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ENGLISH - DOES IT
REALLY DESERVE
TO BE THE WORLD'S
'LINGUA FRANCA' ?
by David Gill, Oxford
Nothing seems likely now to impede the onrush
o f
English towards the
S t a t u s
of everybody's second
language. It is already used in the great
foruins
of the
W o r l d ,
like the United Nahons, and at countless
conunercial, scientific and cultural intemational
Conferences,
not to mention the Controller
Akademie's twice-yearly English seminars at
Feldafing. And yet this advance towards universality
may not be universally welcomed. After all, native-
speakers of English, whether British, American,
Australian or Canadian enjoy an automatic
advantage over all those nations that have to learn
English as a second language. More importantly,
when you stand back and consider English as a
functional code for international communication,
you may wonder why such a difficult and
idiosyncratic language is tolerated in this role.
Shouldn't a 'lingua franca' be easy to leam, if
everybody needs
t o
leam it?
The spelling quagmire
Let's begin with written English. It is at least
reassuring to find that the Roman aiphabet has only
26 characters, not as few as the 24 in Korean, but
child's play compared to the many hundreds of
ideograms used by the Chinese and Japanese. But
there the student's relief fades as the sheer
unpredictability of Enghsh sf)elling dawns upon
him. What, for instance, does this word spell: ghoti.
Answer: fish. How so?
enough
Hl
o
women
/ i /
ti
nation
/ s h /
And how would a foreigner pronounce the name of
the town in this sentence:
Though it was summer, and there was a drought,
he began to cough as his train passed through
Slough.
David Gill. English language
Consultant
to the
Controller Akademie, is well aware of the benefits of
English as a wodd language. He has enjoyed them
himself, having had the opportunity to teach English
on three continents. However, he has a tot of
sympathy for those struggling to leam a language
that in many ways seems designed to frustrate the
logical mind.
Is it 'slow' as in 'though', 'slow' as in 'drought' or
'how',
'sloff as in 'cough', or 'slew' as
in
'through'?
Actually, it's 'slow' as in 'drought' or 'how'.
The problem is simply that English hasn't got
enough characters to symbolise its 45 phonemes or
distinctive speech sounds. All attempts so far to
introduce a phonetic form of spelling have
foundcred on the rocks of conservatism and
sentiment. Just consider for a moment the number of
classroom hours spent by British children trying to
master a perverse spelling system that has drifted
almost beyond earshot of the language they hear and
speak! There is something almost sadistic about the
way parents, bothered by spelling problems
themselves, pester their children to improve their
spelling at the exf>ense of other, more worthwile
writing skills. However, if you can spell, the social
rewards are great: you are entitied to look down
your nose at those who can't. If native-speakers
wage a losing battle with their orthography, what
Chance
have foreigners? I must admit, as an EFL
teacher of some experience, that foreigners cope
surprisingly well. I can only assume that when you
learn a foreign language you are more disposed, or
should I say resigned, to accepting peculiarities of all
sorts and make the necessary effort to learn the
correct forms.
Idioms are all very well, but . . .
A second drawback to English as
a
viable internatio–
nal language is that, as languages go, it is highly
idiomatic. An idiom, by the way, is
'a
peculiarity of
phraseology approved by usage and often having
a
meaning other than its logical or grammatical one.'
(Oxford English Dictionary) Just consider this
Situation.
You believe there is still some ice-cream in
the fridge and you want to offer some to your
grandson. But when you look, you find there is none
left. "Oh dear," you say, Tm afraid you've had it!"
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