, alongside Latin and Greek. It is telling that, in the early decades of the Cambridge Board examinations, German and French were examined in the same section of the examinations as Latin and Greek – and in exactly the same way, by grammar and translation. School teaching accordingly presented German as the object of historical comparative linguistics, rather than as a living language. For example, the examination for the Upper School, Fifth Set, Classical Side at Rugby School in March 1890 required pupils to give the English cognate forms of Taube, Vogel, Düne, Kessel, Schmiede, Säbel, sieden, heulen, schaufeln, die liebe lange Nacht, the Latin cognate forms of Kerker, Insel, Acker, heute, Spelunke, and to ‘trace the word Apotheke in Greek, French and English’ (examination paper held in Rugby School archive). The native German (Friedrich) Max Müller (1823–1900), in his role as Modern Languages Professor at Oxford, famously told the Clarendon (Public Schools) Commission in 1864 that in teaching German: I would aim principally at securing an accurate knowledge of grammar and secondly a sufficient amount of reading – but I should not attempt fluency in conversation. (Cited by Proescholdt, 1991: 95) By the 1890s, however, Europe was getting caught up in the Reform Movement (beginning with the manifesto of Viëtor, 1882), which demanded a greater focus on teaching modern foreign languages as living languages. The examiner’s report for the Cambridge Board examinations (1895: xl) lamented: The great inaccuracy in the use of modified and unmodified vowels seemed to shew [sic] that this essential point is not sufficiently attended to in teaching. Only a very few of the candidates seemed to have had any practice in speaking German. If the teachers had in all cases insisted on a correct pronunciation of German, paying special attention to a careful distinction of long and short, original and modified vowels, and again to the proper pronunciation of some characteristic consonants (e.g. z, ch), very many mistakes would as a matter of course have been avoided. No improvement can be expected unless much more time and attention are given to oral training. It took some considerable time for such pleas for more attention to the spoken language to be heard. Indeed, the story of 20th-century foreignlanguage teaching methodology is in large part the story of the slow shift back towards greater emphasis on the spoken language. While Russon (1948) still relied chiefly on prose passages for reading and translation to teach

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secondary pupils German, the German-published textbook Deutsch 2000 (Schäpers et al., 1973), a series which I used as a learner in 1980s Australia, expressed the paradigm shift in its programmatic subtitle, Eine Einführung in die moderne Umgangssprache ‘an introduction to the modern everyday language’ (Schäpers et al., 1973); another text, written by a lecturer in education at Sheffield for the British market and widely used in the 1970s, bore the title Sprich Mal Deutsch! ‘Speak German!’ (Rowlinson, 1969). One recent and significant change in the representation of ‘the’ German language is the attention paid in school textbooks of German since about 1990 to varieties of German spoken outside Germany, in line with the requirements of the examination board specifications, for example that of the AQA (2006: 9), which specifies ‘knowledge about the contemporary culture and society of Germany and countries or communities where German is spoken’. An example is Neue Aussichten (McNeill et al., 2000), which contains a short feature on the Amish communities of the USA: Sie haben weder Telefon noch fließendes Wasser, sie sprechen ‘Deitsch’ [. . .] Obwohl die Amisch sowohl aus dem Rheinland und der Schweiz als auch aus dem frz. Lothringen und dem Elsass nach Amerika gekommen sind, stammen sie doch aus demselben – deutschen – Sprachraum [. . .] [sie] unterhalten sich untereinander in ‘Pennsylvania German’ oder ‘Pennsylvania Dutch’. (They have neither telephone nor running water, they speak Deitsch [. . .] Although the Amish came to America both from the Rhineland and Switzerland and from French Lorraine and Alsace, they originate from the same – German – language area [. . .] [they] talk amongst themselves in ‘Pennsylvania German’ or ‘Pennsylvania Dutch’.) More commonly, textbooks explore sociolinguistic variation within German by offering dialogue samples of northern and southern German, or Austrian dialects (e.g. Rowlinson et al., 1993), or ‘youth language’. This dual shift in the course of the 20th century, both towards valuing the spoken language and towards recognizing variation, 5 might lead us to expect a corresponding shift at the level of grammatical description towards describing norms and alternatives rather than pure prescription of a uniform language. However, such tolerance of variation clashes with the usual purpose of the textbook, which is to distil the subject area into digestible gobbets of certain knowledge. In the next section, I present the results from an exploration of how description and prescription are formulated in practice in 20th-century texts for English-speaking learners of German.

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Grammatical Description and Prescription of German in 20th-century Textbooks In this section I present a preliminary study of prescription and description in areas of German grammar where there is variation and corresponding uncertainty among native speakers about what is correct: the conjugation of the verb backen ‘to bake’; the formation of the informal imperative singular, and the case governed by wegen and trotz.

Verb conjugation I: backen ‘to bake’ In German (as in English), there is a general tendency for originally strong verbs to move, over time, into the class of weak verbs. One such verb that appears to be doing so is backen ‘to bake’. Already by the early years of the 19th century, Heynatz (1803: 191) listed backen as the first of the irregular verbs but suggested that the weak forms in the present were ‘more usual’ (gewöhnlicher): backen. bäckst, bäckt (oder gewöhnlicher [‘or more usually’] backst, backt), buk (nicht [‘not’] buch), aber häufig auch [‘but frequently also’] backte. backe (nicht [‘not’] back). gebacken. In the mid-20th century, the language ‘bible’ for native speakers of German, the Duden (1956, s.v. backen) presented the strong preterite buk as the secondary, ‘older’ form: Unsere Mutter backte, (älter) buk jede Woche Kuchen ‘Our mother backte (older) buk cakes every week’.6 Thirty years later, Duden (1985: 98) stated that the strong buk had been ‘almost totally replaced’ (fast völlig verdrängt) by the weak form, while in the present tense, the non-umlauted du backst, er backt are ‘increasingly frequent’ (immer häufiger). A full 180 years after Heynatz had already listed these non-umlauted forms as the ‘usual’ ones, the Duden (1985: 98) went out on a limb to state that ‘this development is so far advanced, that the nonumlauted forms must also be recognized’ (Diese Entwicklung ist so weit fortgeschritten, dass auch die nicht umgelauteten Formen anerkannt werden müssen). This seems rather conservative, measured against Heynatz nearly two centuries earlier, but such accounts in the native-speaker tradition are presumably the basis for one common way of presenting backen in verb-lists for British learners: weak, non-umlauted backte is acknowledged as the norm in the preterite (though buk is often listed too, for after all it may be needed for recognition purposes when reading older works), but weak, non-umlauted backt in the present is still viewed only as a secondary, alternative form in Hammer and Durrell (2002: 254), a reference grammar in English. School textbooks for English learners go further, however. They continue to list the strong forms first (though this may be the natural consequence of

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dealing with the verb in a table of strong and irregular verbs), but add that the weak forms are ‘commonly used in N. Germany’ (Macpherson & Strömer, 1934: 120),7 ‘usual in conversation’ (Clarke, 1936: 173) or ‘now much more common’ (Tudor & Heydorn, 1956: 226). It is striking that there is no agreement about what factors influence the variation: is it regional, a question of register, or diachronic change? One is tempted to conclude that these are no more than three different educated guesses to account for the discrepancy between the native-speaker codex and the usage to which the textbook writers were exposed. It is Freda Kellett (1964: 148) who was the first to present the weak forms as the implicit norm, listing backen, backte (buk), gebacken. In the absence of any entry in her table for the second/third person present singular, the forms are by implication weak, non-umlauted. This example raises the interesting question of the selection of the ‘facts’ that will be included in any textbook. While it is reasonable to expect advanced users of a grammar like Borgert and Nyhan (1976) or Hammer and Durrell (2002), both aimed at university students, to cope with a full account of the range of options available (including, for both these works, the alleged subjunctive büke before backte, a form I have never yet encountered), the school textbook author must simplify. Such simplification may take the form of not presenting the codified prescription norm, and instead abstracting a subsistent or implicit norm from the usus of a language community (Bartsch, 1987; Gloy, 2004, 2010 on explicit versus implicit or subsistent norms). Beginning with Kellett (1964), this is increasingly the case for backen. By the early 1990s Rowlinson et al. (1993) list gebacken as the only irregular form in what is otherwise treated as a regular verb. The strong preterite buk and strong present tense forms are ignored. In our first example of German grammar through British eyes, then, the textbooks for non-native learners in the later 20th century give an account of contemporary common usage, with no mention of alternative forms, and so give further ‘official’ sanction to the newer forms against the obsolescent ones (see Table 14.1).

Verb conjugation II: The imperative singular If backen is a well-understood case of alternative strong and weak forms, a second area of German grammar where there is considerable variation is the second person singular imperative of verbs, where one can find, for instance, both geh! and gehe! ‘go!’ for gehen ‘to go’. In this case, the variation yields prescriptive uncertainty, but no real stigmatization. The variation depends in part on whether the verb is strong or weak (the historical basis for the distinction): strong verbs generally have no -e. Hence Heynatz’s (1803) stipulation that the imperative of the historically strong backen

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Table 14.1 backen in selected grammars and textbooks of German (1803–2002) Works for German native speakers

Heynatz, 1803

Duden, 1856 Duden, 1985

Works for Englishspeaking learners of German (school)

Works for Englishspeaking learners of German (university)

Weak forms in the present ‘more usual’ (gewöhnlicher). Preterite buk aber häufig auch [‘but frequently also’] backte. Preterite buk as the secondary, older form. Weak forms in the present are ‘increasingly frequent’; these non-umlauted forms ‘must now be recognized’. Preterite buk almost totally replaced by backte. Weak forms (present and preterite) are ‘commonly used in N. Germany’. Weak forms are ‘usual in conversation’. Weak forms are ‘now much more common’.

Macpherson and Strömer, 1934 Clarke, 1936 Tudor and Heydorn, 1956 Kellett, 1964 Weak forms are assumed to be the primary forms: preterite buk is given in parentheses, and only the past participle gebacken is presented as normally strong. Rowlinson et al. Treats backen as entirely weak (regular) (1993) except for the past participle gebacken. Borgert and Conservative: even gives the alleged Nyhan, 1976 subjunctive büke before weak backte. Hammer and Gives full range of forms, including Durrell, 2002 subjunctive büke before weak backte, as above.

(which he viewed as more usually weak) must be backe!, not back! (a belief faithfully preserved in Borgert & Nyhan, 1976: 262). Weak verbs do have an -e, historically at least, but many lose their -e in some, many or all contexts, though with some morphological or phonological constraints (e.g. for verbs with a stem ending in -t, the -e is required, hence arbeite!, not arbeit! ‘work!’). Finally, strong verbs can also be found with an -e, for example gehe! (For fuller discussion of the grammarians’ treatments of this variation, which is in part also regionally determined, see McLelland [forthcoming b], drawing on Habermann, 1997 and Takada, 1998.) Duden (1985: 347) states that [a] bgesehen von der gehobenen Sprache [. . .] wird heute bei den meisten Verben die

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Form ohne Endungs-e bevorzugt ‘apart from in elevated language, today for most verbs the forms without the -e ending are preferred’, which, with its various caveats (apart from, today, most, preferred) is indicative of how complicated the picture is, and of the scope for variation. Now it is the task of the textbook writer to offer maximum clarity for the learner. Pragmatically, here (unlike where one might argue the need to recognize the odd-looking buk as a form of backen), the learner only needs to be presented with forms that will not be wrong, rather than with all possible forms. What, then, do we find? Table 14.2 summarizes the results of my ‘straw poll’ of 20thcentury textbooks from the 1930s onwards. What this sample shows is that, in the earliest textbook, Macpherson and Strömer (1934), the learner is told in essence to add the -e for all verbs except one subgroup of strong verbs like sieh, lies ‘see, read!’ In contrast, in the three most recent textbooks examined here – all 1988 to 1993 – the learner is told in essence that leaving out the -e will never be wrong, at least not in speech. This advice is similar to that of Duden (1985), but for Duden the distinction is between elevated and general language usage, that is register, rather than a distinction of medium between written and spoken language, as both Zickzack (Goodman-Stephens et al., 1989: 184) and Deutschland hier und jetzt (Rowlinson et al., 1993: 232) suggest. Neue Perspektiven (Della Table 14.2 The imperative singular in selected textbooks of German (1934–1993) Deutsches Leben III, 1934 Heute Abend (1938, revised 1955) Russon’s Advanced German Course (1965) Neue Perspektiven (1988)

Zickzack (Vol. 3) (GCSE level) (1989) Deutschland hier und jetzt (1993)

Prescribes forms with -e except for strong verbs with vowel change. Lists sag(e) as model for weak verbs; no explicit discussion of imperative. Describes the existence of forms with -e or without, prescribes forms without -e for strong verbs with vowel change AND with -e for verbs with unstressed syllable at end of stem -er, -el, -ig. Prescriptive, simplifying: du form without -st, that is without -e; no mention of -e forms at all. Presence of -e forms in the text (e.g. the frequent instruction Suche an Hand des Textes, where a weak verb imperative ends in -e) contradicts the prescription. Descriptive: -e forms clearly considered possible for some verbs, but no explicit guidance about where it is not possible/ where it is usual; -e ‘not usually heard when speaking’. -e ‘often omitted, especially in speech’; -e not possible in verbs with full vowel change.

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Gana, 1988) goes furthest, making no mention of -e forms at all, even though the text itself supplies many counter-examples, with its repeated instruction to pupils Suche . . . (‘Look for . . .’). Again, mainstream textbooks for British learners simplify compared with native-speaker accounts – and again in the direction of colloquial, spoken rather than literary usage – but only one simply passes silently over the existence of the variation.

Case after prepositions The third area of grammar examined here is case governance after prepositions. German prepositions govern the accusative, the dative or the genitive, or take either the accusative or dative depending on function. A significant group, however, can occur with the dative or the genitive, depending on region, register and specific grammatical context (see Hammer & Durrell, 2002 for an up-to-date account of these factors for advanced Englishspeaking learners). In this section, I examine the treatment of these vacillating prepositions in British textbooks by comparing them to the native grammatical tradition. By the 1960s, a group of four prepositions had come to be treated together in materials for English-speaking learners, where a consensus appears to have emerged that there are four ‘common’ prepositions governing the genitive: (an)statt ‘instead of’, trotz ‘in spite of’, während ‘during’ and wegen ‘because of’. These four tend to be presented first among those taking the genitive or, depending on the level, they are the only four presented (as in Sprich Mal Deutsch: Rowlinson, 1968: 126). For example, these four are listed first in the reference grammar of Hammer and Durrell (1991, 1996, 2002), and are the only four given in Deutschland hier und jetzt (Rowlinson et al., 1993), a textbook aimed at learners of German preparing for A-level.8 In the following discussion, I shall examine the treatment of just two of these four ‘common’ prepositions governing the genitive, wegen and trotz, to demonstrate how these two – now grouped together – have quite different histories in grammatography, and different treatments, too, in the German and British codifications of German grammar.

wegen + genitive or dative

The preposition wegen ‘because of’ has a history of considerable nativespeaker uncertainty, analyzed by Davies and Langer (2006: 197–211) in their study of language stigmatizations in German. Wegen + dative is now stigmatized, but studies of contemporary native-speaker usage and judgments suggest that wegen + dative is nevertheless at least an established usage norm alongside the genitive, especially in southern Germany, where Davies (2005: 331) found that 43% of her informants – teachers in southwestern Germany – did not correct wegen + dative. Wagner (2009: 150–151) also reports that a

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striking 67% of pupils aged 12–14 in her sample (and 57.2% of pupils in Gymnasien, or grammar schools, the most ‘academic’ of German secondary schools) did not correct wegen + dative. Davies and Langer (2006) note that from the 1980s onward, wegen + dative is sanctioned by the codex under certain conditions: with a plural noun where the genitive would not be explicitly marked (Duden, 1985: 749–750). In other contexts, although the dative is noted as häufig ‘frequent’ in colloquial and regional German, Duden (1985: 750) states it gilt nicht als korrekt ‘is not considered correct’. The resulting uncertainty among native speakers is reflected in the fact that wegen was in one year at least the subject of the most queries to the Duden’s language advice centre (Russ, 1993, reported in Davies & Langer, 2006: 197). All this makes wegen an interesting case for the study of prescriptivism for nonnative speakers. On the one hand, there is strong evidence that it is widely used with the dative. On the other hand, the pre-eminent codex for native speakers, the Duden, continues to insist in its guide to good usage that, beyond certain narrowly defined exceptions, wegen with the dative is ‘not correct’. How, then, have the authors of British textbooks, aiming at presenting the German language as clearly as possible to non-native speakers, dealt with this uncertainty? To what extent are they governed by the native-speaker codex and to what extent by established native-speaker usage? In this case, I shall consider 17th- and 18th-century textbooks as well as a selection of 20th-century ones. The findings discussed below are summarized in Table 14.3. As Davies and Langer (2006: 197–202) have demonstrated, the uncertainty over wegen goes at least as far back as the 17th century in the native grammatical tradition. Gueintz (1641 [1978]: 92) listed wegen as taking the dative, whereas Schottelius (1663) stated that it required the genitive. Stieler (1691 [1968]: 3.237) did not clarify matters when he stated that wegen took the dative, but included a number of examples where the noun phrase could only be genitive (and others that could be either dative or genitive). By the 18th century, however, wegen + genitive appears to have emerged as the prescribed standard. Wegen with the dative was first stigmatized by Heynatz (1777: 245), who called it unrichtig ‘incorrect’; Adelung (1793: 1428) considered it fehlerhaft ‘faulty, a mistake’, and something often done in Upper (i.e. southern) German. Yet in the tradition of German grammars for English learners, Crabb (1800: 61–62), which is a self-proclaimed translation of Adelung’s grammar ‘arranged and adapted to the English learner’ (Crabb, 1800, title page), lists wegen without further comment as a preposition governing the genitive. One might assume that the loss in Crabb (1800) of such detail compared to Adelung (1793) reflects Crabb’s desire to meet the needs of the non-native speaker audience, if it were not for the fact that he does

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Table 14.3 Wegen in selected grammars and textbooks of German (1641–2000) German grammarians

Gueintz, 1641 Schottelius, 1663 Stieler, 1691

Heynatz, 1777 Adelung, 1793

Textbooks for English learners of German (1680–1800)

Textbooks for English learners of German (1930–2000)

wegen requires the dative. wegen requires the genitive. wegen described as taking the dative, but examples include wegen + genitive. wegen with dative is unrichtig ‘incorrect’. wegen with dative fehlerhaft is ‘faulty, a mistake’, and something often done in Upper (i.e. southern) German. All state that wegen requires the genitive, although Aedler and Wendeborn both observe that some other prepositions may govern more than one case. All state that wegen requires genitive.

Aedler, 1680 Offelen, 1687 Wendeborn, 1774 Noehden, 1800 Crabb, 1800 Macpherson and Strömer, 1934 Russon, 1948 Russon and Russon, 1965 Kellett, 1964 Johnson, 1971 Clarke, 1936 First stigmatization of wegen + dative in British tradition: ‘The use of the dative is a provincialism, and should be avoided.’ Dickins, 1963 ‘wegen is often found governing the dative in S. German.’ Borgert and Nyhan, 1976 Comment on all trotz, wegen and während that ‘these are also found with the dative, but this is considered less correct’. Goodman-Stephens ‘in speech people sometimes use the et al., 1989 (Vol. 3) Dative with wegen’. Rowlinson et al., 1993 wegen takes the dative but ‘may also be found with the dative’. Fischer, 2000 wegen with the dative is ‘colloquial, but generally accepted in standard German’.

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have a section for ‘the prepositions governing the genitive and the dative’. Rather than wegen, though, Crabb includes under this heading längs ‘along’ as ‘generally with the dative, sometimes with the genitive’ (Crabb, 1800: 62).9 Some of Crabb’s predecessors in the English tradition of German grammar writing were equally open to the idea of prepositions that regularly governed the dative or the genitive. According to Aedler (1680: 174), who here followed Schottelius (1663), wegen took the genitive.10 But if wegen had no variant case requirements in Aedler’s view, other prepositions did: ‘some [prepositions] require the third case, as aus out, beseit or beseits beside or besides, binnen within, [. . .] binnen and innerhalb seem to govern also the second case for example binnen (innerhalb) zweyen jaren and zweyer jare within two years &c. where we may understand the word frist or zeit’ (Aedler, 1680: 175). This observation of variant usage in the case of these prepositions, without any prescription, appears to be Aedler’s own. It does not feature in Schottelius (1663), nor in any of his predecessors as far as I am aware; Schottelius (1663: 768) lists binnen with the ‘ablative’, that is dative, only. Neither Offelen (1687), nor Noehden (1800), contemporary with Crabb, allowed for any such variation in their grammars, but like Aedler, Wendeborn (1774: 114) noted innerhalb ‘within’ (and indeed außerhalb, oberhalb and unterhalb, too) in the group of prepositions that ‘admit of two cases’: ‘the following have sometimes the GENITVE, sometimes the DATIVE’. The examples Wendeborn gives are Außerhalb, innerhalb des Königreichs ‘outside, inside the kingdom’ and Außerhalb, innerhalb dem Hause ‘outside, inside the house’. This is the latest mention that I have encountered of variation between genitive and dative with this group of -halb prepositions. Later accounts note, instead, the tendency to use innerhalb von, etc., governing the dative in instances where the genitive would not be explicitly marked (e.g. innerhalb von zwei Stunden ‘within two hours’). So much for case variation after German prepositions in grammars for English learners in the period 1680–1800. Variation might be noted, but was not stigmatized – and wegen was in any case not included among those with varying case governance (nor, indeed was trotz, to which I turn below). Let us take up the tale again in the 20th century, beginning with the 1930s. In Deutsches Leben III (Macpherson & Strömer, 1934), we find wegen listed only with the genitive – likewise in Russon (1948: 76), Russon and Russon (1965: 56), Kellett (1964: 94) and Johnson (1971: 291–292). But just two years after Macpherson and Strömer’s textbook, Clarke’s grammar (1936: 124) stigmatized wegen + dative for the first time in the British tradition: ‘The use of the dative is a provincialism, and should be avoided’. In a grammar written for Australian Year 1 university students, Borgert and Nyhan (1976: 200) comment on trotz, wegen and während together that ‘these are also found with the

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dative, but this is considered less correct’.11 These are, however, the only two instances I have found to date where wegen + dative is mentioned in order to be stigmatized. Rather, from at least the 1960s onwards, textbook authors show a readiness to note wegen + dative as an alternative, without stigmatization – in complete contrast to the discourse about wegen in codifications for German native speakers. Dickins (1963: 16) simply observes that ‘wegen is often found governing the dative in S. German’; Rowlinson et al. (1993: 243) list wegen as taking the genitive but add that ‘the four listed above may also be found with the dative’. Even in a work for pupils at the lower GCSE level (examinations taken aged 16), there is room for the observation (without stigmatization) that ‘in speech people sometimes use the Dative with wegen’ (Goodman-Stephens et al., 1989: 3.189). Perhaps most tellingly of all, Fischer (2000: 340), a textbook written for tertiary-level students in Ireland by a native speaker of German, comments that wegen with the dative is ‘colloquial, but generally accepted in standard German’. ‘Standard German’ here clearly does not mean what Duden stipulates! Once again, as with the regularizing of most forms of backen, there appears to be a readiness in the tradition of German grammar teaching for English speakers to present as a fait accompli forms that are frequent in the spoken language, even as nativespeaker reference works still regard them as variants not yet fully established or accepted.

trotz + genitive or dative

Given the salience in the British tradition of trotz ‘in spite of’ as one of ‘four common prepositions’ governing the genitive, it may seem surprising that trotz did not rate a mention as a preposition at all in the grammars discussed above for the time frame 1680–1800, which tended to give an exhaustive listing of prepositions in alphabetical order. Just how and when trotz ‘made it’ as a preposition at all in both the native and the Englishspeaking traditions of German grammar writing is beyond the scope of this paper. At any rate, the shift in how it has been described since its emergence offers an interesting case study. According to the Grimms’ Deutsches Wörterbuch, the preposition trotz emerged in the 16th century from the prepositional use of the interjection. It was still rare in the 17th century, and in the 19th century its roots as an interjection were still evident in the punctuation. Originally governing the dative, trotz in constructions with the genitive emerged in the mid-18th century, and these were judged incorrect by both Adelung and Campe. However, since then, bis in die gegenwart läszt sich das nebeneinander von dativ und genitiv bei demselben schriftsteller beobachten ‘the use of dative and genitive may be observed side by side in the same author, right up to the present day’, as Bernhard Beckmann wrote

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in his entry for trotz in the Deutsches Wörterbuch in the 1930s (after Mein Kampf, 1933, cited as an example). The Duden Stilwörterbuch of 1956 (Duden, 1956: 614) lists trotz dem Regen, trotz des Regens in that order without further comment, while Duden’s Richtiges und Gutes Deutsch (Duden, 1985: 665) states that the dative is common with trotz in Austria, but that elsewhere the genitive is usual (see Table 14.4). This apparent tolerance in the native-speaker tradition of either dative or genitive (with some regional preferences) has a more heated history, Table 14.4 trotz in selected grammars, style guides and textbooks of German from the beginnings to 1991 Pre-1890

Not discussed at all as a preposition before 1800; Adelung and Campe both consider trotz + genitive incorrect. Laments that the correct dative is held 1890–1985 German Wustmann, 1896 to be a mistake, and that the faulty style guides (and genitive is declared correct. dictionary) Matthias, 1897 trotz + genitive is more frequent, dative less common but ‘better’. Beckmann, [1930s] trotz is used both with genitive and dative up to the present day; genitive has ‘nowadays’ largely replaced the dative. Duden, 1956 Examples with both dative and genitive after trotz are listed without comment. Duden, 1985 trotz + dative is common in Austria; elsewhere the genitive is usual. Macpherson and trotz with the dative is ‘not very good Textbooks and Strömer, 1934 German’. grammars for British learners Dickins, 1963 trotz ‘usually’ governs genitive, but is of German also found with dative. (1930–) Kellett, 1964 Genitive after trotz is ‘less common now’. Johnson, 1971 trotz occurs with dative or ‘more commonly’ genitive. Borgert and Nyhan, trotz is ‘also’ found with the dative, 1976 considered ‘less correct’. Hammer and Durrell, trotz is ‘commonly used with a dative in 1991 everyday colloquial speech’, but this is ‘regarded as substandard’.

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however. Within the genre of the usage guide for native speakers that blossomed in the latter 19th century, Matthias (1897: 138), in his volume Sprachleben und Sprachschäden (Language Life and Language Damage), conceded that the genitive is häufiger ‘more frequent’, but maintained that the dative is besser though thatsächlich jetzt seltener ‘better’ but ‘actually now more rare’. Wustmann (1896: 233), in his book of Sprachdummheiten (Language Howlers) took the same view. With heavy irony he wrote da sind wir jetzt glücklich so weit, daß der richtige Dativ für einen Fehler und der falsche Genitiv für das Richtige und Feine erklärt wird ‘luckily we have now reached the point where the correct dative is taken to be an error, and the incorrect genitive for the correct and elegant form’. Beckmann, in his entry for trotz for the Deutsches Wörterbuch, observed that heute [i.e. at least in the 1930s] hat er [=der Genitiv] den dativ fast ganz verdrängt ‘today it [the genitive] has almost fully supplanted the dative’. Deutsches Leben is proof of just this point, as here we find British learners warned against the (historically original) dative with trotz: ‘Trotz and während are sometimes found with the dative; this is not very good German, and should not be imitated’ (Macpherson & Strömer, 1934: 101; see also the 1962 reprint of the 1939 revised edition, p. 115). Similarly, in their grammar for Australian students, Borgert and Nyhan (1976: 200) comment on trotz, wegen and während that ‘these are also found with the dative, but this is considered less correct’. More commonly, though, the variation is noted without stigmatization: Clarke (1936: 123), a grammar for British learners written around the same time as Beckmann’s Deutsches Wörterbuch entry, allows trotz with either genitive or dative without stigmatization: ‘Trotz may govern the genitive or, less often, the dative’. Dickins (1963: 16) observes that ‘trotz (in spite of) usually governs the genitive, but is also found with the dative’; ditto Russon and Russon (1965: 50), who have a footnote to trotz, ‘also with dative’ without further comment. Harrap’s New German Grammar (Johnson, 1971: 292–293) lists trotz under ‘Prepositions with varying case’ as governing the ‘dative or (more commonly) genitive: trotz dem Regen or trotz des Regens’. For all these, trotz + genitive is given first (Russon & Russon, 1965), or occurs ‘more commonly’ (Johnson, 1971) or ‘usually’ (Dickins, 1963). These authors all follow the observations in the native-speaker tradition, then, according to which the genitive has become the norm but the dative may be found too. An exception to this is Freda Kellett, who remarks in her grammar for advanced school pupils that the genitive after trotz is ‘less common now’ (Kellett, 1964: 93).12 Kellett is at odds with the consensus here with her implication that the genitive is the form on the way out, rather than the innovation. In short, with Kellett’s account, the preposition trotz has come full circle. Originally it governed the dative, then it came to be used

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frequently with the genitive, but it is now perceived to be shifting from the class of genitive prepositions, along with wegen and others, to frequent use with the dative. Although I am not aware of any other authors who go as far as Kellett did, it is true that, in the codex of German for English speakers, the line between trotz as a properly or at least originally dative preposition and während, statt and wegen as properly genitive prepositions has blurred and has ultimately been lost. This finding even extends to Durrell’s authoritative revision of Hammer’s German Grammar (Hammer, 1971; Hammer & Durrell, 1991), the fullest reference grammar of German in English, where we read of all four prepositions – (an)statt, trotz, während and wegen – that they are ‘commonly used with a dative in everyday colloquial speech. [. . .] This usage is regarded as substandard, but it is by no means unknown in writing’ (Hammer & Durrell, 1991: 446). Here, in the British tradition, then, a logical conclusion based on observations of current usage – that trotz and wegen are on a par – has been drawn that does not yet appear in the native-speaker codifications, where there is still a distinction between trotz (where variation in case governance is tolerated) and wegen (where it is not). Here, once again, the British codifications of German are arguably closer to majority contemporary native-speaker usage than are those of the native-speaker tradition.

Conclusion Not all language prescriptivism is tied to patriotism. True, codification, prescription and maintenance of a national standard language are characteristic of the modern nation-state, but parallel to that ongoing process – and arguably almost as important for languages such as English, whose nonnative speakers outnumber native speakers – run the prescriptive traditions that set out the rules of the language for the benefit of various non-native speaker groups. The present exploration of one example of such a ‘parallel’ tradition – British textbooks of German – highlights how studying such works can offer an additional perspective on the relationship between developments in a national (and in this case also plurinational) language and their codification. As we have seen, authors of materials for foreign learners, untroubled by historical loyalties to a national standard variety, do not always slavishly follow the codex as set out by the native-speaker tradition. Admittedly, this study is a first and very incomplete foray into the grammatical prescriptions of German for learners in the British Isles, but the evidence does suggest that, while advanced reference grammars like that of Hammer and Durrell (1991, 1996, 2002) are, with exceptions, generally close

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to native-speaker codifications and descriptions, many textbook authors offer simpler accounts that reflect widespread but not yet definitively codified native-speaker usage. Fischer’s (2000) account of wegen + dative as ‘generally accepted in standard German’, even as wegen + genitive remains the shibboleth of the educated German native speaker’s loyalty to the standard language, is one such example. Others are the increasing tendency over the course of the 20th century to present weak forms of backen rather than strong, and to teach imperative formation without -e. Perhaps the most interesting finding of this study concerns the preposition trotz. While accounts for native speakers still distinguish between wegen and trotz – two cases are acceptable for trotz, but only the genitive is acceptable for wegen – the accounts for British learners, even those given in advanced reference grammars, have since the 1930s unanimously presented the two as members of the same category: properly genitive prepositions that may be found governing the dative. This is all the more striking, given the history of trotz as a preposition that, in fact, took the dative and whose use with the genitive was (unsuccessfully) stigmatized in the later 19th century. ‘Parallel’ prescriptions do not always run quite parallel.

Notes (1) Currently only about 3% of UK university students study a foreign language as a named part of their degree; see the Review of Modern Foreign Languages provision in higher education in England by Professor Michael Worton (October 2009, http:// www.hefce.ac.uk/pubs/hefce/2009/09_41/, para. 77). (2) At least one volume of an edition of Deutsches Leben was used at St Ambrose College, Hale Barns, Altrincham, Cheshire for GCSE preparation during the time frame 1994–1996 (John Bellamy, former pupil of the school, p.c.). (3) Under devolution, Scotland is responsible for its own school curriculum. (4) For instance, it would be interesting to know whether a positive bias in favour of the target culture is also found in textbooks written for learners with a more instrumental motivation (e.g. business German courses). (5) These shifts reflect wider changes in attitudes and in social policy, recognizing cultural diversity and the research program since the 1960s, with the emergence of sociolinguistics and the recognition of German as a pluricentric language (Clyne, 1984). For the status of Austrian varieties of German in German as a Foreign Language teaching (albeit at tertiary level), see Ransmayr (2006). (6) The entry does not discuss the present tense, although the un-umlauted forms (only) are used to illustrate backen in intransitive use: der Schnee backte, backte (klebt(e)) an den Schuhen. (7) This explanatory footnote is dropped in the 1939 edition. (8) Twentieth-century materials invariably begin with the accusative and dative prepositions; lower-level textbooks may not cover prepositions governing the genitive at all. It is worth noting by contrast that, when earlier works for British learners presented the prepositions grouped by case (in Aedler, 1680; Crabb, 1800; Noehden, 1800;

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Wendeborn, 1774; though Offelen lists the prepositions in alphabetical order), those taking the genitive are listed first, because that was, traditionally, the ‘second case’ after the nominative (Aedler, 1680: 174), with dative as the third case and accusative in fourth place. This description is the reverse, incidentally, of at least two authoritative 20thcentury accounts. Helbig and Buscha (1994: 408) note it as ‘G (D)’, that is with the genitive as the norm, while Durrell (2002: 463) lists it as taking the genitive and only ‘less frequently’ the dative. In fact, Aedler emphasized that wegen was not, properly speaking, a preposition at all: wegen or von wegen ‘are used as prepositions with the same [i.e. genitive] case; but (to speak accurately) these are nouns [derived from Weg “way”], as in Latin causa, gratia . . .’ (likewise halben, halb or halben, willen or um-willen, vermittelst, vermeoge, kraft, laut, . . .). This corresponds to a long-running reluctance in German grammatography to acknowledge the existence of ‘proper’ prepositions governing the genitive, and to treat such words that precede a noun and govern the genitive case instead as adverbs or, as here, nouns (Jellinek, 1914: 359–366). While some may balk at the possibility of such graduations of correctness, speakers do work with grades of acceptability; see Hundt (2008). On the other hand, wegen is listed only under genitive with no mention of the dative (Kellett, 1964: 94).

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15 Nativeness, Authority, Authenticity: The Construction of Belonging and Exclusion in Debates about English Language Proficiency and Immigration in Britain Martin Gill

Authenticity Authenticity is one of the most overworked terms in present-day discourse. To judge from its use in selling us commodities and experiences, the pursuit of authenticity shapes almost every aspect of modern life; our preference for authentic Italian coffee or authentic Irish folk music confirms the rightness of our taste and sets us apart from the consumers of mass-produced substitutes. On holiday, we go as travellers, off the beaten track, in search of the ‘authentic Bedouin’ or ‘authentic Finland’, not as uncritical tourists. Authenticity seems to name a quality that captures the thing itself, the true experience, for which no commentary or mediation is required, in relation to which all others are merely imitations; as such, it is self-validating and, as a goal, manifestly desirable. 271

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If this accounts for its widespread use, it may also explain why it has often escaped critical scrutiny: for those who share broadly Western European cultural assumptions at least, authenticity belongs to the taken-for-granted conceptual landscape in which everyday life is lived. This is so even in contexts such as linguistics, where one might expect its implications to seem problematic. Notions of what counts as authentic language, and who count as authentic speakers, authentic speech communities, and the like, have played an important role in shaping the interests of modern linguistics and sociolinguistics without, until recently, receiving the attention they deserve (for the origins of current discussion, see, for example, Bucholtz, 2003; Coupland, 2003; Eckert, 2003; more recent treatments include Coupland, 2010; Eira & Stebbins, 2008; Gill, 2011). Authenticity deserves attention for many reasons. For one thing, it is elusive and paradoxical. The problem with ‘the authentic Finnish experience’, helpfully packaged for us by the tour operator, is that the experience in question – just by virtue of being packaged in this way – is already fatally compromised, no longer ‘truly’ authentic at all (Culler, 1988: 164). The notion of authenticity only arises when we are already displaced from ‘the thing itself’. It is to this extent a sign of our nostalgia for a state we have lost, and potential motive for a quest to retrieve or restore it. More significantly, it is normative and ideological. By drawing a boundary between entities held to be authentic and those that are not, it figures, explicitly or implicitly, in the rhetoric by which collective preferences are legitimated and become established as ‘common sense’. In effect, it helps to define the moral space within which issues and interests are held to be genuine, with a serious claim on our attention. When these concern how the nation is imagined, or the legitimacy within it of specific cultural and linguistic practices, its potential dangers become apparent. It is then especially relevant to ask who has the authority to draw this boundary, and by what means it is maintained.

Authenticity and Exclusion When language becomes a focus of discussion, whether in popular or academic contexts, there is usually more at stake than linguistic phenomena. Discourses of language, nativeness and authenticity help to establish apparently self-justifying grounds for drawing an exclusive boundary of the kind described, and so for ‘othering’ particular groups; as such, they are attractive to would-be gatekeepers, and have become a key site for ideological conflict.

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For example, it is at their interface that, in the often overheated public debate about immigration to Britain, issues relating to language learning and proficiency are typically discussed by policy makers and in public discourse more generally. A critical question in this context is posed by Leung et al. (1997: 547): ‘At what point are the people involved in migration to be considered as a permanent and integral part of the host nation and not as part of a kind of permanent “otherness”?’ As far as much of the host society is concerned, the answer is likely to hinge on whether the people concerned can acquire a voice that is counted as legitimate, and this in turn will depend, among other things, on how fully they are able to gain control of mainstream discursive resources (Blommaert, 2005: chap. 4). But the question is also about nativeness, and the extent to which its qualities and privileges are extendable to ‘non-natives’. Here, the figure of the ‘native speaker’ has long been instrumental in defining the apparently common-sense linguistic boundaries of authentic belonging, in relation to which the ‘non-native speaker’ has been positioned. The aim of this paper is to examine some of the ways in which authenticity is implicated in debates about language, nativeness and community membership, and to highlight the rhetorical processes at work in determining what counts as being a legitimate speaker. For this purpose, it considers two contrasting contexts: firstly, the debate surrounding the role and status of the ‘native speaker’ in relation to English-language learning and teaching; and secondly, a BBC online discussion forum on the topic of language learning for immigrants to the UK in which a majority of posts are concerned with defining the status of non-English-speaking others. Despite having areas of common concern, typical participants in these discursive contexts are not normally in contact and, it seems safe to say, share few basic assumptions. While the former lies within the sphere of ‘acceptable’ academic debate, the latter is open to all; many contributors to the ‘Have Your Say’ forum are themselves not always securely in control of the language/ literacy skills that (by their own account) constitute mainstream sources of legitimacy. Yet it is the repeated implication of all such discourse, academic as well as popular, that certain users of language are in some sense more legitimate than others, and both groups produce (in fact, expend some effort in articulating) a rhetoric of exclusion – a means of determining not only whose voice counts but also, implicitly or otherwise, whose does not.

A Brief History of Authenticity The elements of the modern concept of authenticity and the values associated with them were established in the Romantic period, when the

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centripetal, fragmenting processes of rapid industrialization and urban development produced nostalgia for the imagined integrity of timeless vernacular communities and identities. Its two basic dimensions are illustrated in Table 15.1. The first relates to the flight from industrial society in search of vernacular simplicity, exemplified for English readers by Wordsworth’s return to the Lake District and his attempt to recover the ‘language really used by men’ (Wordsworth, 1802: vii) in the speech of Cumbrian peasants. The second is concerned with the construction of the private self. It is here that authenticity acquired the status of a defining property and, in the relation between the self and its identities, came to be most directly experienced (Taylor, 1985). So framed, and subsequently repeated in a great variety of forms, the concept became constitutive of the post-Romantic world view and, for those who share it, of the sense of who and where we are, of what matters to us and why (for useful histories, see Bendix, 1997: 27–67; Lindholm, 2008: 1–10). At the same time, the powerful cultural forces under which these ideas took shape also gave rise to that of the linguistically and ethnically homogeneous nation-state as the ultimate expression of authentic community to which all fully integrated individuals belong, most strikingly expressed by Herder (Bauman & Briggs, 2003: chap. 5). The conjunction of the two ideas helped to give both nation and language a reality, in fact a moral necessity, which has deeply influenced later thinking about them. In late modernity, essentialism of the kind involved here is suspect. The nation-state is no longer as secure or as inevitable as it was in the 19th century, even though, in practical, political terms, it retains universal currency. It has become a commonplace that identities are not fixed, and that authenticity is not inherent in things themselves; we ask instead in what discursive practices, according to what norms, it is constructed, and what it means to be authentic Table 15.1 Dimensions of Romantic authenticity (1)

A revolt against industrial and commercial culture • Rootedness: unmediated connection to origins, essence, place, antiquity, community, shared values • Marginality • Simplicity • Vernacular speech (2) The retreat of religion and rise of the self, the ‘interior turn’ • Unmediated connection to the self • Instinct, private experience • Creativity, self-expression

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in a particular setting. Equally, it is clear that authenticity may be performed strategically for a variety of purposes, and we investigate the many ways in which it comes to be conferred or denied (Bucholtz, 2003; Coupland, 2001). Yet, paradoxically, its power to essentialize has hardly diminished. As individuals, we are still likely to have views about what counts as authentic in a given context, and take pains to present ourselves and our forms of life as such. It may even be that this late-modern self-awareness has created a nostalgia for lost certainties which the pursuit of authenticity (however conceived) is able to supply. As a result, the term has preserved its appearance of final legitimacy more or less intact. The point is made by Coupland (2003: 429): ‘The power of the term “authentic” is to succeed in asserting absolute values in necessarily relative circumstances, and in asserting a singular essence when competing criteria for authenticity exist’. Moreover, in everyday contexts, including political and ‘official’ discourse, any such self-awareness is far less apparent. For many speakers of English in Britain, it seems that the reality of nations and national languages as bounded, homogeneous entities is both natural and self-evident (see Section 7 below). For those who, for various reasons, are not considered to be authentic members of the English-speaking speech community, the consequences of this are likewise equally real.

Authenticity and the Nature of Language in Linguistics and Sociolinguistics Authenticity has thus been central to language ideology, the construction of national identities and the idea of nativeness, as well as to the connections between them, and it still exerts a strong influence on everyday assumptions about language(s) and speakers. The key rhetorical move here depends on the fact that use of the term creates and tends to reinforce a dichotomy. While authenticity takes many competing forms, it remains that, in a given context, only certain things can be authentic. In other words, the condition of authenticity is necessarily the exclusion of the inauthentic, a category which the term itself brings into existence. It is instructive to compare other dichotomies that have been central to the growth of ‘common sense’ realism in the Western tradition – for example, history versus myth, the literal versus the metaphorical, fact versus fiction. These have formed a vital part of what Lloyd (1990: 43) calls the ‘rhetoric of legitimation’ for that tradition, defining the space in which responsible research can be conducted and expert authority established. It is by similar means that authenticity has played a role in defining both popular assumptions and the ‘proper’ concerns of modern linguistics.

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Its dichotomous character has helped to create a distinction where previously there was none, between what is ‘in’ and what is ‘out’, made clearer when mapped onto an existing dichotomy, such as speech versus writing, standard versus vernacular, or native versus non-native, in which the preferred side enjoys special advantages. So, for example, the emergence of modern linguistics has rested on a Romantic ideology of speech as authentic language which requires the exclusion of writing. Speech and its phenomena have repeatedly been treated as more ‘real’, ‘peculiarly, almost mystically, bound up with the physiological and psychological make-up of a person’ (McIntosh, 1956: 38), in contrast to which writing, especially print, is artificial and extraneous (see, for example, McLuhan, 1962; Mumford, 1934: 137). For Saussure (1983: 24–25), as for most subsequent linguists, ‘the object of study in linguistics is not a combination of the written word and the spoken word. The spoken word alone constitutes that object’. For Bloomfield (1933: 21), writing ‘is not language, but merely a way of recording language by means of visible marks’; ‘merely an external device, like the use of the phonograph’ (Bloomfield, 1933: 282). This is not to deny that written language has been widely studied or that the speech/writing dichotomy has in many cases given way to broader superordinate categories such as ‘text’. Moreover, as Harris points out (1983: 15), there is a paradox in treating speech as ‘authentic language’ in its purest form, since ‘in human history it was the invention of writing that made speech speech and language language’; likewise, Linell has noted the contradiction between linguists’ pronouncements on the derivative (hence uninteresting) nature of written language and the ‘written language bias’ of their actual practice as linguists (Linell, 2005: 28). Nonetheless, the fact remains that a key rhetorical move in the development of modern linguistics has been the exclusion of written language; it is a move that continues to be made. The same tendency occurs with respect to the vernacular. If authentic language is spoken language, then the most authentic of all is that which occurs spontaneously, when the speaker is least conscious of ‘artificial’ public norms. Labov’s observer’s paradox (1972: chap. 8) simultaneously affirms the impossibility of hearing what is said by our informants once the door has closed behind them, and represents this, though unattainable, as the most authentic form of the language. As a result, there has been a preference in the academic discourse of sociolinguistics to treat certain kinds of language, language situation and language user as more centrally interesting, more authentic, than others (Bucholtz, 2003: 404–407). These typically include homogeneous, marginal, vernacular speech communities, linguistic minorities, dense social networks, oral rather than written data, off-the-record utterances rather than careful

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speech, non-standard – even non-native – rather than standard varieties, their non-standard features often foregrounded in research papers by verbatim rather than edited quotation, and editorially enhanced by the use of authenticity effects such as ‘eye-dialect’ (writing ‘wuz’ for ‘was’, ‘sez’ for ‘says’, and so on; see Preston, 2000: 615). As Preston comments: ‘If one wants to give the flavor of natural speech, why is it that speakers of some varieties need to have more condiments used on them than others?’ Here the authenticity in question, traceable to the Romantic origins described above, is that of the outsider with respect to mainstream society, whose marginal position seems to entail greater integrity and originality than membership of established institutions or use of standard language. This idea coincides with sociolinguists’ natural concern for social justice and minority rights, for ‘modernity’s others’ (Rampton, 2000: 99), but, it is worth noting, there is no necessary connection between them: the concept of authenticity belongs to no one set of ideas or entities. It can both help to empower non-mainstream groups and also create the conditions of their exclusion: the former as a legacy of Romantic authenticity, the latter as an expression of its association with Herderian ‘nation-state’ ideals. Following Coupland (2003: 419–421), these can be referred to as Vernacular and Establishment orientations respectively. As Coupland argues, traditional sociolinguistic interests have clearly been on the Vernacular side; but the Establishment orientation has been no less powerful. By creating an excluded category, the dichotomy tends to reinforce the ideologies that helped to shape the identity of the post-Romantic nation-state and the popular/populist discourses that surround them. As we shall see, these feature strongly in the ‘Have Your Say’ data discussed below. From this perspective, the more native one is, the more authentic. Conversely, if a group of speakers in a community is believed by the majority to lack nativeness, or a ‘proper’ native language, it may equally be held to lack an authentic identity. This, as Myhill (2003: 87–94) contends, was how linguists in Nazi Germany chose to represent the German Jewish population, whose adoption of German for everyday communication and failure to speak a distinctive Jewish language could then be regarded as a ‘deception’; they were merely masquerading as Germans, usurping German identity, and hence posed a threat to the integrity of the majority community that required special treatment (Myhill, 2003; see also Joseph, 2004: 171–172). It could be argued that some versions of the discourses of language endangerment and language rights perpetuate an equally strong essentialist connection between language and identity, albeit often with the more acceptable aim of rescuing a minority group from potential ‘non-existence’. The ‘threat’ in this case is posed by some external agency, represented in linguistic terms,

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Table 15.2 Orientations to authenticity Vernacular

Establishment

Marginal/informal groups Outsiders Speech Vernacular Diversity (Socio)linguistics Romantic authenticity

Nation-state Insiders Writing Standard language Uniformity Popular attitudes Authority

once again endangering the authenticity of the speech community in question, and imposing the moral imperative of resistance. As the campaign for ‘Official English’ in the United States makes clear, these attitudes are by no means confined to minority language contexts (Schmidt, 2007). The idea of the national language as a bounded, unitary entity, and of its speakers as forming a well-defined, homogeneous community, rests on an ideology of monolingualism, linguistic uniformity and nativeness that inevitably implies the inauthenticity of the bilingual, the hybrid, the non-standard and the non-native. Moreover, rhetorical exclusion readily translates into physical exclusion. In Britain, this might be described as the ‘common sense’ folk linguistic view, one which, as Blackledge (2001, 2005) has shown, is not usually to be found explicitly formulated in policy documents or theoretical texts but which constantly occurs in everyday discussion and the recontextualization of them. It is the repeated implication of such discourse that certain speakers and linguistic practices ‘do not belong’. The orientations to authenticity outlined here are represented in Table 15.2. The following pages examine more closely how the struggle between these two orientations has been played out in relation to the notion of nativeness, particularly that of the native speaker of English. It should be emphasized that the aim is not to present yet another challenge to the authority of the native speaker but to show how the discourses of nativeness in each case rest on, and are intertwined with, claims to authenticity – either Vernacular or Establishment.

The Native Speaker of English In the context of second-language learning and teaching, a central question concerns what norms to teach, and who has the authority both to decide

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and to teach them. Since, in the post-Romantic world, nativeness is the ultimate badge of authenticity, the ‘native speaker’ has long enjoyed an advantage here, effectively a proprietorial right that has seemed unassailable. More recently, this has become the object of extensive discussion in the Englishlanguage teaching literature, with calls for the equal recognition and treatment of ‘non-native’ teachers, and detailed criticism of the concepts involved (points taken up below). Despite this, in most English teaching contexts, the ‘native speaker’ remains, implicitly or otherwise, the norm against which the language of ‘non-native’ learners is measured. Several versions of the native speaker of English can be distinguished, although the distinction is seldom maintained as carefully as it should be: (1) the idealization – perfectly competent, fluent, accurate, communicative, literate, rational, RP-speaking and monolingual; (2) the social identity, claimed (or not) by or attributed (or not) to English speakers on a variety of grounds (Brutt-Griffler & Samimy, 2001); and (3) the ‘common sense’ category of actual users of English as a first language. For clarity, I will refer to (1) – the focus here – as NS, and use the impersonal pronoun ‘it’. We will return to senses (2) and (3) below. NS is a relative of Chomsky’s (1965: 3) ‘ideal speaker-listener’. Both have innate knowledge of the language, both are exclusive; but whereas Chomsky’s idealization is overtly so, consigning everyday language use and users to the sphere of ‘performance’, NS is less explicit about its status, having the appearance of being merely a descriptive category. As a result, in many international contexts, users of English as a first language have regularly been treated as NS, and accorded privileges on that basis, such as being preferred before (and sometimes paid more than) better qualified ‘non-native’ teachers, or being given the floor as authorities on issues of linguistic correctness and acceptability (see, for example, Braine, 1999: 22; Clark & Paran, 2007; Kramsch, 2003: 251; Medgyes, 2001). Yet arguably the greatest strength of NS is that – like authenticity itself – it is a dichotomous category, an idealization that both creates and excludes its complement, the ‘non-native speaker’ (NNS). As such, it has formed part of the hidden ideological apparatus by which the English language has secured its frontiers and identities against incursion by non-English others. While it derives authenticity from the quality of nativeness, NS is unequivocally an Establishment product, both embodying and deriving legitimacy from the authority of the standard written language, the autonomous code in which matters of fact are dealt with by rational people. Until the late 20th century, the authority of NS was rarely questioned. For English, with no academy to provide official regulation, NS played a natural role as linguistic arbiter. It was largely taken for granted that

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(bounded, essentialized) languages possessed (unproblematic, unitary) native speakers of this kind. Indeed, as a speaker of the standard variety, NS had qualities – including membership of a clearly defined nation-state, ethnic and cultural integrity, and ‘ownership’ of the language – that were self-evident and self-validating. Treated as such, NS has controlled access to the privileged ground of authentic and legitimate speakerhood, in relation to which NNS must always seem more or less inauthentic. For example, while NS has been the notional end point of language-learning curricula, built into standard forms of language assessment, as an objective it remains inaccessible. Should we wonder if there are circumstances in which the highly proficient NNS can become NS, the only obvious answer is no: nativeness, in the conventional Herderian understanding of the term – hence also authenticity in this sense – is nonnegotiable and non-transferrable to ‘others’, however proficient. It has also naturally been the L1 English-speaking embodiment of NS who adjudicates whether an L2 speaker can be regarded as ‘native-like’ or a ‘near native speaker’, often without reference to the L2 speaker’s own perceptions or intentions (Kramsch, 2003: 255–256). And predictably enough, the notion of ‘passing for a native speaker’ or ‘being mistaken for a native speaker’, when they occur, may then seem to imply some degree of subterfuge and inauthenticity (Myhill, 2003; Piller, 2002: 198–199). Theoretical contexts also tend to bear the imprint of, and to reinforce, the status of NS. Much second-language acquisition (SLA) research has positioned the NNS learner at some transitional interlanguage stage along the path towards realization of the NS language system, but inevitably as more or less incomplete. NS assumptions are likewise promoted by the claim advanced by Krashen’s popular Input Hypothesis – perhaps the only piece of SLA theory to have become almost universally familiar to English language teachers – that learners learn by ‘exposure’ to ‘comprehensible input’ (Krashen, 1991). Whatever the virtues of the Input Hypothesis as a theory (the consensus seems to be that these are limited; see Block, 2003; McLaughlin, 1987), one aspect of its appeal has been its implication that the quality of the input is the critical factor, opening the way for its use to justify insistence on ‘good’ NS models and exclusion of ‘impurities’ such as non-standard varieties, or codemixing in the classroom, however natural or fruitful this may be as part of the everyday linguistic practices of the learners in question. In this form, it has proved useful to policy makers in contexts such as Hong Kong, where the use of standard English in the classroom has been regarded as having vital political or economic importance (Lin, 1997). In cases such as these, learning theory may be used to endorse a strongly NS-orientated Establishment position, notwithstanding the apparent intentions of the theorist (Krashen’s

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theory is itself imbued with a Romantic belief in the authenticity of incidental language acquisition in ‘natural’ [Vernacular] contexts, as opposed to ‘artificial’ [Establishment] classroom-based instruction). Even in enlightened pedagogical contexts, NS assumptions are often the default, for example with regard to the role of ‘authentic’ materials in language teaching, where the quest for authenticity has become a standard feature of good pedagogic practice. The conventional definition of authenticity here, as in ‘authentic text’, ‘authentic materials’, and the like, is text, materials produced by L1 speakers for L1 speaker consumption. Much less consideration has been given to their authenticity (or lack of it) from the learner’s perspective. The centrality of NS takes concrete shape in Kachru’s widely reproduced tripartite model (Kachru & Nelson, 1996), in which the extent of global English is characterized in terms of three concentric circles representing in essence: (1) an ‘inner circle’ of L1 English-speaking countries; (2) an ‘outer circle’ of ex-colonial countries in which English is widely used and nativized as a second language; and (3) an ‘expanding circle’ of contexts in which English is being learnt as a foreign language. The aim of this model is to provide a historically based representation of the global spread of English, and a basis for categorizing its varieties and speakers. However, as a number of critics have pointed out, if understood as a snapshot of the current situation of English, it still represents the NS core as its primary point of reference and origin of language norms (see, for example, Jenkins, 2003: 17–18). In ways such as these, subtle and less subtle, NS and Establishment authenticity have been implicated in the discourses of language learning and teaching, to the point where these processes have become hard to conceptualize otherwise, especially as long as English-language teaching and assessment across the globe remain to a large extent owned and operated by Anglophones. The set of oppositions created by NS is outlined in Table 15.3. Table 15.3 Positioning the (non-)native speaker Native speaker

Non-native speaker

Fluent Implicit knowledge of norms Fully competent Accurate control of language Standard language user Authoritative, official Native

More or less non-fluent Explicit knowledge of norms Less than fully competent Imperfect control of language Would-be standard language user No authority over language/passive Non-native/foreign

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Displacing the Native Speaker In recent years, in relation to English, at least, the ascendancy of NS – indeed, the very possibility of NS as an idealization – has been challenged both practically and conceptually in the language teaching/learning literature from a variety of perspectives: by increasing emphasis on local norms, and on variation within as well as between the circles defined by Kachru; by focusing not on ‘nativeness’ and origin but on other criteria, such as level of proficiency or communicative purpose, and on the prevalence of multilingualism, code-switching and other contact-induced phenomena; by efforts to recuperate and revalue ‘non-native’ varieties, and reposition their speakers, for example within a pluricentric view of ‘world Englishes’ as speakers of nativized varieties, or in any case as legitimate speakers not as failed NSs (Cook, 1999); by reference to contexts in which the ‘native’/’non-native’ distinction has little meaning, or in which other social identities are more salient (Brutt-Griffler & Samimy, 2001); and by recognizing the importance of communication using English in contexts other than those overseen by L1 English speakers, where English serves as a form of lingua franca (see, for example, Dewey, 2007; Jenkins & Seidlhofer, 2003; Seidlhofer, 2001). In addition, criticism of the NS concept by Leung et al. (1997), Davies (2003) and Kramsch (2003), among many others, and exploration of its origins in the ethnolinguistic nationalism of the European tradition (Bonfiglio, 2010), have made clear both its ideological basis and practical limitations, although opinions remain divided over whether it can serve any further purpose. Increasingly, however, models of language proficiency have been sought in which NS occupies no specially privileged place. Such efforts offer a welcome corrective to the hegemony of NS in a field that has until lately been exclusively NS-owned and -controlled. Underlying the shift are factors such as the end of the British Empire, the post-war decline of the monolithic nation-state and accompanying rise of national and linguistic self-determination, and the vernacularization of norms in many contexts, especially the media. These are of course social and political, not linguistic issues, reflecting an emphasis on the recognition and empowerment of previously marginalized people; as Kirkpatrick has put it (2006: 76): ‘In a very real way, the choice of a nativized model over a native speaker model is the choice of democracy over imperialism’. All have tended to undermine old Establishment certainties and displace NS from its traditional positions of authority, even though, as we see, NS assumptions are still widespread in the literature and practice of English teaching, and entrenched in popular discourse and public debate (a point taken up below).

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As Kayman (2009: 92) points out, this process has required the definition of a discourse in which English is freed from association with the assumed qualities of a national culture and history. Of all such discourses, that of English as a lingua franca (or ELF) seems to have attempted this most deliberately, indeed polemically. Its emergence as an ‘established field in its own right’ (Dewey, 2007: 333) – or at least a distinctive discourse about the nature of English, manifested in the institution in 2008 of an annual international conference (Mauranen & Ranta, 2009), the promotion of the acronym ELF, an expanding literature, and the frequently combative tone of its proponents (see Jenkins, 2009; Saraceni, 2008) – provides an interesting example of rhetorical self-fashioning, particularly evident with respect to the reframing/ repositioning of elements in the relationship between (non-)nativeness and authenticity outlined in the previous section. Despite the antiquity of the concept, English as a lingua franca, that is, a form of English used between non-L1 speakers in non-L1 contexts, is still a relative newcomer to second-language learning and teaching, and substantive issues remain unresolved in relation to the concept and its definition (see, for example, Ferguson, 2009; Kayman, 2009; Saraceni, 2008). However, it is hard to escape the impression that, for those who are committed, these are minor in relation to the main task: for what above all is required is a ‘paradigm shift’ (Dewey, 2007: 333), to be achieved in part by reclaiming authenticity for speakers excluded by the NS model. It is not of course Establishment authenticity this time, but Vernacular (in Coupland’s sense, discussed above), and entirely non-NS, to the point where the role of NS, hence also of L1 users of English, in the definition of English language norms is reduced to insignificance as perhaps the least authentic, certainly the least relevant, of all (Jenkins, 2006: 160). Most aspects of the earlier NS picture are now reversed. What were previously learner errors, or incomplete realizations of the native model, are now represented as adherence to variable language norms. Where NS was prescriptive, the ELF speaker is descriptive. Previously central (‘inner circle’) concerns are now viewed as peripheral to the great majority of English speakers worldwide. Above all, it is the Establishment aspects of the NS concept – the standardized, monolithic norms, requiring conformity from non-natives – that now most effectively reveal its lack of authenticity. They are unfavourably contrasted with the fluidity and adaptability of norms in ELF, the resourcefulness and tolerance of naturally multilingual ELF speakers and their willingness to accommodate to one another. Where NS owed its authority in part to the prestige of the standard written language, ELF has predominantly been studied in relation to spoken phenomena. In short, ELF is heterogeneous and emancipatory, the authentic language of a global,

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Table 15.4 Repositioning the (non-)native speaker Native speaker

Non-native speaker

Monolingual, monoglossic Centralized, standardized norms Monolithic Conservative Prescriptive Inflexible, intolerant Requires conformity Expects passivity Exclusive Emphasizes difference Essentially written forms Unnatural

Multilingual, heteroglossic Variable, ad hoc norms Diverse Creative/innovative Descriptive Flexible, tolerant Seeks accommodation Assumes active agency Inclusive Emphasizes community Essentially spoken forms Natural

non-imperial community (Kayman, 2009: 106). Set beside the ELF speaker, NS, now stripped of credibility, looks inflexible and inauthentic, a product of an outdated ideology: disempowered, disempowering and marginal. The set of oppositions created by ELF is outlined in Table 15.4. For the ELF speaker, no less than for NS, legitimacy is claimed in terms to which the notion of authenticity is central. And, as a result, both define themselves by positioning some speakers and some forms of language as more natural, more genuine, more representative, more legitimate than others. Though ideologically opposed, NS and ELF norms are caught in the same, essentially post-Romantic dilemma: both ground themselves upon assumptions about the nature of authentic language; their difference is over where true authenticity lies.

‘Have Your Say’ The rhetorical realignment presented here tells us more about how linguistic ideologies differentiate themselves than about what language users believe or how they act. Such ideologies rarely surface explicitly in everyday contexts. And yet, as Blackledge (2005) has demonstrated, it is in popular ‘common sense’ discourse that ideological outlooks are most tellingly manifest. In this section, I turn to consider data gathered in 2007 and 2010 from a BBC online discussion forum which invites readers to ‘Have Your Say’ on topical issues. The issue in question here centres on immigration and the relevance of proficiency in the host society’s language, a highly salient (not to say provocative) one in contemporary British political and media discourse.

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The two data sets (in total 1175 posts) were occasioned by articles on the BBC news website. The first, headlined ‘Unemployed “must learn English”’ (BBC, 2007), relates to British government plans to introduce compulsory English-language instruction for the estimated 40,000 unemployed for whom lack of language proficiency is – in the government’s view – an obstacle. The second, ‘English rules tightened for immigrant partners’ (BBC, 2010), is an account of proposed legislation to require those applying for a UK visa in order to join their British spouse or partner to prove that they already have some basic proficiency in English. The question posed in this case is: ‘Should immigrants to any country have to prove they have a command of the language?’ As anyone who has looked at such forums will know, respondents with more extreme views tend to be overrepresented. My aim was to identify the discourses that, for such a group, link language use and issues of citizenship and belonging. While the discussion as framed by the BBC focuses largely on practical and instrumental language issues and includes immigrants’ own perspectives, many of the posted responses use a more explicitly populist nationalist discourse, in which English-language proficiency is made to stand proxy for identification with and commitment to the supposed norms of British life – ultimately, in fact, for whatever can be included in the moral space of the nation as imagined within the discourse of Establishment authenticity. Only a minority of the posted comments refer to the practical issues facing disadvantaged groups in British society, the varied motivations for, or complexities of language learning, or the likelihood of success in difficult circumstances. A larger number raise points about the status of other languages in Britain, and the inconsistency of applying rules in relation to English in England that do not also apply, for example, in relation to Welsh in Wales. There is also a clear strand of discussion that highlights British linguistic chauvinism and monolingual inability or refusal to communicate in foreign languages. What emerges from the majority of posts, however, is a discourse that treats English proficiency as a dichotomous category, in which being an English speaker indexes everything – by implication the communicative competence, the moral, cultural and social virtues of ‘Britishness’, including self-reliance, individual effort, respect for the law – that confers legitimacy and sets the ‘native’ apart from the foreigner. In this context, the non-English speaker is a threat: Example 1 (Data set 1: post 138) This country is English speaking. To qualify for a work permit or to live here requires english as a spoken language. If you don’t speak the language, you can’t understand the culture, you can’t understand the laws,

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if you can’t understand the law what place is there for that individual in our society, none. I am not racist but we need people that add value to our country, not be a burden. This is by no means the only writer to deny being a racist, while defending a strongly exclusionist position; the repetition of such views makes depressing reading. There are striking echoes here of the discourses identified by Mitchell (this volume) in her work on 17th- and 18th-century grammarians, with a clear tendency to slide from linguistic issues to social and national stereotypes (Kayman, 2009: 90). And as Schmidt (2007: 206) comments in relation to the populist ideology of the US Official English movement, ‘being confronted with a “foreign” cultural community in one’s own backyard . . . can seem not only outrageous but downright dangerous’. At the same time, as Example 2 makes clear, the process of language learning can be presented as so natural, almost unavoidable, that not to learn must be a sign of deliberate rejection of the host community: Example 2 (Data set 1: post 46) I just fail to see how anybody living in a country won’t learn the local language. He or she must make a positive effort not to learn it and to avoid all possible contact with local speakers of the language. Why, the most basic necessities of life require that people speak and interact with others! There is no way not to learn the local language, unless of course you choose to isolate yourself in a local ghetto of immigrants. The ‘won’t’ here clearly implies refusal. In an extraordinary inversion of the probable reality, it appears that if anyone is promoting exclusionist attitudes it is the immigrant who chooses to live in a ‘local ghetto’. However, these are not particularly extreme examples; nor is the next, which again treats the question as almost too obvious to need asking: Example 3 (Data set 2: post 4) I just do not see what the problem is here. Learning the native language benefits everyone. The Immigrant is able to communicate with natives and is seen as ‘integrating’. Natives are much more easily able to communicate and help immigrants. It’s NOT an imposition on prospective immigrants but a way of helping, AND is another way of showing a commitment to this country. Those who migrate to the UK fleeing persecution should have free courses in English made available.

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This example is representative of a large number of posts to these forums; the writer is not unreasonable, but merely offers a ‘common sense’ explanation. However, the avoidance of subjects is revealing: in this context, ‘learning the native language benefits everyone’ can only mean ‘their’ learning ‘our’ language, rather than vice versa; the same is true of ‘. . . a way of [our] helping, AND . . . another way of [their] showing a commitment to this country’. Predictably, it is the in-comer who is to be obliged to adapt to the prescriptions of the host, and make all the effort when it comes to integrating. Immigrants’ own linguistic repertoire and expertise are invisible here (Leung et al., 1997: 555), except implicitly as an obstacle to communication; by contrast, ‘the native language’ (for this writer, presumably English) is clear, unproblematic and unitary. Far from imposing on the immigrant, however, the writer portrays this arrangement as helpfully promoting integration, and – just as helpfully – providing ‘another way’ for immigrants to prove their legitimacy. As often appears in these posts, the only group regarded as having a naturally legitimate claim are those ‘fleeing persecution’, whose Vernacular authenticity as outsiders is undeniable. In order to assimilate (the only acceptable option), immigrants must learn the language and demonstrate their genuine intentions by investing time, effort and money (their own, not the taxpayers’) in the attempt. Without this, it is repeatedly claimed, there can be no possibility of membership in this community, merely isolation, dependency and a burden on the native population’s overstretched goodwill and resources. Moreover, the clear implication in the data is that very little is being asked: just a matter of basic language proficiency, a minor effort which surely anyone should manage as a simple courtesy to the host country (one that many contributors to these forums insist they would make themselves, if moving abroad), making failure – or what is assumed to be reluctance – to learn seem all the more culpable. After all, as several of the posts assert, English is an easy language; not to learn it is therefore interpretable in ethnically stereotyped terms: at best as a sign of immigrants’ laziness, arrogance, insensitivity, at worst as morally and politically suspect, a challenge to the community itself for which the penalty should be immediate exclusion. For many contributors, the surprise is that any such immigrants have been admitted at all: Example 4 (Data set 1: post 20) What I want to know, is why on earth non English speakers are even allowed to live in the UK. Before anybody starts spouting off, it’s not a racist view at all, just common sense. If you try to move to Australia and can’t speak English, the chances of you being allowed in are very remote.

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Ultimately, it is implied, their real failure is not to recognize the ‘common sense’ norms of the situation in which they find themselves – after all, the decision to come to Britain was theirs in the first place. The native/non-native boundary constructed in the ‘Have Your Say’ data is unambiguous and invested with ideological importance; transition across it is problematic, and marked in particular by acquisition of ‘the language’, treated as an all-or-nothing category, like nativeness itself. The linguistic and cultural identity of the ‘native’ English speaker here is solid and static, and the opposition it enforces sets a great divide between insiders and outsiders. While it is repeatedly assumed that the only valid aim for the outsider is to cross that divide through diligence, successful language learning and cultural assimilation, the relationship is structured, both rhetorically and – given the larger political context – in fact, in ways that make this almost impossible to accomplish. And needless to say, the gatekeeper here is the ‘native’ insider.

Conclusion Authenticity is a complex and ideologically loaded term, but often transparent, even in otherwise critically aware contexts. In the late-modern world, the essentialist connections between nations, languages and speakers have largely been rejected in academic contexts, just as the old sources of national and linguistic authority have been displaced. Yet, despite the liberal terms in which issues of nativeness and legitimacy are now generally framed, the underlying (exclusive and often illiberal) discourse of authenticity still exerts an influence. This is true, as we have seen, historically with respect to the rhetorical construction of language in modern linguistics – as spoken, vernacular, spontaneous, and so on – and also with respect to the ELF speaker, whose anti-NS, non-Establishment qualities are precisely those most highly valued in the tradition of Romantic authenticity. In both cases, the authenticity of favoured features is established most conclusively by the exclusion of disfavoured alternatives; for the emergent and contested field of lingua franca English, this rhetorical effort of self-definition remains a prominent feature of the debate, a phenomenon that may account for some of the resistance it has met. No less than that of the rejected NS model, the ELF speaker’s legitimacy rests on the delegitimation of others – perhaps rather more so, since the discourse of ELF has been more consciously constructed; by contrast, as an Establishment product, NS has tended to take itself for granted. Nonetheless, in this sense, they are two sides of the same ideological coin. These are the minor discursive conflicts of an academic field, the outcome of which, we may be sure, will have little effect on popular attitudes

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concerning nativeness and national belonging more generally. Yet here, too, in this very different context, a comparable rhetorical tendency is to be found, to construct a linguistic divide between insiders and outsiders; common to both is the figure of the native speaker, whose authenticity in the ‘Have Your Say’ discourse is rarely in doubt. As I hope to have shown, this figure, whether as idealized construct or ‘common sense’ embodiment of ‘the language’ and its cultural self-image, plays a central role in determining whose voice counts, a question at the heart of the discussions – both academic and popular – examined here. We might hope that, by making these issues and rhetorical processes more explicit, it will be possible, in time, to move beyond them. Their unsatisfactory human dimension, as well as a glimpse of what else may be possible, is caught by this writer: Example 5 (Data set 1: post 33) Speaking the language of the country you live in . . . yes its very important as it aids integration and makes life easier for the immigrant and society as a whole. However, I question whether the native speakers try to help integrate newcomers or just steer clear of them. Natives have their own lives to lead and it is a rare and indeed extraordinary event one does reach out to support and help a non native adapt, learn and integrate in their new home. Yet it happens, but I sense not enough.

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Index

Note: ‘n’ denotes note; ‘t’ denotes table.

An ABC for Baby Patriots (Ames), 186 ABC of Plain Words (Gowers), 20 Abd-el-Jawad, Hassan R., 12 Abecedarium (Huloet), 56n4 Abley, Mark, 12 Abstand vs. Ausbau languages, 224, 228 Académie française, 15, 20, 22, 31(nn17–18), 175, 177 Accademia della Crusca, 3, 44, 175, 187n1 Act for Welsh translation of Bible and Book of Common Prayer (1563), 90–91, 92–93, 95 Act of Supremacy (1534), 89 Act of Uniformity (1559), 91 Act of Union (1536), 88–89, 95 Adams, James, 102, 112 Adams, John, 22–23 Adams, William, 22, 31n18 Addison, Joseph, 150 Adelung, Johann Christoph, 247, 258, 259t, 261, 262t The Advancement of Learning (Bacon), 58n25 Aedler, Martin, 246, 249, 250, 259t, 260, 266n10 African-American Vernacular English, 29n10 African languages. See also Cameroon Pidgin English in Caribbean creoles, 5, 227, 229, 231, 232, 236, 241 lingua francas, 211 Aickin, Joseph, 127, 130 Aitchison, Jean, 16 Alaae seu scalae mathematicae (Digges), 58n22

Alençon, Duke of. See Anjou, François, duc d’ Ælfric, Abbot of Eynsham, 48 Alston, R.C., 133 Alveary (Baret), 56n4 American Dictionary of the English Language (Webster), 12, 21, 160, 163, 166 American English. See also United States Black, 29n10 codification and standardization in, 155–69 coining of ‘Americanism’, 111–12, 163 as corrupting influence, 16–17, 169 London standard and, 8, 156–57, 159, 160–61 prescriptivism and, 22–23, 192–206 Scots as a model for, 108–9, 111–12, 163–65 Southern, 235 spelling of lagniappe, 233 American Pronunciation (Kenyon), 167 American War of Independence (1775–1783), 142, 165 Amerindian languages, 226, 229, 232, 236, 241 Amis, Kingsley, 16, 32n22 Ancient Scotish Poems, never before in print (Pinkerton), 103 Anderson, Benedict, 2 Anglicanism, 48, 89, 91 Anjou, François, duc d’, 58n19 Annual Register, 149 Arabic, 21 Archaionomia (Lambarde), 49 Armory (Bossewell), 58n20 Armour, Jean, 104 292

Inde x

Ars Poetica (Horace), 14, 26 The Art of Rhetorique (Wilson), 42, 43, 46, 137n5 Ascham, Roger, 39, 41, 42, 43, 55, 57n8 Assessment and Qualifications Alliance (AQA), 248 ‘associated’ languages, 13 The Atlantic Monthly (AM), 106, 107t Attwood, Rebecca, 20 Australia, 100–101, 107t, 116n3, 180, 188n9, 260, 287 Austrian, 32n21, 252, 262, 265n5 authenticity, 271–75, 288 Bachmair, John James, 250 Bacon, Francis, 58n25 Baldauf, Richard B., 26 Bale, John, 58n18 Banister, John, 56n4 Baret, John, 51, 53, 56n4 Bartholomaeus, Anglicus, 49 Batchelor, Thomas, 162 Batman, Stephen, 49 BBC, 168, 273, 284–89 Beal, Joan C., 3, 8, 31n17, 141–54, 159 Becke, Edmund, 56n2 Beckmann, Bernhard, 261–62, 263 Beiler, Benedictus, 250 Benfras, Dafydd, 84–85 Bengali, 229 Benson, Phil, 31n19 Berita Minggu (newspaper), 66 Beti, 211 Bhojpuri, 229, 234 Bible, 42, 50, 56n4, 90, 91, 95, 126 Bibliotheca Eliotae (Cooper), 45 Biden, Joseph R., 196, 198 Blackledge, Adrian, 278, 284 Blagrave, John, 53 Blamires, David, 247 Blank, Paula, 156 Blayney, Peter, 55 Bloomfield, Leonard, 276 Blount, Thomas, Sir, 41 Boer War (1899–1902), 188n5 Bok Geoil, 67, 68 Bolinger, Dwight, 17 Bolivia, 228 Book of Common Prayer, 50, 90, 91, 95

293

Borgert, Udo H.G., 254, 255, 259t, 260, 262t, 263 Bosnian, 25 Bossewell, John, 58n20 Boswell, James, 31n17 Bourdieu, Pierre, 72 Boyer, Abel, 130 Bradley, Henry, 188n3 Breton, 85–86, 93, 224 The Breuiary of Britayne (Llwyd), 84 Britain. See United Kingdom Britannia (Camden), 102 British English. See also Standard English; United Kingdom American English and, 16, 23, 108–9, 112, 162, 169 Jamaican Creole and, 240 London dialect, 8, 156–57, 159, 160–61 pronunciation, 158, 162, 168, 235 Webster’s views on, 23, 160 Brittany, 85 Bronstein, Arthur J., 157, 160 Bryson, Bill, 16 Brythonic dialects, 85–86 Buchanan, James, 100, 142–43 Bullokar, John, 41 Bullokar, William, 124 Burchfield, Robert, 16, 19 Bürger, Gottfried August, 250 Burghley, Mildred Cooke Cecil, Lady, 42 Burghley, William Cecil, Baron (1520–1598), 2, 39–58, 90 Burns, Robert, 5, 99–116 Burton, Richard, 185, 186 Buscha, Joachim, 266n9 Bush, George H. W., 195 Bush, George W., 193, 195, 197, 199, 204 Bynneman, Henry, 44 Caesar, Julius, 51 Calaloux Press, 236 The Calender of Scripture (Patten), 56n4 Cambridge, Richard Owen, 154n2 Cambridge doctrine, 33–58 Cambridge Examination Board, 250, 251 Cambridge University, 44–45, 53 Camden, William, 42, 44, 54, 102 Cameron, Deborah, 26, 27, 33n29, 193

294

The L anguages of Nat ion

Cameroon Pidgin English, 5, 211–20 Campbell, George, 152 Campe, Joachim Heinrich, 261, 262t Canada, 100–101, 114–15 Canadian English, 10, 16–17, 29n8, 239 Canadian Oxford Dictionary, 10 Care, Henry, 130 Carew, Richard, 20, 143 Carib, 232 Caribbean, 5, 223, 226. See also Trinidad & Tobago English Creole Carlson, Margaret, 202 Carr, C.T., 247 Casnodyn, 85 Cassidy, Frederic G., 224 Castiglione, Baldassare, conte, 42, 156 Catholicism, 89–90, 213, 228 Cawdrey, Robert, 41 Caxton, William, 18 Cecil, William. See Burghley, William Cecil, Baron (1520–1598) The Century (periodical), 106, 107t, 111 Century Dictionary (Funk), 177 Chaloner, Thomas, 42 Chambers, J.K., 29n8 Chapman, Don, 6, 9, 27, 192–206 Charles, Prince of Wales, 16, 169 Chaucer, Geoffrey, 112–13 Chaudhuri, Nupur, 182 Cheke, John, Sir, 31n17, 40, 42–43, 55, 137n5, 156 Cheke, Mary, 42 Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of, 21 China, 74 Chinese, 233–34. See also Mandarin Chomsky, Noam, 279 Chronological English Dictionary (CED) (Finkenstaedt et al.), 41, 151 Churchill, Winston, 17 Church of England, 48, 89, 91 Cicero, 41 Clarendon (Public Schools) Commission, 251 Clarke, F., 255t, 259t, 260, 263 Claymond, John, 52 Cockeram, Henry, 41 Cohen, Michele, 143–44 Colet, John, 42, 50–51

Colley, Linda, 142 colonialism cultural prescriptivism and, 3, 175–89 in the expansion of English, 179–80, 184 impact on indigenous people, 70 imposition of languages and education systems, 213–14 preservation of the vernacular and, 103–5 in the promotion of standard Welsh, 83, 88–96 Commentarioli Descriptionis Britannicae Fragmentum (Llwyd), 84 complaint tradition, 192–94, 197, 200 A Complete Dictionary of the English Language (Sheridan), 135 Complete Plain Words (Gowers), 20 Comprehensive Pronouncing and Explanatory Dictionary of the English Language (Worcester), 160 Cooke, Anthony, 42 Cooper, Christopher, 127 Cooper, Thomas, 39, 42, 45–46, 51–52, 57(nn10–11), 58n21 Coote, Edmund, 40–41, 53, 55 Copious English and Nether-duytch Dictionarie (Hexham), 130 Cornell University Library Making of America Collection, 105 Cornish, 85–86, 93 Cornwall, 85, 129 Corpus Glossary, 49 Cotgrave, Randle, 56n5 Coupland, Nikolas, 275, 277 The Courtier (Castiglione), 42, 156 Crabb, George, 258–60 Craigie, William A., Sir, 188n3 Crawford, Robert, 104 creoles, 79n5, 223–24, 226–28. See also Trinidad & Tobago English Creole Critical Pronouncing Dictionary (Walker), 157–58, 161–62 Critical Review (periodical), 144 Croatian, 25 Crowley, Tony, 19 Curzan, Anne, 27 Cyffin, Morris, 91, 96n5 Cyrillic, 25

Inde x

Daiches, David, 103–4 Daily Kos (Internet forum), 195 The Daily Nor’Wester (periodical), 106, 107t Davidson, Mary Catherine, 1–10 Davies, Alan, 282 Davies, John, 90 Davies, R.R., 87, 92 Davies, Winifred V., 257, 258 Democratic Action Party (Malaysia), 71 Demosthenes, 43 Descriptio Kambriae (Gerald de Barri), 84, 86–87, 96n1 Deuber, Dagmar, 241 Deutsch 2000 (textbook), 252 Deutsches Handbuch (textbook), 247 Deutsches Leben III (textbook), 246, 256t, 260, 263 Deutsches Wörterbuch (Grimm), 261, 262, 263 Deutschland hier und jetzt (textbook), 254, 256, 257 Development of English Grammatical Theory: 1586–1737 (Vorlat), 126 dialects, 13, 84–86, 125 Dickens, Charles, 107, 113 Dickins, Eric Paul, 259t, 261, 262t, 263 A Dictionarie French and English (Harrison), 56n4 Dictionary of Jamaican English (Cassidy), 240 A Dictionary of Lowland Scotch (Mackay), 102 Dictionary of the English/Creole of Trinidad & Tobago (Winer), 2, 9, 225, 230–40 Dictionary of the English Language (Johnson), 3, 21, 152–53, 176 Dictionnaire de l’Académie française, 30n15, 44, 187 Dictionnaire de la langue française (Littré), 177 Digges, Thomas, 58n22 Dilworth, Thomas, 158 A Discoverie of sundrie errours and faults daily committed by Landmeaters (Worsop), 52 Disraeli, Benjamin, 32n25 D’Israeli, Isaac, 32n25 Dissertations on the English Language (Webster), 160

295

Dodoens, Rembert, 56n4 Dollinger, Stefan, 27 Do Not Leave Your Language Alone (Fishman), 32n28 Dosparth byrr ar y rhann gyntaf i ramadeg cymraeg (Robert), 96n3 Dossena, Marina, 2, 4, 5, 8, 99–116 Doucet, Rachelle C., 227 Douglas, Gavin, 103 D’Oyly, Thomas, 49 Drake, Glendon F., 23 Druon, Maurice, 15–16, 29n7 Dryden, John, 104, 144 Duden (German textbook series), 253, 255–56, 258, 261, 262 Durrell, Martin, 247, 253, 254, 257, 262t, 264, 266n9 Dutch, 132, 249 Eachard, John, 29n13 Eagles, Robin, 142, 153 Early Modern English, 3, 7, 39–58, 40, 41, 49–50, 123–37 Early Modern English Lexicography (Schäfer), 40 Eastman, C., 13 education in the British Empire, 186 in Cameroon, 214, 219 foreign-language, 245–66 in Malaysia, 71–72 in Singapore, 74–75 in South Korea, 69 textbooks in the historiography of, 247 in the United Kingdom, 248, 250–51, 265(nn1–3) use of pidgin/creole in, 219, 226 U.S. liberals’ attitude to, 193, 204 in Wales, 93, 95 Edward I, King of England, 87 Edward VI, King of England, 42, 45, 47, 50, 89 Edwards, John, 2–3, 6, 11–33 eisteddfods, 94 The Elements of German Grammar (Wendeborn), 246 Eliotis Librarie (Cooper), 45 Elizabeth I, Queen of England, 44–45, 50, 57n10, 58n19, 90

296 The L anguages of Nat ion

Ellis, Alexander, 176 Elyot, Thomas, Sir, 39, 42, 44, 45 Encarta Dictionary of World English, 181 English. See Standard English English Academy of Southern Africa, 21 English as a Foreign Language (EFL), 31n17, 67–70, 78n3, 123–37, 273 English as a Lingua Franca (ELF), 283, 288 English as an Official Language (EOL), 66, 67, 78n3, 88, 214, 278 The English Dictionary (Cockeram), 124 English Etymology (Lemon), 135 The English Grammar (Aickin), 127, 130 The English Grammar (Jonson), 129, 137n4 The English Grammar (Maittaire), 133 The English Grammar (Miège), 133 The English Grammar (Wharton), 129 An English Pronouncing Dictionary (Jones), 167–68 English Pronunciation in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries (Jones), 157 The English Schoole-maister (Coote), 53 English with an Accent (Lippi-Green), 169 An Epistle Concerning the Excellencies of the English Tongue (Carew), 20 Erasmus, 42 An Essay Towards a Practical English Grammar (Greenwood), 128 ethnicity identity and, 11–13, 28n2, 30n16, 79n4, 227 language policy and, 66, 70 lexicography and, 181–86, 227, 241 the nation-state and, 274, 280 stereotyping on basis of, 287 Ethnologue (website), 213 etymology, 9, 112, 114, 151, 225, 226, 230–40 The Expansion of England (Seeley), 188n9 Extraordinary Account of Robert Burns, the Ayrshire Ploughman (Mackenzie), 104 Faerie Queene (Spenser), 54 Feldman, Sally, 20 Fenning, Daniel, 128 Fergusson, Robert, 99, 104, 115n1 The Field Engineer (Hugill), 148 Fielding, Henry, 104, 144 Finkenstaedt, Thomas, 41

Fischer, Dagmar, 259t, 261, 265 Fisher, Jonathan, 159 Fishman, Joshua, 32n28 Fleetwood, William, 49 Florence, of Worcester, 54 Florio, John, 40, 41, 54 foreign-language learning, 67–70, 78n3, 123–37, 245–66, 273 Fowler, H.W., 16, 19 France attitudes to English in, 15–16 colonial presence in Cameroon, 213–14 Henry Tudor’s attack on England via, 90 relations with Britain, 50, 121, 142–43, 148, 187 settlers in the Caribbean from, 228 French association with the feminine, 143–44 British attitudes to, 3, 5, 8, 31n17, 141–54, 178–79, 187 in Cameroon, 214 in the Caribbean, 5, 228–229, 233, 238 codification of, 134, 175–76 in defining Englishness, 3 dictionaries, 54, 56n4 Elizabeth I and, 45 as examination subject, 251 internal prescriptivism, 16 legal, 46 loanwords, 132, 145–46, 147–53 in misascribed etymologies, 226 threat of English to, 15–16 French Creole, 226, 228, 231 French Littleton (Hollyband), 56n4 French Revolutionary War (1793–1802), 141, 142 Fulfulde, 211 Funk, Isaac, 177 Furnivall, Frederick, 177 Galicia, 29n9 Gallic Wars (Caesar), 51 Galt, John, 105 Gardener’s Labyrinth (Hill), 58n20 Garrick, David, 21–22, 30n17, 176 Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser, 152 A General Dictionary of the English Language (Sheridan), 131, 158

Inde x

Gentleman’s Magazine, 31n17 George I, King of England, 102 Gerald de Barri (Giraldus Cambrensis), 84, 86–87, 96n1 Gerard, John, 51, 58n24 German, 3, 9, 32n21, 132, 245–66, 277 German Grammar. Adapted to the use of Englishmen (Noehden), 247 Germany, 213, 249 Gibson, Edmund, 102 Gill, Martin, 3, 6, 9, 24, 271–89 Gilmore, Thomas B., Jr., 144, 152 global English, 63–79, 179–80, 184, 224–25, 281, 283–84 globalization, defined, 68 Globe and Mail, 16 Glyndw ˆ r, Owain (Owen Glendower), 88 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 250 Goh Chok Tong, 74 Goldie, David W. S., 110 Golding, Arthur, 51 Goodin, Robert E., 77–78 Goodman-Stephens, Bryan, 259t Googe, Barnabe, 49, 51 Google News Archive, 105 Gottsched, Johann Christoph, 246 Gowers, Ernest, 16, 19, 20, 29n13 Grafton, Richard, 54 grammar in the complaint tradition, 193–97, 199, 201–2, 206n1 in German as a foreign language texts, 249, 253–64 in lexicography of creoles, 230–31 in medieval Welsh, 86 Grammar Guard (website), 196 grammars of endangered languages, 30n15 of German as a foreign language, 3–4, 9, 245–66 for immigrants and foreign learners, 8, 31n17, 123–37 Latin, 124, 125 for native speakers, 42, 50–51 usage guides, 16, 19, 20 Grammatica Linguae Anglicanae (Cooper), 127 Grammatica Linguae Anglicanae (Wallis), 126

297

Grammatical Theory in Western Europe, 1500–1700 (Padley), 130 Grant, Anthony P., 151 Grattan, J.H.G., 168–69 Gray, Thomas, 104 Greek Elizabeth I’s knowledge of, 45 as examination subject, 251 loanwords, 40, 44, 52, 53 William Cecil and, 41, 42, 46, 51, 55, 57n13 Greenwood, James, 128 The Grounds of the French Tongue (Miège), 134 Gruffudd Hiraethog, 89, 96n2 Guadeloupe, 231 Gueintz, Christian, 258, 259t Gujarati, 79n4 Guyanese Creole, 226, 227 Gwenhwyseg, 85 Gwyn, Robert, 96n4 Gwyndodeg, 84, 85 Gwynedd, 84 Haiti, 228, 231 Haitian Creole, 223, 227 Hall, Edward, 43 Hall, John, 56n4 Hall, Robert, 32n28 Hammer, Alfred Edward, 253, 254, 257, 262t Hammer’s German Grammar (textbook), 254, 255t, 257, 262t, 264 Harper’s New Monthly Magazine (Harper), 106, 107t Harrap’s New German Grammar (Johnson), 259t, 262t, 263 Harris, Roy, 276 Harrison, Lucas, 56n4 Hart, John, 47–48, 56 Harvey, Gabriel, 46, 49 Hatton, Christopher, 54 Hausa, 232 ‘Have Your Say’ (BBC online forum), 277, 284–88 Hawai’i, 228 Heap, David, 29n9 Hebrew, 131 Helbig, Gerhard, 266

298

The L anguages of Nat ion

Held, David, 78 Henry II, King of England, 86 Henry VI, King of England, 187 Henry VII, King of England, 50, 89, 90 Henry VIII, King of England, 43, 44, 50, 89 Henty, W. A., 188n18 The Herball or Generall Historie of Plantes (Gerard), 58n24 Herder, Johann Gottfried, 250, 274 Herget, Winfried, 41 Heute Abend (textbook), 256t Hexham, Henry, 130 Heydorn, Marianne H.G., 255t Heynatz, J.F., 253, 254–55, 258, 259t Higgins, John, 51, 56n4 Highland Games, 116n4 Hill, Thomas, 56n4, 58n20 Hindi, 5, 10, 79n4, 180, 188n15, 226, 229 ‘Hindi’, 226, 229, 235, 237 Hindustani, 180 Hinrich, Lars, 241 Hitler, Adolf, 249, 262 Hoby, Thomas, Sir, 42, 156 Hogg, James, 105 Hohenhaus, Peter, 17 Holinshed, Raphael, 54 Hollyband, Claude, 56n4 Holmberg, Börje, 165 Hong Kong, 280 Hoole, Charles, 125 Horace, 14, 26 Howell, James, 31n17, 56n5, 125–26, 130 Hugill, Edwin, 148 Huloet, Richard, 56n4 Hume, David, 104 Hunt, Isaac, 143 identity. See also ethnicity authenticity and, 275 in colonial America, 4, 8, 108–10 in diasporic contexts, 8, 102–3, 110–11, 114–15 fluidity of, 274 of immigrants, 135–36, 284–89 indigenized varieties of English and, 5, 79n5, 225, 227, 241 language and, 11–13, 30n16, 63–79, 86–88, 123, 277 language standardization and, 83–96

of the native speaker, 279 opposition to foreigners and, 3, 31n17, 132 politically partisan, 6, 9, 192–206 in postcolonial contexts, 4–5, 9, 65–66, 70–75, 225, 226–27, 229 immigration in diasporic contexts, 13, 69, 101, 114–15 linguistic expectations in host country, 3, 8, 69, 123–37, 271–90 India, 180, 184–85, 188n17 inkhorn terms, 7, 40, 43, 57n9, 137n5. See also vocabulary Inns of Court, 46 Input Hypothesis, 280 Institutio Oratoria (Quintilian), 14 International News Historical Archives, 105 Internet, 6, 21, 193–202, 206n3, 273, 284–88 An Introduction to the Art of Reading (Rice), 128 Iraq, 153 Ireland, 12, 32n21, 58n18, 129, 131, 261 Irish, 12, 85, 93 Italian, 40, 45, 54 Jacobites, 103, 113 Jamaican Creole, 223, 226, 240–41 Jamaican Language Unit, 224 James, Henry, 111 Jameson, R.S., 163 Jamieson, John, 114 Jefferson, Thomas, 29n12, 32n26 Jeffrey, Francis Jeffrey, Lord, 110 Jenkins, Geraint, 88 Joan of Arc, Saint, 187 John Bull (periodical), 177 Johnson, Charles Benjamin, 259t, 260, 262t Johnson, Samuel attitude to prescriptivism, 18, 21–22 on the French academy, 22, 31n18 gallophobia, 3, 144, 152–53, 178–79 pre-Dictionary reputation, 32n24 Johnson, Samuel, Jr., 159 Johnson’s English Dictionary . . . with Walker’s Pronouncing Dictionary (Worcester), 160, 161 Jones, Charles, 157

Inde x

Jones, Daniel, 19, 167–68 Jones, Richard Foster, 129, 137n5 Jones, Stephen, 163, 165 Jonson, Ben, 52–53, 129, 137n4 Joscelyn, John, 49, 55 Joseph Andrews (Fielding), 144 Kachru, Braj B., 167, 281, 282 Kahane, Henry, 169 Kailyard school, 111 Kaplan, Robert B., 26 Kayman, Martin A., 283 Kellett, Freda, 254, 255t, 259t, 260, 262t, 263–64 Kenrick, William, 128–29, 158 Kenyon, John S., 167–68 Kersey, John, 127–28 A Key to the Art of Letters (Lane), 127 Kibbee, Douglas A., 16, 27 Kikongo, 229 King, William Lyon Mackenzie, 32n27 Kirkpatrick, Andy, 282 Klauer-Klattowsky, W.G., 247 Kloss, Heinz, 224 Knott, Thomas A., 167–68 Knox, John, 2, 100 Korean, 65, 67–70, 76 Kouega, Jean-Paul, 5, 6, 9, 211–20 Kramsch, Claire, 282 Krapp, George Philip, 167 Krashen, Stephen, 280 Kurath, Hans, 167 Kyffin, Maurice, 91, 96n5 Labov, William, 29n10, 276 Laidlaw, Alexander H., 167 Lamb, Bernard, 19–20 Lambarde, William, 49 Lancashire, Ian, 3, 5, 7, 30n14, 39–58 Lane, A., 127 Lanfranc, glossary of, 56n4 Langer, Nils, 247, 257, 258 language ideology, 226, 275 Language Log (weblog), 198, 202 language policy bumiputra policy and, 66, 70 discourse planning in, 77–78 in the formation of Standard Welsh, 90–95

299

Input Hypothesis and, 280 ‘market-based’, 39–58 orthographic planning for creoles, 224, 227 pastoral vs. pragmatic views, 63–64 prescriptivism and, 17–18, 25–27, 32n28 unintended consequences, 5 Larminie, Vivienne, 134 Latin borrowings from Greek, 52 dictionaries, 39, 42, 51, 53, 56n4, 57n10 Elizabeth I’s knowledge of, 45 as examination subject, 251 grammars, 124, 125 as language of learning, 39, 47, 50–51, 57n10 loans into English, 3, 5, 7, 40, 43, 44, 57n9 origins of prescriptivism and, 13 in Serbo-Croatian script, 25 William Cecil and, 41, 46–47, 51, 55, 57n13 Latin America, 32n21 The Latine Grammar Fitted for the Use of Schools (Hoole), 125 Laudable Association of Anti-Gallicans, 143 Lauer, Matt, 201 Lavukaleve, 30n15 Leave Your Language Alone! (Hall), 32n28 Le Blond, Guillaume, 148, 151 Leicester, Robert Dudley, Earl of (1532?–1588), 45–46, 51 Leith, Dick, 130 Lemon, George, 135 Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim, 250 Leung, Constant, 273, 282 Levins, Peter, 51, 56n4 lexicography. See also Oxford English Dictionary (OED) bilingual dictionaries, 56n4 of ‘colonial English’, 112, 155–69, 178–87 democracy and, 155–56, 166–69 ethnicity and, 181–86, 227, 241 etymology and, 225, 230–40 for foreign learners, 124–36 hard-word glossaries, 40–41, 51

300

The L anguages of Nat ion

legal glossaries, 45, 46 monolingual dictionaries, 3, 53 of Old English, 49 of oral language, 6 patriotism and, 23, 24, 112, 159–60, 175–78, 187 in postcolonial contexts, 2, 223–41 pronouncing dictionaries, 157–59 of rare or endangered languages, 30n15 tropes for, 186–87 William Cecil’s patronage of, 51–53 Lexicons of Early Modern English (Lancashire), 40–41 Lhuyd, Humphrey, 84, 90 Life of Johnson (Boswell), 31n17 Lily, William, 42, 50–51 Linacre, Thomas, 52 Linell, Per, 276 Linguae Britannicae Vera Pronuntiatio (Buchanan), 100 Lippi-Green, Rosina, 156, 169 Lisle, William, 102 literary language in Ausbau languages, 224, 228 German, 250 identity and, 7–8, 12, 87, 274 linguistic stereotyping in, 130 Scots, 4, 8, 99–116 Welsh, 84–85, 87, 92 Littré, Emile, 177, 178 Living Age (periodical), 106, 107t, 109, 112 Livingstone, Stanley, 185, 186 Lloyd, G.E.R., 275 Lloyd’s Evening Post (newspaper), 142, 144 Llwyd, Humphrey, 84, 90 Lo Bianco, Joseph, 79n6 London Chronicle, 149 London Gazette, 154n4 Louisiana, 233 The Lounger (periodical), 104 Lubbe, Fredericka van der, 247 Lubbock, John, 188n9 Luykx, Albert, 228 Lyte, Henry, 51, 56n4 MacDonald, Robert, 186 Mackay, Charles, 102 Mackenzie, Henry, 104 Mackey, William Francis, 21

Maclaren, Ian, 114 MacMahon, M.K.C., 159, 164, 167 Macpherson, A.S., 249, 255t, 256, 259t, 260, 262t Magdeburg Centuriators, 58n18 Mahathir bin Mohamad, 70 Maittaire, Michael, 133 Malay, 66, 70, 72, 73, 75, 76 Malayalam, 229 Malaysia, 5, 65–66, 76 Malaysian Chinese Association, 72 Malaysian Indian Congress, 72 Manchester Guardian (newspaper), 177 Mandarin, 66, 71, 72, 73, 74–75, 76 Manipulus Vocabulorum (Levins), 56n4 The Man of Feeling (Mackenzie), 104 ‘A man’s a man for a’ that’ (Burns), 100, 109 manuscripts Bodleian Library Murray Papers (MP/JAHM), 179–80, 187 British Library Cotton Caligula B.x, 50 British Library Cotton Nero D.viii, 86–87, 96n1 Lambeth Palace 302, 39, 45, 46, 57(nn13–14) Maitland, 103 Manx, 93 Marriage a-la-Mode (Dryden), 144 Martinique, 228, 231 Mary, Queen of Scots, 50, 58n19 Mary I, Queen of England, 90 The Mathematical Iewel (Blagrave), 53 Matthias, Theodor, 262t, 263 Mbangwana, Paul N., 213 Mbarga, Nico, Prince, 213 McCain, John, 196, 197t McClure, J. Derrick, 103 McConchie, Roderick, 40 McGuirk, Carol, 103, 104 McLelland, Nicola, 3–4, 6, 9, 245–66 Mein Kampf (Hitler), 262 Ménage, Gilles, 146 Merrick, Joseph, 213 metalanguage, 202 Methodism, 94 Middle English, 49 Miège, Guy, 2, 8, 132–35 Military Engineer (Le Blond), 148, 151

Inde x

Milroy, James, 17, 28n4, 192–93, 197 Milroy, Lesley, 17, 28n4, 192–93, 197 Milton, John, 104 Minsheu, John, 56n4 Mitchell, Linda C., 2, 3, 8, 123–37, 286 Mohan, Peggy, 234 Moldovian, 224 Moller, Heather, 29n9 Moore, Thomas, Sir, 52 Morgan, William, 91, 92 The Morning Telegram (newspaper), 106–7, 110 Morris, Mervyn, 223 Mugglestone, Lynda, 3, 6, 9, 22, 31n19, 175–89 Mulcaster, Richard, 53 Müller, Friedrich Max, 177, 251 Murray, James Augustus Henry, Sir, 22, 31n19, 177–78, 179, 183, 186–87, 188n5 Myhill, John, 277 Nachtigal, Gustav, 213 Nares, Robert, 23–24, 32n25, 162 nationalism, defined, 28n2. See also identity nation-state, 274, 277, 282 native speaker, concept of, 273, 278–81, 282, 289 Nazism (National Socialism), 246, 249, 277 Nettle, Daniel, 30n15 Neue Aussichten (textbook), 252 Neue Perspektiven (textbook), 256–57 Neuhaus, Joachim, 41 Nevalainen, Terttu, 41 A new Boke of the natures and properties of all Wines (Turner), 51–52 A New Dictionary of the English Language (Kenrick), 128, 158 New Economic Policy (NEP), 70 New Englander (periodical), 106, 107t new Englishes, 4, 79n5. See also Cameroon Pidgin English; global English; Trinidad & Tobago English Creole A New English Grammar (Howell), 31n17, 125, 130 A New French Grammar (Miège), 134 The New Royal English Dictionary (Marriott), 131

301

newspapers and periodicals, 16–17, 94–95, 106–7. See also individual titles The New World of English Words (Phillips), 127 New Yorker (periodical), 233 New York Times, 106, 107t, 111 Nigeria, 212 Nigerian Pidgin English, 241 Noehden, George Henry, 247, 250, 259t, 260 Norfolk, Thomas Howard, Duke of (1536–1572), 45, 50 Norman Conquest, 153 North American Review (periodical), 106–7 Nouvelle méthode pour apprendre l’Anglois (Miège), 134 Nowell, Laurence, 49, 55 Nyhan, Charles Anthony, 254, 255, 259t, 260, 262t, 263 Obama, Barack, 196–97, 198–200 observer’s paradox, 276 Offelen, Heinrich, 250, 259t, 260 Ogilvie, Sarah, 31n19 Old English, 46, 47, 48, 49, 55, 58n18, 112 Oldmixon, John, 20 Ölinger, Albert, 249 One Fat Englishman (Amis), 32n22 Onions, C.T., 188n3 On Johnson’s Dictionary (Garrick), 21–22, 30n17 The Only Sure Guide to the English Tongue (Perry), 158, 163 Ordered Profusion (Finkenstaedt et al.), 41 The Origin of Civilisation and the Primitive Condition of Man (Lubbock), 188n9 Orthographie (Hart), 47–48 Orwell, George, 17 Ossian controversy, 101 Otero, Aníbal, 29n9 Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 134 Oxford English Dictionary (OED). See also lexicography definitions, 144–45, 153n1 history of, 175–77, 188n3 ideological underpinnings, 3, 6, 9, 22, 180–87 in measurements of vocabulary growth, 41

302 The L anguages of Nat ion

Oxford University, 53, 57n10, 251 Oxford University Press, 177, 180 Padley, G.A., 130 Paine, Thomas, 29, 147 Pakatan Rakyat, 72 Palin, Sarah, 193, 194–96, 197, 201–2, 205, 206n2 Palingenio Stellato, Marcello, 49, 51 Palsgrave, John, 44 Pamphlet for Grammar (Bullokar), 124 Papiamentu, 223 Park, Joseph Sung-Yul, 65 Parker, Matthew, 39, 48, 49, 55, 58n18 Parry, Thomas, 91 Patois (French Creole), 228–29 Patten, William, 56n4 Peckham, George, 51 Peele, George, 54 Pennycook, Alastair, 71 Percy, Carol, 1–10, 27 Perry, William, 4, 155, 158, 159, 162–63, 165–66 Pershai, Alexander, 30n15 Persian, 224 Petre, William, Sir, 58n18 Phillips, Edward, 127 Phillips, John D., 2, 8, 83–96 Philological Society, 176, 178, 180 Pickering, John, 161, 164 Pictish, 102 pidgins. See Cameroon Pidgin English Pinkerton, John, 103 Pivot, Bernard, 16 Plain Words (Gowers), 20 Plato, 41 Pope, Alexander, 104 Portugal, 29n9 Portuguese, 32n21, 125, 212, 236 postcolonial contexts ethnolinguistic diversity in, 2, 5, 65–66, 227, 228–29 lingering metropole influence in, 4, 5, 6, 9, 73–75, 160–62, 219–20 new identities in, 70, 76, 225, 227 rejection of metropole norms, 6, 9, 24, 70–73, 155, 159–60, 225 Praise of Folly (Erasmus), 42 prescriptivism

in choice of language or variety, 44–45, 63–79, 112 for language learners, 253–65, 271–89 in lexical choice, 42–44, 245 in lexicography, 178–79, 180–83 of linguistic attitudes, 248–49 literary critical reception and, 100 national identity and, 11–33 political allegiance and, 6, 9, 192–206 in pronunciation, 128–29, 145–46, 155–69, 192–93 renunciation of, 17–18 style and, 201, 203–4 ‘verbal hygiene’ as alternative term for, 27 vs. democracy, 166 vs. language planning, 26 Preston, Dennis R., 277 Priestley, Joseph, 24, 32n26 A Pronouncing Dictionary of American English (Kenyon and Knott), 167 pronunciation in American English, 159–69, 192–93 of French loanwords, 145–46, 147, 150 in lexicography of indigenized varieties, 232, 234–35, 237, 238 social integration and, 128–29 standardization and, 156–57 Proposal for Correcting, Improving and Ascertaining the English Tongue (Swift), 20, 23 Protestantism, 89–90 provincialisms. See vernacular varieties Public Advertiser (periodical), 31n17, 145 Punjabi, 79n4 Quayle, Dan, 195 Quechua, 228, 233 Queen’s English Society, 19–20 Quintilian, 14, 26, 28n6 Quirk, Randolph, 17 Rafe Roister Doister (Udall), 43 Rainolde, Richard, 54 Ramsay, Allan, 99, 103–4, 107, 109, 112 Rappa, Antonio L., 68 Rastell, John, 45 Rastell, William, 45 Ravillac Redivivus (Hickes), 102

Inde x

Received Pronunciation (RP), 19 De Rectae Emendata Linguae Anglicanae Scriptione (Smith), 42 Reformation, 100 religion choice of language variety and, 2, 100, 108–9, 213 in England’s foreign relations, 50 in grammars for foreign learners, 126 identity and, 12 in the promotion of Standard Welsh, 2, 89–91, 94, 95 in Romantic notion of authenticity, 274t Remarques sur la langue françoise (Vaugelas), 14 Republican Party, 204 Restitution of Decayed Intelligence (Verstegan), 20 Reynolds, Erin, 31n17 Rice, John, 128 Richardson, Samuel, 104, 144 Richelieu, Armand Jean du Plessis, duc de (Cardinal), 15 Richter, Michael, 87 Robert, Gruffydd (Griffith Roberts), 89, 96(nn3–4) Robertson, William, 104 Romaine, Suzanne, 28, 30n15, 33n29, 228 Romanian, 224 Romanticism, 273–74, 276 Rowlinson, William, 254, 255t, 259t, 260 The Royal Dictionary Abridged (Boyer), 130 The Royal English Dictionary (Fenning), 128 Royal Society, 31n17 The Royal Standard English Dictionary (Perry), 158, 159, 165 Russell, Donald A., 26 Russian, 30n16 Russon, A., 259t, 260, 263 Russon, L.J., 251, 259t, 260, 263 Russon’s Advanced German Course (textbook), 256t Rvle of Reason (Wilson), 43, 46 Salesbury, William, 89, 92 Salisbury, Robert Cecil, Earl of (1563–1612), 39

303

Salmon, Vivian, 133 Saussure, Ferdinand de, 276 Savel’eva, L.V., 30n16 Schäfer, Jürgen, 40, 49, 51, 56n2 Schieffelin, Bambi B., 225–26, 227 Schiller, Friedrich, 250 Schmidt, Ronald, 286 The Scholemaster (Ascham), 41–42 School Dictionary (S. Johnson, Jr.), 159 Schottelius, Justus-Georg, 246, 258, 259t, 260 Scotland, 8, 99–116 Scots closeness to ‘Saxon’, 4, 102 as model for American English, 108–9, 111–12, 163–65 North American reception of, 8, 105–15 religious disputes and, 2 Robert Burns and, 99–116 stigmatization of, 101–2, 129 Scots Gaelic, 93 Scott, Walter, Sir, 101, 105, 107, 111, 113 Scribner’s Monthly (Scribner), 106, 107t second-language teaching and acquisition, 278–81 Serbian, 25 Serbo-Croatian, 25, 224 Seres, William, 41, 51 Seven Years’ War (1756–1763), 142, 149, 151 Shakespeare, William, 54, 104 Sheffield University, 252 Shenstone, William, 104 Sheridan, Thomas on English as a foreign language, 131–32, 135–36 as non-native codifier, 4, 8, 158 on pronunciation, 156–57 Webster and, 163–64, 165, 166 Sierra Leone, 212 Singapore, 5, 65–66, 73–75, 76 Singlish, 79n5 Smith, Russell, 16–17 Smith, Thomas, 39, 42, 47, 56 Smollett, Tobias, 104 Snowdonia, 87 The Social History of English (Leith), 130 Society of Antiquaries, 44

304

The L anguages of Nat ion

sociolinguistics, 200–201, 203, 265n5, 276–77 Solomon Islands, 30n15 Sorensen, Janet, 104 Sotomayor, Sonia, 198 South Africa, 21, 180 South Korea, 5, 65, 67–70, 76, 78n3 Spanish academies of, 21 in the Caribbean, 226, 228, 233–34, 238 codification of, 54, 125 dialectal variants, 32n21 Elizabeth I’s knowledge of, 45 Obama’s (mis)use of, 198–200 Speaker (periodical), 177 Spectator (periodical), 150 speech vs. writing, 202, 276 spelling in American English, 112, 158, 160, 233 in Canadian English, 10, 19n8 etymology vs. politics in, 2, 4–5, 6, 9, 225, 240 in Jamaican Creole, 223–24, 241 popular prescriptivism on, 192, 193, 194, 204, 205 reform, 39, 42, 47–48, 49, 160 of Trinidad & Tobago English Creole, 223–41 in Welsh, 86, 92 Spenser, Edmund, 48, 54 Sprachleben und Sprachschäden (Matthias), 263 Sprich Mal Deutsch! (textbook), 252, 257 Sranan, 226 Standard English. See also American English; British English; Early Modern English; global English economic and political importance, 280 group solidarity and, 206n5 London variety and, 156–57, 159, 160–61 Scots use of, 5 vs. colonial varieties, 4, 108–9, 111–12, 155–69 vs. postcolonial varieties, 6, 9, 211–20, 223 standard varieties, 13, 226, 276–77 Steiner, George, 17 Stevenson, Robert Louis, 101, 105, 107, 111

Stewart/Colbert Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear (2010), 204 Stieler, Kaspar, 258, 259t St Lucian Creole, 223 Straaijer, Robin, 32n26 Strömer, Paul, 249, 255t, 256, 259t, 262t Sturiale, Massimo, 4, 8, 16, 155–69 Sweet, Henry, 176 Sweet, Rosemary, 102 Swift, Jonathan, 20, 23, 150 Switzerland, 132 The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser (SG) (newspaper), 106, 107t, 109 Synonymous, Etymological and Pronouncing Dictionary (Perry), 165 Tajik, 224 The Tale of Troy (Peele), 54 Tamil, 66, 71, 72, 73, 75, 76, 79n4, 229 Tannahill, Robert, 112 Terrill, Angela, 30n15 A Testimonie of Antiquitie (Parker), 48 Thesaurus Linguae Latinae et Britannicae (Cooper), 51–52, 56n4 Thomas, George, 13, 26, 28n4 Thomas, Isaiah, 158 Thomas, Thomas, 51, 53 Thomson, James, 104 Thoreau, Henry David, 29n12 Tieken-Boon van Ostade, Ingrid, 16 The Times, 177 Times Literary Supplement, 19 Todd, Loreto, 212 Tombs, Isabelle, 142 Tombs, Robert, 142 Toxophilus (Ascham), 43 The Treasury of the French Tongue (Hollyband), 56n4 Treatise of Chirurgery (Banister), 56n4 Trench, Richard Chenevix, 178, 186 Trinidad & Tobago, 228–29 Trinidad & Tobago English Creole, 2, 4–5, 223–41 Trinity College, Dublin, 250 The Triumph of the English Language (Jones), 129, 137n5 Tudor, Henry. See Henry VII, King of England

Inde x

Tudor, Leslie, 255t Turner, William, 51–52 Tutor to True English (Care), 130 Twain, Mark, 233 Udall, Nicholas, 43 Union of Parliaments (1707), 100, 103 United Kingdom. See also British English attitudes to French in, 5, 8, 31n17, 141–54 as colonial power, 70, 184, 213–14 folk linguistic views in, 275, 278 German as a foreign language in, 3, 245–66 immigration as an issue in, 273, 284–89 national curriculum, 193, 248 prescriptivism in, 19–20, 168, 169, 193 relations with France, 121, 142–43, 148 United States. See also American English Amish communities in, 252 anti-French sentiments in, 31n17, 153 call for linguistic academy in, 22–23 immigrant German community in, 247 independence, 159 literary periodicals in, 106–9 ‘Official English’ movement, 278, 286 party-line prescriptivism in, 6, 9, 192–206 Scots diaspora in, 100–101 Universal and Critical Dictionary of the English Language (Worcester), 163 University of Buea, 219–20 University of Nottingham, 246 University of the West Indies, Jamaica, 224 Urdu, 229 Van Nuys, Frank, 110 variation American democracy and, 166, 192, 193, 205 identity marking and, 12 in pronouncing dictionaries, 157, 165 regional, 29n8, 86, 252 social stratification and, 13, 156–57 style and, 201, 203 in textbooks of German, 9, 247, 248, 252 Vaugelas, C.F. de, 14

305

Venezuela, 228, 238 Verein Deutsche Sprache (VDS), 245 vernacular varieties. See also Scots authenticity and, 273–74, 276 codification of, 30n15, 223–41 identity functions, 12–13, 79n5, 225, 227, 241 popular attitudes towards, 29n10, 192–206, 223, 226, 228 as sociolinguistic markers, 5–6, 203–5 vs. establishment orientations, 219–20, 277, 280–81, 283 Verstegan, Richard, 20 Viëtor, Wilhelm, 251 Vindication of the Scottish Dialect (Adams), 102 Vocabolario (Accademia della Crusca), 3, 44 vocabulary. See also lexicography expansion of English, 40–41, 42, 49–50, 55, 134 inkhorn terms, 7, 40, 43, 57n9, 137n5 as liberal, educated class marker, 192–93, 201 purist impulses and, 42–43, 156, 165, 245 Scots, 100, 102 Shakespeare’s, 54 of Welsh dialects, 85 Vocabulary (Pickering), 161, 165 Vorlat, Emma, 126, 127 Wagner, Melanie M., 257–58 Wales, 8, 83–96, 129 Walker, John, 145–48, 153, 155–59, 161–62, 163, 164–65, 166 Wallis, John, 126–27, 128 War of the Austrian Succession (1740–1748), 142 War of the Spanish Succession (1702–1713), 141, 142, 150 Webster, Noah, 4, 23, 32(nn22–23), 112, 155–69 Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, 29n11 Wee, Lionel, 3, 5, 7, 63–79 Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, Duke of, 152 Welsh, 83–96, 285

306 The L anguages of Nat ion

Wendeborn, Gebhardt Friedrich August, 246, 250, 259t, 260 Wharton, Jeremiah, 129–30 Whitehall Evening Post (newspaper), 150 Whittingham, William, 56n4 Wieland, Christoph Martin, 250 Williams, Gwyn A., 87 Willinsky, John, 31n19 Willis, David, 92 Wilson, Thomas, 31n17, 42, 43–47, 55, 57n9, 175 Wilson, William, 111 Winchester, Simon, 16 Winer, Lise, 2, 4–5, 6, 9, 30n15, 223–41 Winnipeg, 114–15 Witherspoon, John, 111–12, 163 Wolff, Dieter, 41 Woolard, Kathryn A., 225–26, 227 Wooldridge, Russon, 30n15 Worcester, Joseph, 4, 32n23, 155, 158, 160–61, 164–65, 166–67

Wordsworth, William, 274 The World (periodical), 145, 147 world Englishes, 282. See also global English World of Wordes (Florio), 54 Worsop, Edward, 52–53 Wright, Laura, 162 Wustmann, Gustav, 262t, 263 Wyld, H.C., 19 Yaounde, 211, 213, 215 Y Drych Cristianogawl (Robert), 96n4 Yoo, Ok Kyoon, 67 Yorkshire, 129 Yoruba, 240 Yugoslavia, 25 Zador, Paul, 234 Zickzack (textbook), 256 Zodiake of Life (Palingenio Stellato), 49, 51