In the course of some recent detailed and extensive research, on Wikipedia, I discovered that one fifth of the Earth’s population speak English, although a significantly smaller number, only about 360 million, are native speakers. It got me wondering what, statistically-wise, constitutes ‘speaking a language’? At what point do you go from totally incompetent to sufficient fluency to qualify as a ‘speaker’? Is it GCSE, A Level, a degree, an interpreter and who decides these things? I can be reasonably confident that if I order food in a French restaurant I’ll get the kidneys that I wanted and not a margherita pizza or pate de foie gras. I can ask my way to the local church and spot a jaune gilet, but any attempt at intelligent conversation would end before it began. (Mind you I do have that problem in English too….). I can order a beer, steak and chips in German, say thank you in Spanish, Italian and Chinese and “I love you” in Russian, which I haven’t found terribly useful so far, but you never know. When it comes to discussing the finer points of nuclear arms reduction with Vlad, the aforementioned Interpreter would be essential. Yet again I fear I am in danger of posing an interesting (?) question without coming close to providing an answer. I remember being told many moons ago that once you can understand humour in a foreign tongue, you can consider yourself fairly fluent. That would seem a reasonable yardstick, depending on your sense of humour! At the risk of offending the PC brigade (which seems to come quite easily to me), how many people in Britain speak English? According to the most recent census 138,000 people spoke no English, of whom (unbelievably!) 20,000 were born in Britain. I would venture to suggest that there are a whole lot more whose English might not meet the statisticians measure of ‘speaking the language’. But as we don’t know what that measure is I’m in danger of entering the edge of the whirlpool and being sucked rapidly into the middle of it, thus performing a rapid descent into Davy Jones’ Locker. Now, who the hell was Davy Jones?
It probably won’t come as a great surprise to you to know that the origin of the tale is unclear. One of the early mentions is by a fellow called Tobias Smollett who wrote the Adventures of Peregrine Pickle in 1751. Jones is described as “having saucer eyes, three rows of teeth, horns, a tail and blue smoke coming from his nostrils”. Reminds me very much of my Prep School Headmaster. Daniel Defoe’s 1726 novel, Four Years Voyages of Captain George Roberts, also gives the notorious Locker a mention. But it’s the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise that’s really given Master Jones the notoriety he clearly craved. Suffice to say that if I ever do meet up with Davy, I’ll be having a serious word with Michael (my guardian archangel….apparently). All the future planning has involved a journey north into the wild blue yonder, not south into the murky depths. Assuming I could open my mouth, the language might be quite fruity. That might be where my upcoming Russian course would be useful. Just saying anything in that colourful language would probably be enough to put the wind up Davy.
To return to my original question, there is an additional issue. How do you know if someone is speaking English? A Cornishman holidaying in the Yorkshire Dales or taking in the delights of Liverpool or Newcastle may well find that the locals haven’t got a bloody clue what he’s talking about and the feeling would probably be entirely mutual. Then there’s Pidgin English. Go to Africa and see if you can make head or tail of that, never mind trying to comprehend what the natives in Dallas or Kentucky are trying to tell you. I wouldn’t mind betting that a considerable number of Hong Kong Chinese are listed as ‘English speakers’, but after you’ve spent a day saying “what”, “pardon”, “could you just repeat that one more time” or looking blankly at them as they lapse into Cantonese no doubt telling you what a complete numbskull you are, you might question the stats.
There is no question though that more people speak English of some description than any other language, so we can go on in our own sweet way assuming that everyone will understand us and if they don’t we just talk louder.
Ya tebya looblyoo. I knew it would come in useful.
ADayInTheStrifeOf 