"The subjunctive mood was irrelevant to the conquest of Gaul"

Sometimes, people attributes the growth of English into a global language to its values intrinsic to the language. However, the idea is a bit simplistic, lopsided, overlooking the external influence that the language has undergone, such as military, political, economic, and cultural forces:

Compared with Latin, a sort of global language in the Middle Ages, Baugh and Cable write:

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It is often noted that Latin as the language of an empire was not hindered in its spread by the grammatical declensions of five cases for its nouns or by the complex conjugations of its verb. The subjunctive mood was irrelevant to the conquest of Gaul. (8)
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I like the way he puts it, "the subjunctive mood was irrelevant to the conquest of Gaul."
Here, "the subjunctive mood" represents the very complexity of Latin verb declension, while "the conquest of Gaul" is military dominance achieved by the Roman proconsul Julius Caesar against Gallic tribes (58 BC to 50 BC).

Baugh and Cable claims that both are not related to each other, which means "no matter how complicated the innate linguistic features are, any language can become the world language depending on the external factors such as military power and politics.

It is difficult to guess what the English language will be like in the future. In a short term, English might be unconquerable.

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Works Cited:
Baugh, Albert C. and Thomas Cable. A History of the English Language. 6th ed. London: Routledge, 2013.

Language and Mind 05 language and independence and “My Fair Lady”

I have an alternative way of enjoying “My Fair Lady”(a duchess or a flower girl) – the story is about a girl being transformed into a lady, but I can also see it as the history of England, the fall of the Empire.

The story is set in England in 1912. The British Empire, with its colonies and territories, was at its height, holding nearly a quarter of the world’s population, and covering also a quarter of the earth’s land area. It was truly, “the Great Britain”. The people in those days must have been very proud of their mighty country.

In the movie, Professor Higgins seriously tells Eliza, who is so fed up with learning English, the majesty and grandeur of the language, what great project she is trying to conquer. For me, he sounds like “the British Empire” itself speaking, talking of conquering new land, new territory.

……

I know your head aches.

I know you're tired.

I know your nerves are as raw as meat in a butcher's window.

But think what you're trying to accomplish.

Just think what you're dealing with.

The majesty and grandeur of the English language....

It's the greatest possession we have.

The noblest thoughts that ever flowed through the hearts of men...

...are contained in its extraordinary, imaginative... and musical mixtures of sounds.

And that's what you've set yourself out to conquer, Eliza.

And conquer it you will.

……

Higgin’s words are a revelation to Eliza. She suddenly grasps what she is trying to do, and she enjoys her capability to speak the beautiful language like her professor. After this, Eliza is no longer the whining, crying student bossed round by Higgins, and gains confidence and independence from him.

To me, this scene and the following story overlap the state and the history of the then British Empire. From the end of 19^th century to 20^th century, the British Empire starts to give independence to its white colonies – Canada, Australia, New Zealand – letting the country self-govern, but still keeping the influence strong over them.

What happened to Eliza? You have to see for yourself if she gained her full independence.

Great or Little Britain

A follow-up to Great Britain, "lofty adjective" 

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, this "lofty adjective" was first introduced around the 14th-century. It cites the passage by some chronicler (Robert Mannyng), who wrotes "Bretayn þe grete was . . ."

The OED  briefly follows the history of the phrase:

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The fuller name Great Britain has been in use since the Middle English period, originally to distinguish the island from Brittany, which was then also called Britain (see below). Compare also the more Britain (1582 or earlier). Compare post-classical Latin Britannia maior , maior Britannia (12th cent. in a British source), Anglo-Norman Bretannie maiur (mid 12th cent.; also grant Bretaigne). The name gained a political aspect in connection with the union between Scotland and England: in 1604 James I was proclaimed ‘King of Great Britain’, and this name was subsequently adopted as the official name of the new kingdom created in the Act of Union (see quot. 1707). Under the Act of Union of 1800 Great Britain became part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland . Since 1927 the country's official name has been United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
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"Great" Britain was initially a term for the island in distinction to Brittany. A duchy of Brittany was also referred to as "Britain" from early Middle English onwards, a region that later emerges as "Little Britain, Britain the less, the less Britain" as opposed to "Great Britain."

I wonder whether the difference of the terms depended either on the territorial proportion or what Stevens describes as emotional "loftiness" (or both), when such distinction was made.

'Why can't we say "I amn't" ?' ― a love story...

'Why can't we say "I amn't"?'

This was a question some of my students often gave me after a class on contraction rules.

I am not ready.　→　I'm not ready.
You are not ready.　→　You're not ready.
He is not ready. 　→　He's not ready.

Pretty straightforward. The students catch the rule quickly. But then, I show them there are alternatives:

You aren't ready.
He isn't ready.

So from the analogy of the previous rule, some students put down in their workbooks "I amn't", and as I write this, my PC reminds me that this contraction is wrong by putting a red squiggly underline on the word, and I also do the same for my students' workbooks if it is written there. And here, the students give me that question.

The contraction "I amn't" is considered incorrect in standard English (it is acceptable in some English dialects), and you could just say to your students, "that's the rule". However, I wanted to give my students a reasonable explanation to this exception so that they will remember well. From my wild wild imagination, I came up with this explanation.


There is energy like love, hate or jealousy between words. Some words are attracted to each other and want to stay together, and also there are some words that just cannot stand sitting side by side, and that kind of combination is usually considered as "ungrammatical".

Now, as for "is" and  "are", they are "smooth guys"― you know those guys who are at all kinds of parties in town and seem to know every person and are friends with them? They are friendly with nouns, pronouns, noun phrases and clauses, and also with the negative "not". These "smooth guys" casually stick together with their friends and make contracted forms.

However, "am" is a "serious guy". It doesn't party, doesn't go out a lot. The only one it hangs around with is its soul mate "I". 

For "am", "I" is the soul mate. (For "I", unfortunately, "am" is a very close friend) 

They have very strong bond. "Am" is at ease when it is with "I", so they form a contraction "I'm". When the negative "not" sits next to "am" and tries to seduce "am" into forming a contraction, "am" finds it really uncomfortable. Also, "I" feels jealous towards "not" and does not want "am" to form a contraction with any other words but itself.


A love story.

My young students seem to like the story, and after that they remember the rule quite well.

Great Britain, "lofty adjective"

Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day is a novel that won the Man Booker prize in 1989. The story features an English butler named Stevens, who is deeply devoted to the service of his Lord Darlington. 

The point of the story, I think, is universal, revolving around how a man is able to reflect on and come to terms with the past in the wake of a series of enormous changes in one's sense of values. While the majority of the story consists of Steven's recollection of the events that took place in his Lord's mansion, it is framed with the present point of view, in which Stevens is on a journey.

Now, travelling to the west of England, he encounters the landscape that unfolds before his eyes, celebrating the scenery in spite of himself: 

We call this land of ours Great Britain, and there may be those who believe this a somewhat immodest practice. Yet I would venture that the landscape of our country alone would justify the use of this lofty adjective.   

   And yet what precisely is this ‘greatness’? Just where, or in what, does it lie? I am quite aware it would take a far wiser head than mine to answer such a question, but if I were forced to hazard a guess, I would say that it is the very lack of obvious drama or spectacle that sets the beauty of our land apart. What is pertinent is the calmness of that beauty, its sense of restraint. It is as though the land knows of its own beauty, of its own greatness, and feels no need to shout it.” (29)

Although he admits the loftiness of his country's appellation, Steven thinks it well deserves it. It's interesting that he takes pride in the British landscape in terms of "the very lack of obvious drama or spectacle." Apparently, his character and dignity as a butler are projected onto the aesthetic appeal of such calmness and tranquility inherent in the landscape.

No one would expect that Britain has been described as "great" since the beginning.
When and why was the "lofty adjective" attached to Britain? This is an interesting question to consider one aspect of history of Britain.

Works Cited:
Ishiguro, Kazuo. The Remains of the Day. London: Faber and Faber, 1999. Print.

Language and Mind 04 a duchess or a flower girl

The movie "My Fair Lady" is my starting point in my interest in language. It is a musical based on George Bernard Shaw's 'Pigmalion'.

A common flower girl Eliza meets Higgins, a snobbish misogynistic professor of phonetics. Eliza speaks in Cockney, and Higgins says that from her disgusting, depressing speech, Eliza 'incarnates insult to the English language.' He considers that a person's way of speaking classifies him / her. Then, Higgins agrees to a wager with his friend to transform this common flower girl into a lady presentable in a high society by training her speech.

I was living in Australia when I first watched this movie, and I, whose first encounter with English was Aussie English, thought that Eliza's speech was perfectly acceptable, nothing wrong at all. So the idea that a person's way of speech distinguishes from others was really striking for me, and since then, I concentrated on how people spoke and their accent.

In the movie, Eliza successfully masters beautiful speech and makes her social debut at an Embassy Ball, being offered the hand of the prince for the first dance. Everyone at the ball is convinced that Eliza is a lady, and even a professional phonetician believes that she is a princess under an incognito.

Having acquired beautiful English, Eliza is at a loss what to do, where to go. Now that she had been made a lady and everyone treats her like a lady, she realizes that she is not fit to go back to being a flower girl at Covent Garden. Not just the people around her but Eliza herself thinks that language has transformed her and cannot be the same as before.

Speak poorly, you are treated poorly.
Speak properly, you are treated properly.

ungrammatical/uninterpretable sentence?

A follow-up to "There is no one compares with you"

Among the examples Lambrecht presents, the followings are in fact spontaneous utterances by university professors:

(7) I have a friend from Chicago's gonna meet me downstairs.
(8) Check to see if your feature matrixes came out OK. I got a couple of' em
didn't come out right.
(9) I have a friend of mine in the history department teaches two courses per
semester.
(10) I have a friend in the Bay Area is a painter. (319)

Lambrecht continues to note how they feel about the sentences:

"...all of whom were convinced that the construction did not exist in their dialect or speech pattern. The person who uttered (8), a linguist interested in matters of discourse, had explicitly stated, after hearing me talk about the construction, that even though he had heard of such examples, they did not occur in his speech. In fact he considered them not only ungrammatical but uninterpretable. And the two sentences (9) and (10) were used spontaneously within fifteen minutes of unmonitored conversation by a professor whom I had interviewed earlier about the status of the construction in her speech and who had been almost insulted at the suggestion that it occurred in the speech of educated speakers." (320)

It's interesting that even those who felt "insulted" at the use of the construction among educated speakers actually use likewise without realising it.

I must examine how this seemingly substandard construction came into being and gained currency.

To be continued. . .

Works Cited:
Lambrecht, Knud. "There Was a Farmer Had a Dog: Syntactic Amalgams Revisited." Proceedings of the Fourteenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society. 1988. 319-39.