Even though I am an Anglophone, my English isn’t the best. I hate grammar and didn’t pay attention to it in school and I tend to ramble on in sentences when I write… all while using poor grammar and sometimes even making up words. It also doesn’t help that I have learning disabilities to complicate things. Yet, I am able to communicate. I am able to hear and use English words I don’t recall ever learning before yet know the meaning. And others understand what I am saying… Or at least they pretend!
Lately I have grown an interest in language. Where did the English come from and how did it evolve? Why are there so many different languages and what sets them apart? Why are some dying and others thriving? Why are there those minor differences in American, Canadian and UK English and why does Microsoft make it so difficult to keep it on the (proper) Canadian English dictionary instead of constantly converting back to US English?
I watch a lot of documentaries, primarily science-related, though I have found a few on language and have been slowly picking through them. However, one that sticks in my mind is a documentary series I watched years ago called “The day the Universe Changed.” While this documentary would be categorized as one about history, what I still recall from watching it years ago is how it explored the evolution of communication. I remember how the host, Jim Burke, explored the evolution of communication from how humans used to memorize everything because there was no written word to the invention of the printing press allowing humans the freedom to forget. There was other history stuff in there I’m sure, but this is what stuck in my mind.
I found it fascinating that even before the invention of the printing press, people knew more than one language. I find it disheartening that nowadays, while we have software, audio cassettes, DVDs, the internet, travel phrase guides and so on to help us learn, it seems that many people still only speak one language. Know something other than English? Why would they? Everyone speaks English! Or at least that is the typical scoff I hear when I contemplate out loud that I wish I knew more than English.
So why don’t I know other languages? Why am I limiting myself to just English, when there are billions of other people in the world that speak other languages? What’s stopping me?
