The greatest threat to language diversity in the world is the English language as it spreads across the globe in the manner of a plague. Close to a quarter of the world already speaks the language and many more are learning it. Even then, there are probably more Chinese speakers than English speakers but Chinese speakers are restricted to one country and their language does not carry the threat of global domination which is associated with the English language.
The situation with the English language has created a debate within communities, especially in Africa in which the language was established through colonialisation. The acquisition of the language in those countries was at the expense of local languages which were reduced to the status of vernaculars labouring under a massive inferiority complex. English was after all, the language of conquerors who had demonstrated what at the turn of the twentieth century were regarded as signs of superiority to the colonised peoples. If the British had been able to seize all the power within their colonies, it stood to reason that their language was superior to the local languages. This conclusion appeared to be reasonable at the time and as the Yoruba have taken to saying, the world has become the property of the oyinbo people to do with it whatever was their wish. As it happened, the British did not need to belabour this point as the colonised people themselves saw this as a matter of course and regarded the acquisition of English as a desirable exercise. After all, they had been pushed into a position of weakness if not abject subservience. It is interesting to note that unlike the French, the British, at the beginning of their colonisation exercise, did not attempt to force their language on the colonised. This was radically different with the French. You will find that more than fifty years after the end of colonisation, French is still spoken in former French colonies as the language is spoken in France. This is because language transfer was part of the assimilation process which the French imposed on their colonial subjects. The nonchalant attitude of the British has given rise to a situation in which there are Nigerian Englishes, that is, English spoken with various local flavours. It appears that we have been able to domesticate the English language and clothed it in locally fabricated robes. The history of the English language lends itself to this treatment. The propagation of French in the French colonies was both methodical and rigidly controlled so that there was very little danger of the development of African varieties of French. The difference between the two colonial powers was historical.
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The original inhabitants of Britain spoke various Gaelic and Celtic languages, at least until Anglo-Saxon tribes arrived from parts of present-day Germany. They brought with them their Germanic language, a version of the language which, because of its simplicity, was regarded as low Dutch. It was controlled with only rudiments of a grammatical structure and looking back now, it is clear that this grew in time to be the major strength of the language as it aided its spread within the British isles. This being the case, it pushed the earlier indigenous languages into the fringes of what is now Wales, parts of Scotland and across the Irish sea into Ireland.
The new Brits or English had hardly settled down in their new island home when they started receiving unwelcome visits from their Scandinavian cousins from across the North sea. Better known in history as Vikings, they were sea faring brigands who swept in from time to time to pillage seaside towns from which they were also not averse to kidnapping the odd young maiden after killing the men of course. So great was their menace that the locals also thought it wise to pay some indemnity to their tormentors so as to be left in peace or, at least some semblance of peace. Known as danegeld, this payment bought peace for certain parts of England until the Danish king decided to incorporate the ransom paying parts into his kingdom. This shows the wisdom of not negotiating with terrorists! In the meantime, many words of Scandinavian origin were incorporated into the expanding English lexicon.
At the time that the Danish king was casting his awful shadow on parts of England, other Vikings were menacing Ireland and parts of France. Thoroughly intimidated and beaten down, the Vikings who were called Normans in France were given a large portion of land adjacent to the English Channel. They therefore became the owners of Normandy and settled down as rulers of the place and began to cast covetous eyes across the English Channel. After all, the place was part of the Danish empire at one time, they saw conquering and incorporating it into Normandy could only be considered logical. It fell to William the conqueror, also known as William the bastard to fulfil this enterprise. On October 12th 1066, William crossed the English Channel accompanied by an army under the command of 21 noblemen and by evening of that day had destroyed the English army under King Harold and became the ruler of all England. He distributed the kingdom to his generals whose descendants still own the lands gifted to their forebears in 1066.
The Normans settled in Normandy and rather than continue to speak their own Scandinavian language, they switched over to French, the language of their reluctant hosts. The Normans brought the French language with them and for more than three centuries made it the language of the English court. It was not until those three hundred years had passed that English was promoted to be used in official documents. By the sixteenth century however, English had become the only official language of the realm.
As with all the other conquerors who had darkened the shores of Britain before them, the Normans came over with their own version of their adopted French language. And, as with all the languages that came before, the English refused to adopt the language of the conquerors. What they did was to incorporate the French language into English. They did it so well that up to 40% of English as it is spoken today is either French or French derived. This has enriched English to such an extent that if those French words did not exist within it, it would not be English. For example, a live cow is cow in English, meat from the dead animal is called beef in modern English and it is French derived. In the case of deer, the borrowed word is venison. There are thousands of other examples which give a roundness to the English language, a roundness which you are not likely to find in other languages from other parts of the world. There are also almost as many Latin words in English as are French. So, what you have is a Germanic language that is almost as Romance in character as it is Germanic. There is no language that is half as promiscuous as the English language. It went to North America and came away with a multitude of words including tomato, chilli, tobacco, lacrosse, tomahawk and very many more. From the other side of the world in India, the English picked up a slew of words such as verandah, bungalow, thug, loot, calico and many more.
When I suggested that we should be able to teach science subjects in Yoruba to a friend he just could not wrap it around his head. How would you say Chemistry or Biology in Yoruba? What he did not know is that Chemistry is an Arabic word, so is Algebra. We talk of algorithms these days but how many of us know that it is of Arabic extraction. Many of the words we encounter in science are also derived from Greek and Latin. Consult a modern English dictionary and you will find that japa, okada and other Nigerian origin words have been admitted into the English language. Strip English of all those stolen and borrowed words and just what do you have left?
