I Like the English Language
An Ode to a Rich and Complex Linguistic Tradition
English is a peculiar language, being as it is a Germanic language, rather than a Romantic one, and one which is nonetheless so deeply influenced by Latin that a majority of our words have root in the language of Augustus and Tacitus. One might say that it was a Germanic language, which was colonized by a Latin derivative, and which has been by altered and transformed by contact with other languages, much as the British Isles were reshaped through successive periods of colonization, by the Celts (and whoever came before them), the Romans, the Anglo-Saxons, the Vikings, and the Normans.
English in America is something of a mongrel language, with confusing (and at times contradictory) grammar, numerous exceptions to varied rules, and words with their origins in many languages from around the world. Because of that fact, it is difficult to learn. By no means is English the most distinct language on the planet, or the most difficult to learn, but children often complain about it, and adults sometimes express sympathy for immigrants who have to learn our language.
Many in America admire languages like Arabic, Mandarin, Spanish, and French, each with their own rich traditions and histories, each with their own quirks and strange rules. They rightly point out that each of these languages is evocative of a particular culture and has taken on something of the particular character of the people who speak and write it.
And English, too, is and was the heritage of hundreds of millions of human beings who have lived on this Earth. English was their tongue by custom, and it pervaded their daily lives. Many of those individuals, currently living or long-deceased, were ordinary folks whose names are not known to history. Others had names like Milton, Dickens, Austen, Churchill, Twain, Lincoln, Ellison, Melville, and Faulkner. Without a doubt, other languages have their storied poets and literary traditions, their Dostoyevskys and their Homers, their Mishimas and their Borgeses. But English has Shakespeare, and there’s something to be said for that.
While all human beings sometimes think the grass is greener on the other side, some individuals are by personality more inclined to prefer the unfamiliar, whereas others are more likely to say that while it may be so that the grass is greener somewhere else, they like the grass right here just fine and after all it’s pretty green. Being as I am by nature inclined towards the latter, I happen to like the English language, which after all is my language, the one my parents and grandparents spoke, the one I was taught as a boy, and the one which evokes in me a sense of home.
The version of English I speak is American English, but of course English comes down to us from England, and many English citizens today would tell you that Americans speak it incorrectly. English was originally the language of a particular people, the English, and while particular English-speaking peoples – the Australians, the Glaswegians, the Canadians, American Southerners – have each evolved their own particular versions of it, by right the English still have the primary claim upon their language.