The prodigal tongue : dispatches from the future of English

If you perk up your ears for a bit, you will notice that English is not the language it once was. Odd terms, new phrases, and foreign invasions are changing English from the inside out. The explosion of the Internet and small-scale news have given localisms a chance to flourish on a global scale. It took the word “teenager” roughly sixty years to become mainstream, but now noob and lol are commonplace after only a decade of use. Mark Abley’s The Prodigal Tongue traces the historical journey of the English and project many possible changes the language could take.

Right now, English and its many variations are swarming around world, threatening to become the universal language. It’s already the official language of pilots, the show more World Bank, and even OPEC. But this comes at a cost to the language itself. In its ambition to become the lingua franca of the world, the world affects it in many small and large ways. Each new country that takes on English changes it to suit their purposes, and Abley shows us how this affects both the speakers and speech. Singapore English is an odd mish-mash of local dialects and general English terms. Japanese English, while sometime mocked when egregious mistranslations occur, is creating a row because it is displacing traditional kanji writing. The Spanglish of Southern California is leading to new debates about whether the United States should decree English as the official language.

Abley’s gusto for new words and Englishes is almost childlike and Zen at the same time. He is not one of those linguists who cry out for purity and put down neologisms. Every time he sees a new construction, it is a chance to investigate in what ways the language is changing and what that means on a larger scale. If you are a native English speaker, there are times when you may get a little defensive when Abley proposes that all English variations are both valid and good, but his overall feeling is that each new English offers a way for use to communicate with those we haven’t been able to before. And that can’t be too bad of a thing. A very engaging read. show less

Despite the subtitle, author Mark Abley is never foolish enough to even attempt to predict what the future of the English language is going to look like. Instead, he considers what's happening to English across the world right now -- or, rather, what was happening to it in 2008 when this book was published, which is not quite the same thing, judging by the fact that a few of his examples of edgy new slang already seem a little passé. And what is happening to it? Well, it's constantly colliding with and influencing other languages, and being influenced by them in turn, on a larger scale than ever before. (And with English, which was always been something of a pack rat tongue, that's really saying something.) It 's showing the effects of show more the jargon and dialects of minority groups and subcultures becoming mainstream, as with the spread of urban African-American speech patterns via the medium of hip-hop. And, then, of course there's the internet, which is constantly doing strange new things to the way we communicate. Abely looks at various examples of all these changes, and at the idea of language change generally (which is something people have been describing and decrying at least since the invention of the printing press). He also includes a chapter on how science fiction writers have dealt with, or failed to deal with, the idea of language change. I found that one particularly intriguing, but also frustrating, because his discussion of it is very lightly sketched, and it left me with the realization that I really, really wanted to read a whole book on that subject.

It's pretty engaging stuff, if you're at all interested in the topic of language and its evolution. Abley's writing is highly readable, and I very much appreciated the way he simultaneously clearly understands the desire to preserve language and the cultural traditions it can represent, and also fully and non-judgmentally embraces the joyful innovation that takes place on the edge of linguistic change. show less

I didn't find the book groundbreaking, since I already knew most of its information (to be fair, I've been interested in language and linguistics for many years). However, I still enjoyed Abley's ability to present thoughtful portraits of the way we use English and how it is swiftly changing. He doesn't provide any answers about the future of English because...well, is anyone equipped to answer that? What he does is pull together many threads and give them to his readers in a pleasant, digestible package. In particular, his descriptions of people learning English as a second language and the anxiety they then feel about their native language resonated with me, as someone who grew up in a multilingual household.

I recently had an argument show more with a family member over the validity of English dialects and creoles. His view was that deviations from Standard English were a sign of poor education and low intelligence (yes, I am still angry at him for saying that). The funny thing is, he grew up in Singapore. In any case, I want to give him (and others like him) this book. Maybe it'll change their minds. show less

When we read, we do things impossible in our mundane existence, go places we can’t reach by public transportation. We fly among the stars, dance at Regency balls, or follow a canny detective in her search for a killer. We travel between the pages. With the guidance of Mark Abley, my reading journey into his book encompassed the past and the future and spanned across all the continents except Antarctica. I took a trip to the realm of English language.

According to Abley’s book, English is changing, and the process is irreversible. Like a living being, charming and aggressive, English eagerly absorbs new words and ideas from millions who speak it. It discards obsolete formulas, plays with new possibilities, and sprouts young offshoots show more in every region of the globe. The author revels in his tongue’s overwhelming life force and its roarific mobility. You don’t know the word? Read the book.

Some people are terrified by those changes. Grammarians want the language to remain proper and predictable, abiding by its rules. Like parents who want their child to stay out of trouble, these traditionalists are bound to be disappointed. The language doesn’t belong to them anymore. English is on the move, growing, running free, breaking artificial shackles and expanding boundaries. Not for the noobs, Abley insists. You don’t know the word? Read the book.

In the exploding “verbal revolution”, the place of honor belongs to teenagers and the Internet. Young trailblazers fearlessly create new words online. Although their cant in cell phone messages might seem gibberish to some purists, Abley luxuriates in it. And he passes his enthusiasm to the readers. After reading his book, even an old broad like me wants to exclaim foshizzle! You don’t know the word? Read the book.

Abley cites many other sources of new words: TV series, immigrants, typing mistakes, translations, and fiction writers. Five centuries ago, Shakespeare launched quite a few new words, and the tradition continues. The word that everyone uses today – cyberspace – was coined in 1984 by science fiction writer William Gibson. The word womlu was born on the Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s online forum. You don’t know the word? Read the book.

As the dominant language of the Web, English grows deep roots in Asia, Africa, and Europe. In many countries, especially in Asia, fluency in English brings prestige and power. But as the language penetrates the local lingo, it mutates and adapts, becoming Singlish in Singapore, Manglish in Malaysia, and Spanglish in Southern California. Words of different tongues infiltrate both ways. Languages become porous, digesting each other and creating something resembling a universal tongue. And we all are the creators.

A real connoisseur, Abley relishes every new word he comes in contact with and he shares his delight with the readers. Besides being highly educational, the book is deliriously funny. I read a lot, but I don’t remember laughing as hard as I did reading about the mischievous escapades of the English language. Do you know about the anecdotal relationship between the expression ‘couch potato’, OED, and the British Potato Council? No? Read the book.

If you’re a lover of words, a gourmet of quirky sentences, a curious student of slang, or a zealot of grammar, read the book. show less

This was decent, a descriptivist overview of realms where English is evolving by the minute, nicely grouped into thematic chapters (Asia, the internet, science fiction). It's REMARKABLE how his examples of current slang, current in 2008 when the book was published, already sound so clunky. I think it would be good for people who miss William Safire, although Abley isn't as acerbic.

Tracing the history of ���gay,��� Mark Abley says of a bit of Yeats (���They know Hamlet and Lear are gay��� from ���Lapis Lazuli���) that the line could ���evoke an unwanted image of certain actors.��� You know, that might be an unwonted take on the characters but it���s not an undesirable one. Well, maybe I���d rather picture Laurence Olivier as Hamlet than as Lear.

In The Basque History of the World, Mark Kurlansky attributes ���honcho��� to Basque; Abley says it���s Japanese. I think Kurlansky is wrong.

Abley says (210) that Philip K. Dick coined ���kipple��� in the same page he gives the origin of ���robot��� and show more ���matrix.��� Am I supposed to know ���kipple���?

Next up, his Spoken Here: Travels Among Threatened Languages. show less

English is changing, and it's doing it all over the world and all over the internet. Don't resist, but do say what you mean at all times in clear, simple language. Good advice.