Amglish In, Like, Ten Easy Lessons_ A Celebration of the New World Lingo - Arthur E. Rowse [50]
Nor can you find much interest in the United States in finding a name for the informal patter that is sweeping across the globe. That gives the Brits their way in naming the baby. As a result, the frequent names offered—such as Globish and Panglish—don’t begin to represent the dominant U.S. role.
DISAPPEARING LANGUAGES
While Amglish is flourishing, at least half of the approximately 7,000 languages in the world are likely to die by the end of this century. Part of the reason is the rapid growth of English as the first genuine world language. A bigger factor is the massive shifting of populations from one place to another.
As the world draws closer together because of improved transportation and communication, and people move to where opportunities are greater, the need for local languages diminishes as the need for a common language grows. Areas that have lost the most languages include Asia, South America, and Australia. In the United States, the most threatened are Indian tribal dialects.
But in the case of at least one tribe, the Cherokee, the computer has given a measure of hope for the future. Surviving members of the tribe worked with Apple executives for three years to develop software for the tribe that was compatible with personal computers as well as portable versions like the iPhone, iPod, and iPad. Cherokee is now one of fifty languages supported by the Apple system. But only some 8,000 of the 300,000 tribal members still speak Cherokee.
THE THREAT OF DIGLOSSISM
There is also a growing possibility that English is becoming diglossic. The word refers to a terminal disease that can split a language into two levels: a high, intellectual version and a low or average-person version. This is what happened to ancient Greek and Latin before they eventually met their lingering deaths.
In this scenario, Amglish is lower class, while BBC English and its American counterpart are upper class. The dirty little secret is that every language faces such a prospect if it lasts long enough. Another secret is that there is no way to stop—or even slow down—the process.
Lingering within much of this history is the nostalgia factor. It is only natural for older people everywhere to bemoan the tendency of today’s masses to ignore the values and traditions of yesteryear. This is especially true in countries with long pasts such as China, where the art of shadow puppetry was once popular.
When one elderly Chinese couple decided to help preserve the art, they devoted years of research to the task. They eventually opened a museum in Beijing to display their artifacts to the adoring crowds they expected. But they found little public interest in their work or the artwork itself, which tells so much about earlier Chinese culture.
Cui Yongping, the museum’s curator, spelled out his lament to reporter Michael Wines: “People in China no longer learn about the things of our ancestors. What’s popular now is saying O.K. and McDonald’s.”47
Nostalgia is not like it used to be. With each passing day, public interest in things past wanes a little. And the waning seems to be picking up speed just as communication itself is. To be sure, papers are still being written about Old English verse and the pivotal poetry of Geoffrey Chaucer’s saucy Canterbury Tales in Middle English. But today’s world has moved far beyond that point.
THE PERMANENCE OF CHANGE
What will happen to the large body of great English literature and history that may become increasingly ignored? And what about all the vital laws and documents that could lose their relevance and meaning as old languages fade away? You might think that the English themselves would be worried about this problem. Yet the