The Prodigal Tongue - Hardcover

Abley, Mark

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0434013900 ISBN 13: 9780434013906

Publisher: William Heinemann Ltd, 2008

Synopsis

English has unarguably become the world's dominant language. And languages die out every decade. But what is the future of today's languages? "The Prodigal Tongue" explores the wild, wacky, and sometimes baffling road the English language is taking in its astonishing evolution and reveals the extraordinary vernaculars of the world. For example, did you know that the newly-minted term in Japanese for visiting Tokyo's Disneyland translates as 'flogging the mouse?' Were you aware that words now move across languages not over decades but at a cut-and-paste speed?Beginning with the eye-popping prediction that by 2015, half of the world's population will be busy learning English or speaking it, Mark Abley turns his eagle eye on how English is roaming wild around the world, sucking in words, vacuum-cleaner style, from wherever it can get them. Whether you're speaking it as a first language in London, or a third in Singapore, you are by necessity affected by English's breakbeat rate of change. From hip-hop lyrics to text messages and blogs, from the effects of global and Asian English to Spanglish, the author investigates what the future is likely to hold for the ways in which we communicate. The result is an irresistible journey around the linguistic globe, stimulating, provocative and intelligent, and constantly open to the vitality and playful invention that make languages what they are. Evocative and thoughtful, yet always lively, this is a book for anyone who cherishes the words we use.

About this title

About the Author

Mark Abley, winner of Canada's National Newspaper Award, has written for the TLS and the Guardian among other publications. He is the author of one other book on language - the acclaimed Spoken Here, as well as three books of poetry.

From the Inside Flap

English has unarguably become the world's dominant language. And languages die out every decade. But what is the future of today's languages?

Is it simply more of the same? Are languages doomed to lose much of their local flavour? Are 'creoles' - or merged languages, such as 'Spanglish' - merely a by-product of colonialism, and destined to die out? Or could they even become threats to 'English' one day? In Mark Abley's fascinating new book, he seeks out and listens to individuals. He visits a school in Toronto where the children speak more than 140 different mother tongues; investigates how African American Vernacular English, also known as Ebonics, is spreading out of American inner cities and into the suburbs; he asks what the unmistakeable slip toawards informality and the growth of acronyms tell us about the lingusitic future; and he explores the new languages of mobile phone texting and online chat rooms, asking if they can really be considered to be an enrichment of language.

Future Language argues that the best reason to fear for language is not a supposed decline in grammatical standards but rather a rise in mutual incomprehensibility. While English has far more speakers than any other language, it also has many more words, which are often abbreviated, corrupted, or otherwise privatised to create registers understandable to the few, rather than the many. The result is an irresistable journey around the linguistic globe, stimulating, provocative and intelligent, and constantly open to the vitality and playful invention that make languages what they are.

Edition details

• Publisher: William Heinemann Ltd
• Publication date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0434013900
• ISBN 13: 9780434013906
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 272