English Language

“Separated by a Common Language” is a paraphrase of what the Irish playwright, George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), once said when he spoke about the relationship between the United States of America and Great Britain. His contemporary and compatriot (but no companion), Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) said much the same thing with the quote, “We have everything in common with America nowadays, except, of course, language”. The quotations of both men are epigrams and thus are more witty than truthful, but they do emphasise that there are some differences in the way people speak and write either side of the “Pond”.

General American English and British Standard English are mutually intelligible with only minor differences in grammar, vocabulary, spelling and in pronunciation, however, that said regional dialects can be a cause of difficulty and have led to many a misunderstanding; for instance a person with a Cockney accent (from London’s East End) will not easily understand someone with a Southern Drawl from the Deep South and visa versa unless both are able to moderate their speech towards a more “middle of the road” English; Michael Caine meets Johnny Cash if you will.

Standard English, also known as “Received Pronunciation” (RP for short) is instantly recognisable as being “typically British”, the speech of James Bond and those who speak with his accent cannot be “pin-pointed” as to where they come from. With the advent of radio broadcasting in the 1920’s, people from across the British Isles could “tune in” and listen to the...

We South Africans live in a polyglot society, which under our Constitution, has 11 official languages that “must enjoy parity of esteem and must be treated equitably”. Mother tongues range from Afrikaans to IsiZulu, from isiXhosa to Setswana, however to stop us being a modern Tower of Babel we largely use one language to communicate between each other and that is English. In doing so we are reflecting a world wide trend. In today’s world English has become the “Lingua Franca” replacing French as the language of diplomacy and German in the field of science. It has also become one of the essential languages for global trade.

In 21st century South Africa, English is used in many walks of life, in media and advertising, in education, law, commerce and government. English is the language of the big city especially Johannesburg, South Africa’s financial capital. Although should one drive 50 miles (80 km) in any direction out of “Egoli”, you are more likely to hear Afrikaans or an African language being spoken. How is it then that a European colonial language has managed to become so influential?

To answer this question a look at South African history from the beginning of the 19th century is needed.

The English language first came to the southern tip of Africa 1795 when the British occupied the Cape of Good Hope in order to protect their trade with India and the Orient. They left in 1803 as part of the terms of the Treaty of Amiens, but in January 1806 they returned for good, after...