of the unexpected and fascinating
changes that are happening today to the
English language which is not only my
native language it’s also the field that
I spent most of my entire adult
professional life studying researching
teaching and using but before I tell you
about the language that I teach I need
to tell you a little story about the
language that I learned 15 years ago my
husband and I moved here from Washington
DC and we came to Dubrovnik and pretty
much overnight I went from being a
language master a language expert to
being a language invalid I was really
handicapped for the first time in my
life in being able to communicate with
the people around me and of course
people here speak English they speak
English well my husband was always
willing to help me but it was really
obvious right away that if I wanted to
have any sort of normal life here I was
going to have to learn the language and
it was a language I really didn’t know
anything about and I was 30 years old
and how was I gonna do this like
millions of other people around the
world who are in this situation I didn’t
do it by going to school I just lived in
it and so I started listening and
reading and speaking and making terrible
embarrassing mistakes and getting stuck
and trying again and I think the most
important thing about my weird little
self teaching method was that I did not
have any grades I did not have any tests
I did not have any deadlines and I
definitely didn’t study the grammar a
Miss thing doesn’t most be left
oh I swear I’m enemy Vova maala Dach
estas para ESO no Chile Isaac nice a
version oh gresik i’ma call coaches
alamy Cinda Cessna lazem uzivo to nadra
azucar so here I am living my funny
little kind of bilingual life in my
native language english in my second
language croatian and not really
worrying too much about making mistakes
which is kind of weird because i’m
employed here as a professor of english
and a lot of my students are here
tonight and here i am up here on the
stage telling them that your mistakes
don’t really matter all that much I mean
what kind of professor is that how is
that possible I’ll tell you the more I
teach language the more I learn language
the more I realize that what linguists
have been telling us for decades is
actually true language is not so much
about a set of rules that you have to
follow as about communicating with other
people so of course I’m very happy when
my students write correctly but what’s
much more important to me and what’s
much more important for them and their
future is that they feel at home in the
English language and that they feel it’s
part of who they are east of calcium
diehard Watsky is exposed our deal many
so if we think about it this way if we
think about language as not so much like
a bunch of rules but more about
communicating with other people I think
that’s really going to help us
understand some of the crazy kind of
changes that are happening today with
the English language of course every
language changes over time but English
is changing so fast right now that we
can hardly keep up with it and it’s
happening really for two reasons first
of all of course because our digital
technology and social media are creating
new forms of communication new audiences
new purposes for our writing and second
of all because native speakers have lost
exclusive ownership of the English
language we are now a minority in the
world english belongs to the world the
world is going to go ahead and use
english in whatever way makes sense and
is interesting and useful for them so i
can show you now a little example of why
the world is changing english and some
of the things that we used to think of
as rules are really no longer true so
for example if this is gonna work there
we go okay here’s a little piece of
language what are we going to do with
this what is this this is not a quiz I’m
going to give you the answer now I could
answer this question by saying this is a
semicolon semicolon is a mark of
punctuation which is used to join
together two independent clauses but I
don’t think that’s really very useful
and in fact when I say things like
independent clauses I can feel about
half the people in the room are just
completely shutting down and in fact
words like independent clauses are not
really very useful for teaching people
things and they’re actually really not
necessary so I would rather tell you
that this little mark is something you
can use to take to complete sentences
and sort of stick them together when you
don’t want them to be completely
separated by a full stop right and I
think that makes a little more sense you
can see there you go here’s an example
the semicolon is poorly understood
semicolon many people use it incorrectly
the semicolon is like an expectant pause
it lets you know the sentence is not
over so I think that helps if we think
of the semicolon that way but still you
have to remember that the semicolon is
quite different from the comma which is
used to introduce a dependent clause
it’s nor is it the same as a colon which
is used for something else of course it
sometimes could substitute for a full
stop and occasionally but not too often
a dash however you should not mix up
these things each one has its own rules
and if you get them wrong you will make
a mistake now that’s one way of thinking
about how we use language and it’s the
one I think that’s most familiar to us
from our experience in school and it’s
one of the reasons why people really
hate writing even in their native
language
but if we look at this thing again and I
ask you to think about it a little
differently and I asked you a different
kind of question what do people really
do with this thing they do this it turns
out millions of people really don’t care
what the rules are what you’re supposed
to do with this little thing they’re
just going to go ahead and do whatever
they want to do with it and amazingly
other people understand it and they like
it and it’s fun now you’re thinking like
a linguist linguists do not care about
telling people what they are supposed to
do with language linguists are
fascinated with observing what people
really do do with language and for a
linguist like that there’s no such thing
as a mistake there’s no such thing as
right and wrong there’s only successful
communication if you write something and
someone else understands it you have
successfully communicated and the only
way you can fail is if somebody doesn’t
understand you or somebody
misunderstands you so now if we think
that way thinking like linguists I think
it’s going to help us make sense of some
of these English changes and see why
English is evolving and changing so
rapidly in front of us of course we all
know that new words are constantly born
we have these new words selfie and
breaks it we also know that old words
die old words become extinct how do you
kill a word well not by making a law
against it in fact if you make a law
against a word people will probably use
it more but if you want to kill a word
you just stop using it do you know these
words these are extinct words out of the
English language V and thou it’s the
intimate form of the pronoun you which
English used to have all right but now
you will only find them in Shakespeare
or in the Bible this is the reason why
people ask me why is English the only
language in the world which doesn’t have
two forms of the word you like every
other normal language in the world for
your polite people and your clothes
people well this is the extinct form of
the intimate form of the verb you and of
course we also know that words change
form like in this sense
you should google yourself I love this
sentence you should google yourself if
you haven’t googled yourself you really
should it’s fun Google of course which
started off as the name of the company
has now become a reflexive verb and
language words change meaning altogether
what are these icons look what happened
to the word icon it was almost dead the
only people who ever use the word icon
were like church historians art
historians now it found a whole new life
as this and if we think about these
kinds of changes on top of all this
we’ve got our digital technology which
is of course creating sentences like
these which I can’t even read out loud
because they’re meant only to be written
and I can’t even say them and pronounce
them right and of course the emoji that
one on the end there is already kind of
primitive it’s out of date the emoji is
really the hot cutting edge of
linguistics right now and in fact the
prestigious oxford dictionaries which
each year they choose a new word of the
year their word of the year for 2015 was
this emoji it was really a historic
moment in linguistics was the first time
that an emoji was named an actual word
and of course the word emoji itself is
borrowed from the Japanese and it is
only a matter of time before someone
writes an entire novel in emojis I’m
pretty sure someone somewhere is working
on it right now right and if you add to
all of this crazy language change the
fact that native speakers are in the
minority and that foreign speakers
that’s two billion non-native speakers
of English are now really in control of
the language we find some really
interesting predictions about what’s
going to happen next first of all the
good news is in the next hundred years
or so english spelling is going to be
simplified because of millions of
non-native speakers who just are not
going to use those stupid useless silent
letters that english is full of and that
nobody really needs anymore and even
more shocking is that under the
influence of non-native speakers the
third person singular verb is going to
lose its
s or at least something was predict that
it will what am I talking about I run
you run he run I run you run he run will
become normal some linguists are
predicting under the influence of
non-native speakers who find that stupid
extra s just completely not necessary
now this is infuriating for native
speakers like you can’t say here on
that’s just wrong and we want to get out
a giant red pen and start correcting the
entire universe but you know too late
we’re outnumbered I mean just think
about that for a minute if you’re one of
those people who’s a little bit
skeptical of the English language
invading the world why are they taking
over think of how it feels for native
speakers the whole world stole my
language and they’re using it all wrong
and making terrible mistakes and they’re
going to get away with it in the long
run right and in fact we can’t even
really say anymore that there is such a
thing as one standard English language
right because what’s happening really is
English is not taking over english is
falling apart english is turning into a
lot of little tiny different local
varieties and types of english which is
why linguists have been talking for at
least 20 years about the phenomenon of
world englishes in the plural and of
course next time you turn on your spell
checker you’ll see this right it’s not
just a question of American English or
British English or Australian English
right but it’s Indian English or
Indonesian English or jamaican english
or caribbean english and my spell
checker has 18 different forms of
english in the spell checker i think
it’s actually out of date there’s up to
as many as 30 now different forms of
world english now croatia is not on the
list you can see it’s missing from the
Seas although some day who knows it
really might be and if it ever is
created into a Croatian English I have a
suggestion that I noticed how is English
used this means English as it is used
here in Croatia what are the specific
local features well one thing I noticed
is articles those English words a
antha are pretty much optional in
Croatian English if you want to use them
if you like them great go ahead nobody
will stop you but if you don’t really
like them you can just leave them out so
English Croatia looks like this right
why we need articles anyway this is
paragraph which is missing all articles
article doesn’t exist in Croatian so
most people don’t really see need for
these tiny little words sentence can be
understood perfectly without them right
so this is really croatia nized english
and of course we have the opposite thing
is also happening which is english eyes
croatian or what linguists call loan
words right we’ve got three english
words which somehow sneaked into this
Croatian conversation saudi friend and
shopping okay but of course what’s so
interesting is the first thing we need
to do is fix the spelling then we can go
ahead and add the grammar elements okay
now for a lot of people these kind of
loan words are kind of fun and
interesting and they’re part of our
everyday life but there are some people
who are legitimately a little bit
concerned about this and I think that’s
true I mean it’s sort of an
uncomfortable feeling when you find
foreign words invading your native
language and then you can say hey wait a
minute why do we even need to say this
anyway don’t we have perfectly good
words in our own language for these
things I mean what’s going to happen if
we all keep saying friend what’s going
to happen to priya Ted I mean it’s
friend gonna kill off the prea tell the
good news is I don’t think so i think
priya tell is very safe he will have a
long and happy life and i’ll tell you
why sometimes when words like this come
into our language sometimes it’s just
like fashion it’s just like a trend and
it comes and goes and it doesn’t really
last but sometimes it does last and
words really adopt were languages adopt
words from other languages kind of
permanently into the language okay so do
we need to be worried about that here’s
why I don’t think so when that happens
it’s usually not that the native
language word is displaced or kicked out
but that the foreign language word fills
a little micro niche that’s just a
little bit different from the original
word for example pre Italia who is that
that’s somebody you know you like her
she’s great and everything ally prava
italia veg nesto drugo usako it is a
sorry that I go for him okay sorry sorry
nishta Ali Oh prosti 12 h munoz billion
alright and if you think that english is
simply exporting words into other
languages then you obviously haven’t
been to starbucks lady because this is
what you’ll see there right when you get
your chai from crop crème Frappuccino
usually that English has taken these
words from Italian taken words from
French stuck them together where’d they
get that word chai by the way and why
did they spell it wrong did they get
this from Croatian know or Croatian got
it from some Asian languages of course
spread all over the world so really this
phenomenon of borrowing and lending and
exchanging and changing and adapting
words from one language to another is
something that’s naturally and
spontaneously happening all over the
world all the time right and we really
can’t stop it right and in fact if you
come to my house you will see that what
we speak in my house is kringle ish all
mixed together alright this is a text
message that i sent to my son the other
day alright and this is how we really
talk i love this this is this is what
linguists call authentic language and if
you’re laughing now that means you speak
English right so I hope that some of
these examples of these real-life ways
in which english is changing is going to
help you to feel more comfortable and
more enjoying in this weird kind of
brave new a global English world that
we’re creating and one thing I think is
important to remember is that we are the
ones who are creating it sometimes it
feels like there’s some person out there
who’s inventing these weird words and
then sort of forcing them on us but
really everybody who uses the language
is creating the language and so every
time you use a word you’re giving life
to that word and spreading it every time
you ignore a word you’re pushing it
towards extinction nobody can force you
to use a word that you don’t want to use
nobody can stop you from creating a new
word or mixing two words together if you
really want to you don’t have to be
perfect you don’t have to be right you
only have to be understood so go ahead
and use English use your native language
use mixed languages use your hands your
face your voice your phone go ahead and
participate in creating the English of the future thank