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Globish: How the English Language Became the World's Language
How English conquered the world: a Guns, Germs, and Steel argument based on the power of the word.
It seems impossible: a small island in the North Atlantic, colonized by Rome, then pillaged for hundreds of years by marauding neighbors, becomes the dominant world power in the nineteenth century. Equally unlikely, a colony of that island nation, across the Atlantic, grows into the military and cultural colossus of the twentieth century. How? By the sword, of course; by trade and industrial ingenuity; but principally, and most surprisingly, by the power of their common language.
In this provocative and compelling new look at the course of empire, Robert McCrum, coauthor of the best-selling book and television series The Story of English, shows how the language of the Anglo-American imperium has become the world’s lingua franca. In fascinating detail he describes the ever-accelerating changes wrought on the language by the far-flung cultures claiming citizenship in the new hegemony. In the twenty-first century, writes the author, English + Microsoft = Globish. .
It seems impossible: a small island in the North Atlantic, colonized by Rome, then pillaged for hundreds of years by marauding neighbors, becomes the dominant world power in the nineteenth century. Equally unlikely, a colony of that island nation, across the Atlantic, grows into the military and cultural colossus of the twentieth century. How? By the sword, of course; by trade and industrial ingenuity; but principally, and most surprisingly, by the power of their common language.
In this provocative and compelling new look at the course of empire, Robert McCrum, coauthor of the best-selling book and television series The Story of English, shows how the language of the Anglo-American imperium has become the world’s lingua franca. In fascinating detail he describes the ever-accelerating changes wrought on the language by the far-flung cultures claiming citizenship in the new hegemony. In the twenty-first century, writes the author, English + Microsoft = Globish. .
331 pages, Hardcover
First published May 1, 2010
About the author
Robert McCrum
51 books38 followersRobert McCrum is an associate editor of the Observer. He was born and educated in Cambridge. For nearly 20 years he was editor-in-chief of the publishers Faber & Faber. He is the co-author of The Story of English (1986), and has written six novels. He was the literary editor of the Observer from 1996 to 2008, and has been a regular contributor to the Guardian since 1990
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 111 reviews
September 17, 2019
Does Robert McCrum have an issue with concentrating on one topic, or perhaps he so full of knowledge and ideas he wants to communicate he can't stick to the subject? . It's impossible to know. His premise, the world-wide spread and dominance of various forms of the English language until it is now the global language for everything from business to texting is correct. But he doesn't get there in a straight path, it's not the road less travelled either, it's getting lost all over the map.
To be more generous, since I did enjoy the book, it's a book full of snippets and anecdotes and diversions into history. Some of which are tedious, but some like the Harry Potter story, are interesting and amusing.
In the heyday of Harry Potter, the Chinese used to steal bits of the books, combine them with stories plagiarized from Tolkein and then add in Chinese elements to come up with books like Harry Potter and the Leaping Tiger, or similar. Very creative. They could do it because like most countries of the world, lots of people speak English, but very few speak any form of Chinese at all.
Another good point of the book was that it didn't endlessly reprise all the other books on the history of the English language. So an extra star for that, four stars and a worthy read.
To be more generous, since I did enjoy the book, it's a book full of snippets and anecdotes and diversions into history. Some of which are tedious, but some like the Harry Potter story, are interesting and amusing.
In the heyday of Harry Potter, the Chinese used to steal bits of the books, combine them with stories plagiarized from Tolkein and then add in Chinese elements to come up with books like Harry Potter and the Leaping Tiger, or similar. Very creative. They could do it because like most countries of the world, lots of people speak English, but very few speak any form of Chinese at all.
Another good point of the book was that it didn't endlessly reprise all the other books on the history of the English language. So an extra star for that, four stars and a worthy read.
July 20, 2010
I wrote recently about another book that "The author is like a toddler who can not make it from one end of a room to the other because he keeps getting distracted by what he passes on the way." You have to wonder what destination McCrum had in mind, at all. 90 percent of the book had only a minor tangential relationship to the putative topic of the book, if at all. Why are we reading about the Gold Rush? Why does McCrum describe Samuel Johnson's physical tics? I found myself skimming through bits of American and British history without really knowing why. The sections that are relevant--the writing and adoption of the King James Bible, the contributions of African-born slaves to the English language, etc. I felt he wasn't working at making the connections. When I got to "EuroDisney" on page 227 (of 287!), I thought, "Finally." But alas, he skimmed through the things that mattered (Indian call centers run by American companies, the Internet, etc.). This shouldn't have been 60 pages of the book. 60 pages of the book could have been used to give the basic history of English in English-speaking countries while the rest was given to the actual instances of Globish.
And, on a personal note, when he writes of Wikipedia that it has "provoked the disdainful outrage of librarians, pedants and sticklers," I wanted to scream. First, classing librarians with "pedants and sticklers" is insulting. Second, having just gone through library school, and having discussed Wikipedia in more than one class, I know he's just wrong. Have some librarians reacted with "disdainful outrage"? Yes, but so have some teachers, and lawyers, and doctors. Most librarians I know use Wikipedia while knowing its limitations.
And, on a personal note, when he writes of Wikipedia that it has "provoked the disdainful outrage of librarians, pedants and sticklers," I wanted to scream. First, classing librarians with "pedants and sticklers" is insulting. Second, having just gone through library school, and having discussed Wikipedia in more than one class, I know he's just wrong. Have some librarians reacted with "disdainful outrage"? Yes, but so have some teachers, and lawyers, and doctors. Most librarians I know use Wikipedia while knowing its limitations.
June 28, 2010
Terrible book, I can't believe I plowed all the way through it. It perpetrates a fraud on the reader, claiming to have something to do with the spread of English as an international language, while it's really a rambling, disjointed, incoherent jumble of passages loosely related to the development and spread of Anglo-American culture. It reads like a first draft, or perhaps a mind dump to which some editor added a title instead of forcing the author to rewrite the text around some kind of unifying theme.
If you're really interested in the story of English, I heartily recommend the aptly titled "The Story of English" -- which, oddly enough, is partly written by the same author.
If you're really interested in the story of English, I heartily recommend the aptly titled "The Story of English" -- which, oddly enough, is partly written by the same author.
September 11, 2019
I was so excited to read how English became Globish. McCrum does provide something of an explanation. It is rather dry, covers the same old bases.
What makes this book a 3-star book: A discussion about English in China. This is the one thing that made this book different for me that I will be generous and give the book 3 stars.
What makes this book a 3-star book: A discussion about English in China. This is the one thing that made this book different for me that I will be generous and give the book 3 stars.
October 13, 2018
Globish (from 'global' and 'English') is a word coined in 1995 by Jean-Paul Nerriere to describe this type of 'pidgin' English, very simple (about 1,500 words of vocabulary) being used more and more as a lingua franca across the world. Flexible and subversive, Globish has absolutely no pretence beyond its sole practicability and yet, it has an enormous impact. At the time of an accelerating globalization, it seems indeed to be the miracle pill to the Tower of Babel; a miracle pill nevertheless not without side effects on the languages it affects.
Robert McCrum deals here with its ascent; tries and show in which way the Globish phenomenon is important. Well... It is, according to the subtitle of his book, what he is supposed to do! Let's be blunt right now: this read is bad, useless, disappointing.
He first retrace the history of English language, in a way so poor that we learn absolutely nothing (read the relevant article on Wikipedia and you'll get more information on the topic). He throws in common sense comments as if they were deep analyses -like, if English is now the global language it's thanks to the American leadership, itself the product of the powerful British Empire (yeah, duh! But it takes him about an hundred pages to say it and he doesn't go beyond). Worst, for an essay focused on linguistics he doesn't even bother to deal with the potential repercussions on the future of affected languages (not least English itself). He just assumes that, if Indians and Chinese learn a simplified English it's not out of love for the subtleties of Shakespeare's language (or Mark Twain's, since we deal with American English too) but, solely to trade and do business... Yes, I know! It's exactly what the concept of Globish implies, but here's exactly where the problem lies: Robert McCrum seems to think we are dumb.
In a word, the whole is without much interest.
Robert McCrum deals here with its ascent; tries and show in which way the Globish phenomenon is important. Well... It is, according to the subtitle of his book, what he is supposed to do! Let's be blunt right now: this read is bad, useless, disappointing.
He first retrace the history of English language, in a way so poor that we learn absolutely nothing (read the relevant article on Wikipedia and you'll get more information on the topic). He throws in common sense comments as if they were deep analyses -like, if English is now the global language it's thanks to the American leadership, itself the product of the powerful British Empire (yeah, duh! But it takes him about an hundred pages to say it and he doesn't go beyond). Worst, for an essay focused on linguistics he doesn't even bother to deal with the potential repercussions on the future of affected languages (not least English itself). He just assumes that, if Indians and Chinese learn a simplified English it's not out of love for the subtleties of Shakespeare's language (or Mark Twain's, since we deal with American English too) but, solely to trade and do business... Yes, I know! It's exactly what the concept of Globish implies, but here's exactly where the problem lies: Robert McCrum seems to think we are dumb.
In a word, the whole is without much interest.
September 14, 2010
Whew. I was certainly expecting more from this book. I am immensely disappointed. This book was scattershot--the author introduces a term, "Globish", without ever really defining or describing it, and then takes the reader on a poorly organized, pell-mell rush through history, supposedly showing the evolution of English and then Globish, whatever that is. It appears by Globish the author means more a worldview than a specific language? Or perhaps he just means English? I'm really not sure. The author tosses out wild generalizations at a frenetic pace, never stopping to support them. Some of his facts are just plain wrong--the Battle of Gettysburg took place in 1865??? Really? And Thomas Paine supported the Constitution of 1787? Uh-huh. When Brits decide to pontificate upon American history, they could at least look up the details to get it right. Also, Norton has apparently quit employing editors, as shown by the following lovely sentence:
"In the Beatles song Yesterday on the the word "trouble" has and old French/Latin root, troubler/trubidare." Yes, that is exactly how it appears.
Very disappointing.
"In the Beatles song Yesterday on the the word "trouble" has and old French/Latin root, troubler/trubidare." Yes, that is exactly how it appears.
Very disappointing.
November 20, 2012
I see what McCrum was getting at and I think his premise is on the money. English, or something more or less like it, is becoming the default spoken and written form for a diaspora of many people, tied by a common need to communicate comprehensibly.
But Globish isn't the book it could have, or should have, been. It's interesting enough and there are a number of interesting anecdotes and points made throughout, but it lacks a strong central narrative beyond the idea of Globish itself to tie it together. Globish, and its story needed to be the protagonist, the hero of the story, making a fundamental difference the world over. I think McCrum would like us to believe so, but the story is not well enough told to be entirely convincing nor un-putdownable.
Globish took me a lot longer to read than it ought, and it was because the story being told didn't suck me in nearly as much as it should have.
If you're at all interested in language as a phenomenon, you should certainly read Globish. Just don't expect to be blown away.
But Globish isn't the book it could have, or should have, been. It's interesting enough and there are a number of interesting anecdotes and points made throughout, but it lacks a strong central narrative beyond the idea of Globish itself to tie it together. Globish, and its story needed to be the protagonist, the hero of the story, making a fundamental difference the world over. I think McCrum would like us to believe so, but the story is not well enough told to be entirely convincing nor un-putdownable.
Globish took me a lot longer to read than it ought, and it was because the story being told didn't suck me in nearly as much as it should have.
If you're at all interested in language as a phenomenon, you should certainly read Globish. Just don't expect to be blown away.
May 22, 2018
If you're looking for an exhaustive and in-depth history of the English language this is the not book you want. If you want a quick read that touches on a lot of topics and answers a lot of nagging questions you've always wondered about how things got to be the way they are today then this *is* the book for you! The book's organization could be tweaked a little to flow better but otherwise I found it an enjoyable read and worth the time.
January 31, 2016
I assumed that a book about English would be written in fairly good English, but boy, was I wrong. Globish appears to have been the victim of some dastardly comma heist, creating these garden path sentences that only lead somewhere after several re-readings. Information is repeated needlessly, and there are several pages that are just fact- and quotation-dumps that lack deeper exploration or connection to the greater thesis.
But there's the main problem with this book — it doesn't have a greater thesis. The term 'globish' is never fully defined, and it is never articulated how exactly it differs from English used globally. The first half of the book is a hodgepodge of facts and anecdotes about the history of England and the United States, jumping around through time and space from invasion to revolution without giving an adequate explanation of how these events contributed to the development of the English language. The second half of the book reads like it was search-engine optimized for the lover of millennial buzzwords. You can hardly get through a paragraph without hearing about outsourcing, globalization, the IT revolution, the web, the net, and 'txting' (I was born in 1991 and I have never heard anyone refer to texting as 'txting.' It doesn't even make sense as an abbreviation).
When the subtitle of a book is 'how the English language became the world's language,' then by the time you've read through it, you should be able to say how the English language became the world's language. So how did it? I have no idea. I could take a stab at it, and say it's something to do with the British being really good at imperialism and America being really good at Hollywood and not being destroyed by World War II, and it probably helped that English only has 26 letters in the alphabet to remember compared to the tens of thousands that Chinese has... but ultimately McCrum never really says how it happened. The book is basically a list of whats, and whos, and wheres, with no whys or hows — Thing A happened, then Thing B, then Thing C, and now lots of not-English people speak English! Hooray! English forever!
But there's the main problem with this book — it doesn't have a greater thesis. The term 'globish' is never fully defined, and it is never articulated how exactly it differs from English used globally. The first half of the book is a hodgepodge of facts and anecdotes about the history of England and the United States, jumping around through time and space from invasion to revolution without giving an adequate explanation of how these events contributed to the development of the English language. The second half of the book reads like it was search-engine optimized for the lover of millennial buzzwords. You can hardly get through a paragraph without hearing about outsourcing, globalization, the IT revolution, the web, the net, and 'txting' (I was born in 1991 and I have never heard anyone refer to texting as 'txting.' It doesn't even make sense as an abbreviation).
When the subtitle of a book is 'how the English language became the world's language,' then by the time you've read through it, you should be able to say how the English language became the world's language. So how did it? I have no idea. I could take a stab at it, and say it's something to do with the British being really good at imperialism and America being really good at Hollywood and not being destroyed by World War II, and it probably helped that English only has 26 letters in the alphabet to remember compared to the tens of thousands that Chinese has... but ultimately McCrum never really says how it happened. The book is basically a list of whats, and whos, and wheres, with no whys or hows — Thing A happened, then Thing B, then Thing C, and now lots of not-English people speak English! Hooray! English forever!
August 29, 2013
Robert McCrum's "Globish: How the English Language Became the World's Language", narrated by James Langton is about the history of the English language and it's rise as the new "Lingua Franca".
The English language, in it's many forms has become the major language of international commerce, science and the internet. According to wiki, only Mandarin and Spanish have more native speakers than English. Perhaps more people speak English as their primary or secondary language than any other language in the world than Mandarin Chinese. Finally, George Weber, weighing six factors in his 1997 article "TOP LANGUAGES: The World's 10 Most Influential Languages" lists English as the most 'influential' language in the world.
The book is a somewhat random walk around England, English history, the English language, and an even more random discussion on some of the major international adopters of English language. It seemed to me to be meant as entertainment rather than a nuanced educational book. Additionally, the many accents used by the narrator seemed to me to be a bit unnecessary. And occasionally, seemed jarring.
All in all, I found it a worthwhile effort, but fairly shallow. I do agree with one comment though in the book. Those born into the English speaking world are winner's in the language lottery.
The English language, in it's many forms has become the major language of international commerce, science and the internet. According to wiki, only Mandarin and Spanish have more native speakers than English. Perhaps more people speak English as their primary or secondary language than any other language in the world than Mandarin Chinese. Finally, George Weber, weighing six factors in his 1997 article "TOP LANGUAGES: The World's 10 Most Influential Languages" lists English as the most 'influential' language in the world.
The book is a somewhat random walk around England, English history, the English language, and an even more random discussion on some of the major international adopters of English language. It seemed to me to be meant as entertainment rather than a nuanced educational book. Additionally, the many accents used by the narrator seemed to me to be a bit unnecessary. And occasionally, seemed jarring.
All in all, I found it a worthwhile effort, but fairly shallow. I do agree with one comment though in the book. Those born into the English speaking world are winner's in the language lottery.
February 22, 2017
That English, with its imperfect set of rules, could be the ideal language for the average new global person is a very interesting concept indeed. Created from the bottom up rather than from the top down as snobbish French or Latin were, certainly sets a great foundation to the argument.
In large part, the book is a historic recollection more than a technical white paper on the logic behind the author's argument. Thus, it feels a little diluted while still an entertaining read.
In large part, the book is a historic recollection more than a technical white paper on the logic behind the author's argument. Thus, it feels a little diluted while still an entertaining read.
February 1, 2018
An insightful, well-written and entertaining romp through the evolution of the English language. McCrum provides his readers with a vast display of knowledge in the fields of history, literature, politics, media and internet to name just few. Well worth reading.
August 13, 2017
A delightful walk through world history and development of the modern lingua franca, the English language. Not too deep, but interesting enough and pleasant to listen to.
March 1, 2019
How did a tiny island, beset by wave after wave of conquerors, become the dominant power of one century, and then one of its colonies become the dominant power of another? Language.
Globish explores how English became English, how it spread, and how American English took over the world. The author also explores how a new kind of global English – Globish – will continue to conquer.
This is a fun story about language and its impact. The fact that English is so adaptable and eager to swipe words from other languages, that it’s the language of the people instead of the academy, is why it’s been so successful.
There are many anecdotes and signposts to the future of the language. Some posit that Chinese, on sheer numbers, will overtake English, but the writer makes a good case against it.
Admittedly, you have to be a bit of a language nerd to appreciate this book, but if you are, you’ll delight at it.
Read more of my reviews at Ralphsbooks.
Globish explores how English became English, how it spread, and how American English took over the world. The author also explores how a new kind of global English – Globish – will continue to conquer.
This is a fun story about language and its impact. The fact that English is so adaptable and eager to swipe words from other languages, that it’s the language of the people instead of the academy, is why it’s been so successful.
There are many anecdotes and signposts to the future of the language. Some posit that Chinese, on sheer numbers, will overtake English, but the writer makes a good case against it.
Admittedly, you have to be a bit of a language nerd to appreciate this book, but if you are, you’ll delight at it.
Read more of my reviews at Ralphsbooks.
March 22, 2012
I bought this because I wanted something breezy, non-fictional and read in an English accent to accompany me on my walk to the park.
I got that, so I ought not complain.
However, anyone looking for a deep understanding of the spread of English, rigorous scholarship, or even well organised thought will be sorely disappointed.
What we get instead is a survey of the English language so broad as the be trite more often than not, several interesting anecdotes, and some gross oversimplification, like this clanger,
"Ireland had been at war with Britain for eight centuries. In the 1990s a deep ancient enmity became anaesthetised by globish consumerism; Gap jeans, Benton fashion and Dell computers."
Well, yes, but...
I got that, so I ought not complain.
However, anyone looking for a deep understanding of the spread of English, rigorous scholarship, or even well organised thought will be sorely disappointed.
What we get instead is a survey of the English language so broad as the be trite more often than not, several interesting anecdotes, and some gross oversimplification, like this clanger,
"Ireland had been at war with Britain for eight centuries. In the 1990s a deep ancient enmity became anaesthetised by globish consumerism; Gap jeans, Benton fashion and Dell computers."
Well, yes, but...
September 30, 2017
4.5 stars to be exact
January 7, 2020
Very insightful book.
July 4, 2010
Globish is an ambitious book - it tries to provide a "biography" of the English language from its origins to its spread as a global lingua franca. Unfortunately, it doesn't fully achieve its goal, and fizzles out in platitudes and anecdotes rather than insights.
The term "Globish" was originally coined in 1995 to refer to the English employed as the default lingua franca for business and government that emerged in the late 20th century; but it seems the author now wants "Globish" to means something broader. Globish is the global reach of the BBC and Hollywood. Globish the fractured half-language studied by millions of Chinese and Indians as a ticket to the middle class. Globish is the "-ishes" of Konglish, Singlish, Spanglish, etc. Globish is the nearly grammar-less argot of a couple thousand words that enables travelers to ask "how much?" at any airport in the world. It seems Globish is any manifestation of English anywhere in the world.
This lack of focus opens the book to a wide-ranging discussion in which just about any topic can fit. Thus the book starts out with the history of English, then describes the story of its spread around the world, then concludes with a collection of anecdotes about the role English plays in other countries in the present day.
Much of the book is about the development of English, and its historical context. A great deal of the historical discussion focuses on key individuals and literature, which in my opinion make the most interesting reading. The author doesn't get bogged down with challenging linguistic concepts. We do read about English's troubled orthography and the vowel shift of Middle English, but the linguistic examples are basic word origins and phonetics. Once you're past Shakespeare, the only linguistic examples you'll encounter are loan words like "jungle" and "kangaroo."
A book covering 2000 years of linguistic history inevitably moves through the story at varying levels of depth. It's easy to disagree with the author's choices of the events and characters that are most important to the story, but the author is generally a good story-teller, and any reader will pick up some interesting bits of history and word origins. However at times, the author only tells part of a story, as though the reader already knows the basic story well enough. For example, we hear that African explorer David Livingstone died "on his knees," but have to go outside the book to learn that he wasn't killed, but was praying when he died of malaria.
I was disappointed by the book's factual errors. Most American high school students would know that Lincoln was assassinated in April of 1865, so it would have been a miracle if he had delivered the Gettysburg address in November that year, as one reads in Globish. Regarding World War II, we read that in 1940, Hitler, contemplating the Battle of Britain, knew that "If Russia were defeated, England would have no ally, and America, fully preoccupied with the war against Japan in the Pacific, would offer no help." Of course, the United States only entered the war after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Other mistakes, misquotes, and not-quite-right facts crop up intermittently.
The stories at the end of the book tend to echo Thomas Friedman's book, The World is Flat. (The author refers to and quotes Friedman frequently.) So you get a lot of anecdotes along the lines of "person from country X meets person from country Y in country Z, and since they don't speak each other's language, they use English." The question is, so what? The author mentions people who have speculated about what globalization means for the future of English, but there's no clear picture, just stories.
Overall, a general message gets through - over the past several centuries, historical events have helped English spread to other parts of the world, and the language was enriched in the process, despite purists that resisted change. Historical events, economic development, and technological change have introduced a need for a global second language, and English turns out to have been best positioned for the job. Today, the popularity and adaptability of the language enable it to serve as a global lingua franca.
Globish takes on a hard task - the "biography" of a language. The bibliography and end notes show how much there is to the story, and how difficult it is to distill it into a few hundred pages for the general reader. The book tells some good stories, but they suffer from the occasional blooper, as well as the author's failure to deliver a cohesive concept of "Globishness."
The term "Globish" was originally coined in 1995 to refer to the English employed as the default lingua franca for business and government that emerged in the late 20th century; but it seems the author now wants "Globish" to means something broader. Globish is the global reach of the BBC and Hollywood. Globish the fractured half-language studied by millions of Chinese and Indians as a ticket to the middle class. Globish is the "-ishes" of Konglish, Singlish, Spanglish, etc. Globish is the nearly grammar-less argot of a couple thousand words that enables travelers to ask "how much?" at any airport in the world. It seems Globish is any manifestation of English anywhere in the world.
This lack of focus opens the book to a wide-ranging discussion in which just about any topic can fit. Thus the book starts out with the history of English, then describes the story of its spread around the world, then concludes with a collection of anecdotes about the role English plays in other countries in the present day.
Much of the book is about the development of English, and its historical context. A great deal of the historical discussion focuses on key individuals and literature, which in my opinion make the most interesting reading. The author doesn't get bogged down with challenging linguistic concepts. We do read about English's troubled orthography and the vowel shift of Middle English, but the linguistic examples are basic word origins and phonetics. Once you're past Shakespeare, the only linguistic examples you'll encounter are loan words like "jungle" and "kangaroo."
A book covering 2000 years of linguistic history inevitably moves through the story at varying levels of depth. It's easy to disagree with the author's choices of the events and characters that are most important to the story, but the author is generally a good story-teller, and any reader will pick up some interesting bits of history and word origins. However at times, the author only tells part of a story, as though the reader already knows the basic story well enough. For example, we hear that African explorer David Livingstone died "on his knees," but have to go outside the book to learn that he wasn't killed, but was praying when he died of malaria.
I was disappointed by the book's factual errors. Most American high school students would know that Lincoln was assassinated in April of 1865, so it would have been a miracle if he had delivered the Gettysburg address in November that year, as one reads in Globish. Regarding World War II, we read that in 1940, Hitler, contemplating the Battle of Britain, knew that "If Russia were defeated, England would have no ally, and America, fully preoccupied with the war against Japan in the Pacific, would offer no help." Of course, the United States only entered the war after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Other mistakes, misquotes, and not-quite-right facts crop up intermittently.
The stories at the end of the book tend to echo Thomas Friedman's book, The World is Flat. (The author refers to and quotes Friedman frequently.) So you get a lot of anecdotes along the lines of "person from country X meets person from country Y in country Z, and since they don't speak each other's language, they use English." The question is, so what? The author mentions people who have speculated about what globalization means for the future of English, but there's no clear picture, just stories.
Overall, a general message gets through - over the past several centuries, historical events have helped English spread to other parts of the world, and the language was enriched in the process, despite purists that resisted change. Historical events, economic development, and technological change have introduced a need for a global second language, and English turns out to have been best positioned for the job. Today, the popularity and adaptability of the language enable it to serve as a global lingua franca.
Globish takes on a hard task - the "biography" of a language. The bibliography and end notes show how much there is to the story, and how difficult it is to distill it into a few hundred pages for the general reader. The book tells some good stories, but they suffer from the occasional blooper, as well as the author's failure to deliver a cohesive concept of "Globishness."
September 11, 2010
Beware, David Crystal: You have a silver medal competitor in McCrum – who co-wrote the phenomenal The Story of English back in the 80s. In just under three hundred pages, McCrum does an amazing job not just recounting the history of our mother tongue from as far back as the Anglo-Saxon period in England during the first millennium, but explains the amazing story of how our language has become a truly global language with dozens of dynamic variants that can be found in all four corners of our globe.
McCrum states it succinctly when he comments:
"The making of a recognizable Englishness, the painful transition to Anglo-Saxon “Englaland”, is a history of four invasions and a cultural revolution. English, of course, is not unique. French, German and Russian all have obscure and violent origins. But English was slightly different, by virtue of its location. English was a mirror to its island sate, an idiosyncratic mixture of splendid isolation and humiliating foreign occupation. On the positive side, the first invasion, by the Romans, connected the island to a European Latin tradition that would linger for more than a thousand years. The second, b the Anglo-Saxons, established an independent vernacular culture. The third invasion, b the Vikings, would inspire a strong sense of national identity. Each contributed to the mongrel character of English culture, a quality that plays well in a multicultural world…Finally, all these upheavals would be trumped by the Norman Conquest, the mother of all invasions."
Although English isn’t inherently superior as a language (it lacks quite a bit of complexity compared to many Native American and African languages), there are distinct advantages that it has – a simpler grammar than many, a fortuitous lack of gender articles (definite and indefinite) that don’t need to be memorized, among other features. It also has had a recent history since the Enlightenment of being globalized first by the English through their late Empire, and more recently since the World Wars by its American version by way of worldwide commerce, both cultural and political. The “flattening” of the world, as so aptly observed by Thomas Friedman, has guaranteed the ascension of English into Globish.
McCrum, while directly commenting on the irony of anti-US sentiment abroad, also indirectly challenges the fear-mongering of the English-only proponents, who fear the subjugation of our mother tongue – the latter of which is demagoguery in action, if you ask me.
"Estimates that about half the world’s population – approximately 4 billion people – have knowledge of, or acquaintance with, some kind of English point to an aspiration driven by the deepest, most ancient impulse for a global community. Radical and dissenters who demonstrate to save the planet or against US military ‘adventurism’ will never take to the streets to promote a Globish agenda. They do not have to. Every time protestors parade English-language placards in front of television cameras they are advancing the cause of Globish."
English is far from being in any danger here in the States. Take it from me: All my Spanish-speaking families fully expect their children to be fluent in English, and frequently express concern for their children to be able to speak it without an accent. (They also expect them to be able to speak Spanish at home, but have never demanded Spanish-only classes in our public schools – despite what some wing-nuts from reactionary right would like us to believe.)
In a world that seems a little bit crazy with xenophobic tendencies here in the States, and contrasted with seemingly on-going anti-US Imperialism sentiment abroad, McCrum reassures us that English is and will be the lingua franca for the foreseeable future. If Mexico recently passed an education law mandating English to be taught as a second language in all of its public schools, and with the largest population of any country in China with more than half speaking English as a second language, English really is all about the future. And what an interesting future it will be.
McCrum states it succinctly when he comments:
"The making of a recognizable Englishness, the painful transition to Anglo-Saxon “Englaland”, is a history of four invasions and a cultural revolution. English, of course, is not unique. French, German and Russian all have obscure and violent origins. But English was slightly different, by virtue of its location. English was a mirror to its island sate, an idiosyncratic mixture of splendid isolation and humiliating foreign occupation. On the positive side, the first invasion, by the Romans, connected the island to a European Latin tradition that would linger for more than a thousand years. The second, b the Anglo-Saxons, established an independent vernacular culture. The third invasion, b the Vikings, would inspire a strong sense of national identity. Each contributed to the mongrel character of English culture, a quality that plays well in a multicultural world…Finally, all these upheavals would be trumped by the Norman Conquest, the mother of all invasions."
Although English isn’t inherently superior as a language (it lacks quite a bit of complexity compared to many Native American and African languages), there are distinct advantages that it has – a simpler grammar than many, a fortuitous lack of gender articles (definite and indefinite) that don’t need to be memorized, among other features. It also has had a recent history since the Enlightenment of being globalized first by the English through their late Empire, and more recently since the World Wars by its American version by way of worldwide commerce, both cultural and political. The “flattening” of the world, as so aptly observed by Thomas Friedman, has guaranteed the ascension of English into Globish.
McCrum, while directly commenting on the irony of anti-US sentiment abroad, also indirectly challenges the fear-mongering of the English-only proponents, who fear the subjugation of our mother tongue – the latter of which is demagoguery in action, if you ask me.
"Estimates that about half the world’s population – approximately 4 billion people – have knowledge of, or acquaintance with, some kind of English point to an aspiration driven by the deepest, most ancient impulse for a global community. Radical and dissenters who demonstrate to save the planet or against US military ‘adventurism’ will never take to the streets to promote a Globish agenda. They do not have to. Every time protestors parade English-language placards in front of television cameras they are advancing the cause of Globish."
English is far from being in any danger here in the States. Take it from me: All my Spanish-speaking families fully expect their children to be fluent in English, and frequently express concern for their children to be able to speak it without an accent. (They also expect them to be able to speak Spanish at home, but have never demanded Spanish-only classes in our public schools – despite what some wing-nuts from reactionary right would like us to believe.)
In a world that seems a little bit crazy with xenophobic tendencies here in the States, and contrasted with seemingly on-going anti-US Imperialism sentiment abroad, McCrum reassures us that English is and will be the lingua franca for the foreseeable future. If Mexico recently passed an education law mandating English to be taught as a second language in all of its public schools, and with the largest population of any country in China with more than half speaking English as a second language, English really is all about the future. And what an interesting future it will be.
July 7, 2010
Not having read anything else by McCrum, I was surprised at how many media outlets reviewed 'Globish.' It appears many are quite familiar with him from his stint as literary editor of The Observer, his bio of P.G. Wodehouse, and most especially his work on the late 80s PBS series, 'The Story of English' and its accompanying book.
While the reviews are generally favorable, there seems to be an uncomfortable and less enthusiatic consensus regarding McCrum's theory that 'Globish,' a simplified version of English used for international business communication is primed to take over as a world language.
There also is a general uneasiness with his view that the dominance of the English language is as much due to street cred as cultural imperialism.
To wit: "English has always had this subversive capacity to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds, to articulate the ideas of both government and opposition, to be the language of ordinary people as well as the language of power and authority, rock ’n’ roll and royal decree."
Whether you agree or not, reading that sentence might give you an idea of what pleasurable prose McCrum writes. And why I liked his book so much. The tale of our language's origins and transformation has been told by many others, but I found McCrum's recounting in 'Globish' more engaging and entertaining than the other pop chronicles I've read, Seth Lehrer's 'Inventing English,' and Bill Bryson's 'The Mother Tongue.' Considering my fondness for those works, that's high praise.
Despite the criticisms and even a dismissal by the delightfully crusty John McWhorter in The New Republic, I tend to think there is something there in McCrum's ideas. English is used almost everywhere, and it is seen on protest placards in unlikely places.
But who cares if McCrum is right or wrong about a Coca-Cola-ization of world culture, with a revolutionary underbelly? His breezy story-telling skills and allusions to literature, film, internet--everywhere and anywhere you find the language--made 'Globish' a blast to read.
Highly recommended.
While the reviews are generally favorable, there seems to be an uncomfortable and less enthusiatic consensus regarding McCrum's theory that 'Globish,' a simplified version of English used for international business communication is primed to take over as a world language.
There also is a general uneasiness with his view that the dominance of the English language is as much due to street cred as cultural imperialism.
To wit: "English has always had this subversive capacity to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds, to articulate the ideas of both government and opposition, to be the language of ordinary people as well as the language of power and authority, rock ’n’ roll and royal decree."
Whether you agree or not, reading that sentence might give you an idea of what pleasurable prose McCrum writes. And why I liked his book so much. The tale of our language's origins and transformation has been told by many others, but I found McCrum's recounting in 'Globish' more engaging and entertaining than the other pop chronicles I've read, Seth Lehrer's 'Inventing English,' and Bill Bryson's 'The Mother Tongue.' Considering my fondness for those works, that's high praise.
Despite the criticisms and even a dismissal by the delightfully crusty John McWhorter in The New Republic, I tend to think there is something there in McCrum's ideas. English is used almost everywhere, and it is seen on protest placards in unlikely places.
But who cares if McCrum is right or wrong about a Coca-Cola-ization of world culture, with a revolutionary underbelly? His breezy story-telling skills and allusions to literature, film, internet--everywhere and anywhere you find the language--made 'Globish' a blast to read.
Highly recommended.
August 22, 2010
Reviewers were charmed by Globish in much the same manner as McCrum is charmed by English. They found his book expansive yet incisive, erudite yet accessible, powerful yet disarmingly cheerful, if somewhat uneven when charting the history of English through the centuries. But few critics actually accepted the book's putative argument: that English is becoming Globish and that Globish will be the language of the world. Many reviewers noted that McCrum's definition of "Globish" is flexible at best, and a few seemed exasperated by McCrum's failure to examine critically the consequences of a dominant global tongue. Read Globish for its ruminations, facts, and anecdotes--but not for its conclusions. This is an excerpt from a review published in Bookmarks magazine.
June 26, 2013
I listened to half of the audiobook, which basically tracks the development of England and the USA with linguistics as its tentpole. It's interesting in theory, but I was bored by its structure, which is typical to any pop-non-fiction book with a lofty premise ("Didja know the history of the US can be traced through five types of shoes?!" "This is the story of how one itchy wig changed the entire tone of the Constitution" "HEY people in the old days liked sex and swearing so the ebb and flow of civilization DEPENDS on swearing!").
Didn't seem worth it to simply learn the obscure origins of several common English words.
Didn't seem worth it to simply learn the obscure origins of several common English words.
Read
December 30, 2022Contains the odd interesting historical anecdote, but you have to plow through triumphalist colonialist flourishes and essentialist characterisations of whole peoples. If you're interested in a broad history of language for general/non-specialist readers try Ostler's Empires of the Word instead:
Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World
Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World
Read
December 27, 2013Only last 2,5 chapters deal with the current situation of English's global dominance. And that was the reason I took the book in the first place. Despite its promising name first 12,5 chapters deal largely with the history of English. Interesting read, but still not exactly what I was looking for. Those of you how like me think that Globish is a subject of the XX-XXI centuries only beware - and thus forearmed - dash straight to the last 60 something pages ;)
August 17, 2010
Interesting that many examples used to argue his thesis and the language used to articulate those examples are extremely similar to what's in Bill Bryson's 1990 _The Mother Tongue_. There's no originality here.
December 14, 2017
Hmm. Started out strong, veered into cringingly superficial American history, and then...not entirely sure where it was going, and I didn't really care. Put it down a long time ago and have no interest in finishing it.
July 26, 2011
Disappointing. There seems to be little point to it other than the glorification of the English way of life. Not much of a linguistic or social history, very confused focus.
May 28, 2017
Abandoned on page 46 of 266. Supposedly about how English became a world language and we've just reached the Hundred Years War. More a general history of English, and not a particularly good one.
January 18, 2023
A history of English as a global force. The format was generally a smidge of history followed by several words that came out of that era, or a famous speech. The historical balance felt a little off, and there were areas that felt underserved. For example, of course 'sushi' comes from Japan, but when and why? How do we consider the word to have entered the globish lexicon? This is in comparison to words like 'wigwam' where it makes more sense when and why English speakers started using it. The idea of Globish quickly became annoying and overused.
All told, it felt like a rehash of well known historical events, with a little lexical knowledge scattered in between. It didn't feel worth listening to all of it.
All told, it felt like a rehash of well known historical events, with a little lexical knowledge scattered in between. It didn't feel worth listening to all of it.
May 11, 2020
For the most hard core fans of linguistics.
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