The Prodigal Tongue: Dispatches from the Future of English [Paperback]

One might say that the English language is like a weed...it roots itself and takes over. "The Prodigal Tongue", Mark Abley's terrific new book, investigates where English stands today, through a multi-cultured and societal approach. It's a revealing portrait.

Abley looks at the spread of English around the globe...Singapore, Japan, etc., and includes the Americas where black and Latino influences loom large. It's not so much language diversity that the author seems intrigued by, but the fractured nature of it. He mentions a fact that often Quebec films have French subtitles (Swiss audiences have long had German subtitles, too) which might suggest that not long in the future this may be a standard feature in America, given the changing nature of English in our own backyard.

Perhaps the most dynamic section of "The Prodigal Tongue" has to do with cybertalk. There is certainly a generational split as the typed word has taken on its own meaning, far from the understanding of most of us, who happen to be around the author's age, as am I. This is a highly recommended book, especially for Abley's breadth of inquiry and suppositions of how new words and phrases will continue to propagate.

Mark Abley reports on the transformation and use of English, but by the time the reader reaches the end of the book he will be left wondering what English is. he will most certainly, doubt whether there is such a thing as "Standard English" anymore. Right in the first chapter he introduces us to a group of young school children who uses words that they know and the adults don't - and most of those words are not in any dictionary. That sets the tone for the rest of the book. 30 to 40 years ago guardians of "Standard English" and "BBC English" were a strong, stern army protecting the language of the Empire. They are now dispersed and fighting a losing battle against Japlish, Singlish, Manglish and even English itself. He quotes a British teacher in Singapore, "We spend most of our time trying to teach standard British grammar to people who never use standard British grammar outside the classroom."

With the connection of the internet, Mongolians are chatting with Jamaicans and Japanese in English - or what appears to be English. The continued spread and transformation in the use of English indicates that eventually, "English" may just be a synonym for "Earthlish" and the last English grammarian with have found peace in the grave. "The Prodigal Tongue" is a well-researched, well-written, but depressing book to those who think that they can convert the world to speaking good English. It does not seem like the world is receptive to their efforts. The point left to be pondered (Abley is neutral) is, is that a bad thing? The language is spoken by and for the generation that uses it. I must confess that nostalgia for "BBC English" drives me to tears; partly because even the BBC does not speak BBC English anymore.

Author Abley, a noted authority on dying languages, tackles the thriving English language. He dubs it a "Prodigal Language" and explains why. The subtitle suggests that there will be a lot on the future of English, but the total of that may equal 20 (or fewer) pages. As the subtitle states, the narrative is a series of dispatches.

The book shows how English has planted itself all over the globe. As it speeds towards becoming the global language, it continues to change in unpredictable ways. It is also changing other languages. Abely talks about attempts to codify, regulate and proscribe languages, concluding that since languages spring from the people who use them, codification will never be current and usage requirements will never stop poor grammatical use or the coinage of new (and offensive) words.

Abley conveys all of this through interviews and anecdotes. For instance, an interview with Edmund Weiner, Deputy Chief of the Oxford English Dictionary defines the inability to keep up with all the new words, to sort them out by their staying power, pin down their origins and meanings. An interview with Aram Peckham, the software engineer behind the Urban Dictionary where anyone can codify and define words, shows the contrast in form and function of old and new dictionaries.

There are dispatches on specific countries, the most interesting of which, for me, was Japan. Abley explains its written (3 alphabets) and spoken evolution and how it is so far different from English. For starters, there 112 are pronounced syllables in Japanese and over 3,500 in English. In Singapore English has been so embraced that censors try to stop local ("Singlish") versions of the language by reviewing publications and TV scripts. A two tiered language system (everyday spoken and media) has resulted.

Credit is given to Black Americans who for several generations have initiated widespread changes in English, currently through the words and phrases of hip hop. Abley notes how the use of English by Latinos, by the sheer size of the population, may hint at the future of the spoken language. There is an interesting analysis of science fiction, which until George Orwell's 1984, had not considered that the future would a have significant vocabulary changes.

There were lots of anecdotes, and an overload of quoted examples of new or curious new words (not all are "translated"). The book is now 4 years old, and the globalization of English continues. There is a lot of good and thought provoking material gathered in this book. It is a survey of the state of English in 2008 and not about the future of the language.

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