Documentary

Trends documentary. 

Scotland, Ireland, England

Scottish, British, Irish.

Yeah I thought so too.

They're not.

Actually these different dialects (because they are dialects, not accents) are not the same. They even have a historical background! Wow, this world really is full of information. That type of global ignorance is really common in cases like these. People think the population in Africa is composed by starving kids, Colombia is a jungle, Israel is a war force and that Scotland, Ireland and England are the same. We divide the English language into two worlds: the U.S. and not the U.S., which would come to be all of these English-speaking countries that to the worlds eyes (except themselves) are England but not so pretty.

That North American egocentrism is rather a small contradiction. Scottish - and Irish as well - was responsible for the spread of English through North America and added an accent to it.

Yay! A little bit of Scottish, Irish and Enlgish folk for us. 

One does not simply understand Irish. If one does not understand Irish, how does one understand Scottish? One does not either.

I saw a comment in the video (kintakintyea) that caught my attention, because that is how these dialects look like through our non-comprehending eyes:

Weel aat weis verra gweed ma freen' thunken yea fur posten aat veedio' eit broacht a greet tae ma een!

Lang meiy yer lum reek ma freen!!

Gordon

Typical ignorant but funny and relatable joke. 

Hollywood Vs. Bollywood

So basically there are two types of people in the world: the ones who speak english and the ones who don't.


Did you know that "India's first prime minister...declared that English should be replaced by Hindi"? (The Story of English episode 1 - An English Speaking World - Part 2/7) Imagine how weird it would be...

Just think about it for a sec.

K.

Good.

I started off by thinking this documentary was extremely pro-english and didn't give any space to other languages. Then, I started meditating the fact that maybe it used some irony, suggesting that we idolize  English too much and proceed to idealize it afterwords. The thing is, there will always be a globalized language. Two thousand years from now, there will be much more other languages and English will be replaced by another one. Language is constantly changing.

Comparing English with Hindi is not very fair; "English has some advantages over Hindi (The Story of English episode 1 - An English Speaking World - Part 2/7). But also it is because English has had much more impact and adoption of culture in the world. Hindi, on the other hand, deals more with ethnicity and religion, while English doesn't. The documentary shows some well-educated Hindu school girls talking about how "english is also socially desirable" and "[it] represents class"...talking in English. It is such the power of this language (which is solely a language) that it has become a culture. Just because you speak English doesn't mean you are as funny as you are with your native language. 

We must be comfortable with certain language as the lingual power because I don't think we will be able to ever not have one. 

"The Story of English episode 1 - An English Speaking World - Part 2/7" YouTube, YouTube, Aug 27, 2009. Web. Jan 13, 2013

The Lingual Mount Olympous

English is seen as a lingual deity. It is true that it takes an enormous part in worldwide communication, but other languages are able to transmit different things that english can't.

There are five different types of extinguishers.
They all serve for a special purpose (solids, flammable liquids, radioactive substances, etc.) but there is one called the "multi-purpose" that as the name states it, can be used with all types of materials. The problem with this extinguisher is that it isn't completely effective. When wood is burnt and carbonized, it will extinguish the flame but won't turn off the fathom and the chance the fire will restart will still exist. With the English language it is similar.

The The Story of English depicts English as the language of the gods. To me, being Latin American, the English-speaking countries have always been an unquestionable supreme being. Here, knowing English in most cases determines your social status. But I have discovered this isn't entirely correct as it is true. We were raised to look up to those kind of things but we then realize that there are other languages too, and we mustn't refer to English as a god anymore. In my case, I find Spanish more poetic, French more formal and Greek more intellectual. The Story of English says that "it is more influential than any language the world has ever known...an english speaking world." (The Story of English Episode 1 - An English Speaking World - Part 1/7) English speaking world. You don't survive without speaking English. How's that? Not true, duh. 

Reflection:
Why do we look up more to living the American dream and not the Chinese dream?



Yes, I do realize I wrote this in English.


"The Story of English Episode 1 - An English Speaking World - Part 1/7" YouTube, YouTube, Aug 27, 2009. Web. Jan 12, 2013