Have English become a Language Family?

Do you think that English has become an indeed language family given the fact that there are so many English varieties existent around the world and most of them are not that mutually comprehensible? For example, I have great difficulty in understanding one of my fellow classmates who is from Singapore though he speaks English very fluently in terms of speed and vocabulary I think. If it’s not possible at the moment, could it be the case in the feasible future, just like Latin language?

Thanks for your helpful suggestions!
Rolandkun

No, English is one language. I would also disagree with the statement that most varieties of English from around the world are not mutually comprehensible; I think the vast majority are. Besides, if two people who both speak English fluently can't understand each other, it's almost guaranteed to be because of their accents. In other words, it may be difficult for them to understand one another in spoken English, but I doubt they would have any trouble understanding something the other wrote. Don't forget that languages are not limited to oral communication.

Of course it is feasible that English could splinter into different languages at some point in the future, but I don't think it's too likely given the contemporary mass media. English speakers are not isolated in various parts, and most have or will interact with English speakers from other parts of the world.

I meant to say "English speakers are not isolated in various parts ...of the world..."

Dude Who Knows, I think you dismiss Rolandkun's points too quickly. The Scandanavian languages are mutually intelligible, yet are considered seperate languages. The Chinese languages use the same writing, yet are not the same languages. If there were spelling reform to reflect pronunciation in different countries and regions, then would they still be the same languages?

Written English: I went to the well to get some water, but it was dry.
Southern American: Ah win' to thuh wayull tuh gi' sum wadder, buddi' was drah.
Northern American: Ai wen' to thuh well to ge' sum wadder, buddi' was drai.
British English: Ai went to thuh well to get sum watuh, but it was drai.

These may be very bad attempts, but the serve the purpose to show how different the accents would look if spelling reforms took place in each region

The historical megalomania of the english-speaking peoples has no limits! In the past they kept refering to the hindustanic peninsula as the "Indian sub-continent", the largest island in the world, Australia, became a continent (must have felt pretty good to rule continents and sub-continents). There is also that old (half)joke refering to the position of Britain in Europe "Fog over channel. Continent isolated".

Then some guy in the XVIII century discovered Uranus (yours...) and decided to name the planet the Georgian Planet, in honour of George III of Britain (imagine that, naming an entire planet after one single, living person!!).

After that, when the exploration of Antarctica began, English, Australians and Americans set about naming any and everything they discovered (an entire new continent, supposedly the common heritage of Mankind) with anglo-saxon names of every type (living explorers, dead explorers, living kings, dead kings, aristocrats, industrialists, politics, wives of assorted explorers, cities, towns, ships, aviators, military personel, commisions, even Rockfeller!!!), very much like a dog pisses in its territory...

And now, guess what, you even have your Language Family! I wonder why you all didn't try to annex the Moon and call it the Saxon Satellite or rename the Universe as the Britanic Whole...

Give us a break, will you??!!!!...

>>The historical megalomania of the english-speaking peoples has no limits! In the past they kept refering to the hindustanic peninsula as the "Indian sub-continent", the largest island in the world, Australia, became a continent (must have felt pretty good to rule continents and sub-continents). There is also that old (half)joke refering to the position of Britain in Europe "Fog over channel. Continent isolated".<<

And just what does this have to do with the topic at hand?

>>No, English is one language. I would also disagree with the statement that most varieties of English from around the world are not mutually comprehensible; I think the vast majority are. Besides, if two people who both speak English fluently can't understand each other, it's almost guaranteed to be because of their accents. In other words, it may be difficult for them to understand one another in spoken English, but I doubt they would have any trouble understanding something the other wrote. Don't forget that languages are not limited to oral communication.<<

English dialects, for the most part, are crossintelligible overall - at the present, that is. The matter, though, is that English dialects are consistently diverging and not converging, and while some old dialect variations are being lost, new ones are being created in their stead. This is shown no better than by English-speaking North America, where there has been quite rapid dialectization taking place in even just the last half century, but is also shown by things such as the apparent creation of actual dialects in Australian English, where historically all variation was social rather than dialectal in nature.

A good example of this (my favorite) is California and Upper Midwestern English dialects, as the two differed overall not too much only fifty or so years ago, and yet two opposite large-scale vowel shifts (the California Vowel Shift and Northern Cities Vowel Shift, respectively) have taken place in them since then which have significantly distanced their vowel systems from each other in such little time, and which is further increasing the distance between such at the present. However, this is but one example, and other examples include things like the creation of new dialectal patterns in Western American English dialects where such simply did not exist not too long ago.

>>Of course it is feasible that English could splinter into different languages at some point in the future, but I don't think it's too likely given the contemporary mass media. English speakers are not isolated in various parts, and most have or will interact with English speakers from other parts of the world.<<

The problem with this idea is that most people are only familiarized with other dialects through the media, and do *not* actually change their own speech due to any possible influence from it; rather, people generally change their own speech patterns under the influence of individuals who they are actually in *direct* contact with on a regular basis in Real Life. Consequently, while the media may help maintain crossintelligibility between dialects over the long run, this is only through familiarization and does not actually prevent or reverse dialectization at all.

As a result, while the media may prevent loss of crossintelligility, its inability to actually prevent divergence between dialects means that at some point in the future, dialect divergence will be sufficient to limit crossintelligibility between dialects *even with* increased familiarity of other dialects being a factor. Consequently, the media in the long run will *not* prevent or even simply delay English effectively breaking up due to loss of crossintelligibility, but will only limit the effect of dialectization in the meanwhile.

Well, India is a subcontinent not because it's somehow "lesser" than Australia, but because Australia is a landmass unto itself, unconnected to anything else, while India USED to be a disconnected landmass, and thus a continent in its own right, but has now rammed itself into Asia. If Australia ever does the same, it will become a subcontinent, too. But it's just a geographical term -- it has nothing to do with "megalomania". ;)

Nobody calls Uranus the Georgian Planet. I'd never even heard of that until you mentioned it! True, it is the only planet whose moons are named not for characters from Greco-Roman myth, but from Shakespearian plays (Ariel, Miranda, Oberon, Titania, etc.) And we can't annex the moon -- it already has all those pesky Latin names! Mare Imbrium, Mare Crisium, Mare Tranquillitatus....which are already pretty cool.

While some speakers of various English dialects might have trouble with each other -- I'm picturing a Jamaican and a Scotsman trying to have a conversation here -- on the whole we all understand each other well enough to call it one language, in my opinion.

Come on and do me a favor! Game Back on!

Democracy in Action!
1. I agree that there is an English language family existent
2. I agree that this would be feasible only after a long period of time (let set the timeframe to 100 or 200 ys)
3. I totally disagree with the two above opinions

My vote is 2!!!
Rolandkun

so why are movies from Scotland (by example) subtitled?

I've never seen subtitles on a Scottish movie. Sean Connery wasn't subtitled when he was James Bond!

Americans even subtitle Eastenders.

<<<if two people who both speak English fluently can't understand each other, it's almost guaranteed to be because of their accents>>>
Ha Ha Ha ! That's funny. many Americans don't understand each other and they have the same accent....
You have never heard any American saying "what" do his coworker....
That's again a typical way of blaming on people with accents. I also heard Americans saying when one mispelled an word that he/she is a foriegner.
That's not true always. many American can't spell very well.

<<Dude Who Knows, I think you dismiss Rolandkun's points too quickly. The Scandanavian languages are mutually intelligible, yet are considered seperate languages. The Chinese languages use the same writing, yet are not the same languages. If there were spelling reform to reflect pronunciation in different countries and regions, then would they still be the same languages?>>

I'm no expert on Scandanavian languages, so I can't comment too heavily on them, nor am I aware to what extent they are truly mutually intelligible. Nonetheless, having two distinct languages being mutuably intelligible to a certain degree is not the same thing as having a single language where pronunciation of the same words is varies accross accents and dialects. The fact remains that they are still using the same words.

Your question regarding the effect if English spelling was altered to more
accurately reflect various accents is an interesting one. In that case, I think that they might have to be considered different languages. Still though, that's a fundamental shift in the language. Accents and pronunciation differs even within categorized dialects. Individual's accents often change with age, and even in different social settings. It's very likely that an individual would not be able to immediately understand a new written version English made to more accurately reflect their own pronunciation.

As for your comments about Chinese languages, I don't think that's a valid example as written Chinese is made up of logograms.

<<Ha Ha Ha ! That's funny. many Americans don't understand each other and they have the same accent....
You have never heard any American saying "what" do his coworker....
That's again a typical way of blaming on people with accents. I also heard Americans saying when one mispelled an word that he/she is a foriegner.
That's not true always. many American can't spell very well.>>

A typical way of blaming people with accents? What are you talking about? Everyone has an accent.

I'm not blaming anybody for anything; nor was I singling out people who speak with foreign accents. My point was simply that any difficulty two people who both speak English have in understanding one another is likely to be the result of their pronunciation. Their pronunciation, in turn, is characterized by their accent.

<<many American can't spell very well.>>

Very, very, true.

<<You have never heard any American saying "what" do his coworker...>>

I'm so confused. I don't understand that at all...>:o...anger...