The Written Podcast: I Do Love The English Language

From an outsider, the English language is a masterpiece of complications. From an insider, the English language is a masterpiece of complications. There is virtually no winning. Then again, as an outsider to the Japanese language, it is difficult to understand, what with there being three alphabets, each with their own individual symbols, which can be used with any symbol from the other two alphabets to create a different word. Learning a different language as a whole is difficult for anyone except children as their brains are like a sponge and soak up everything they hear and/or do.

I would like to say my memory is good, and at times I’ve surprised people and even myself with how good my memory can be (at times) but I have to admit that I do not have an eidetic memory, so learning a new language would be a difficult task, especially from scratch. For those who have dedicated a lot of time in learning English and can make coherent sentences, that’s an achievement. They then apologise for how broken their English was, but in fairness, they do not need to apologise for anything, because I cannot speak in their native tongue as well as they’ve just demonstrated speaking in mine.

To pinpoint the extreme end of the complications regarding our English language (which I dare say can be shown synonymously in pretty much every language in the world), the following paragraph will be written a little differently - and when I say a little differently, I mean, borderline unreadable. English speakers will understand it, but for those outsiders, I’m not expecting you to, because I am showing them how difficult English can truly be if you dig deep into the inner mechanisms. From this point onwards, brace yourself, because you’ll be in for one heck of a ride.

Igh eye were two tell u just how crazee the English language can be; I wood have to right it down. Butt, even then, veteran speakers will find it difficult two reed in they’re head. Ewe’re probably wandering igh what u’re reeding is actually legible. Four me righting this, mi average words-per-minute has taken a dramatic decline. The idea fore this article came too mee whilst righting the article showing oghgh how silent letters are more common than some people believe them too bee. Eye’ve spent all weak visualising how best two right this article, and to some it up in won sentence: It’s easier said than done. Eye have spent years righting the English language the whey eye was taught to right it, so two deliberately sprinkle this paragragh with what is believed to be the wrong whey, go against meye natural programming, and eye pause at every word eye want two change, sumtimes having two backtrack threw the sentence two change the word eye want changed, as eye automatically type the correct word that fits this paragragh’s context. Althouou, rather paradoxically, the inconsistencies r what this paragraf’s context is pointing out.

Wow, that was harder than I thought it would be. As I wright these next two sentences, my words-per-minute immediately increase as I wright how I was taught to. It’s ingrained in my head that there is only one way to spell certain words, even though there are other words which are spelt different, but sound exactly the same. The three words, “there”, “their”, and “they’re” are constantly inserted wrongly into sentences. They mean completely different things, so we must use them correctly. Not wanting to get so philosophical, but those words can be described as a bunch of symbols attached together with a space at either end, with an assigned meaning attached. They sound the same, but because we’ve been taught their meanings, we cannot use them in any other way. English would completely fall apart if we used words and how they’re spelt willy-nilly. They’d be chaos in the streets, people rampaging supermarkets to stock up on as much food and drink as possible to shelter themselves from the impending protests in the streets.

OK, maybe a little exaggerated, and I’m not using this article as a means to try and go against the system, to start using our words the way we want to, so long as it makes sense… for context and coherency and for people to understand what we are saying, keep it as it is now, but English is constantly changing. English has evolved over time to be how it looks today, and it will change again at some point in the future. How it’ll change is anybody’s guess. Maybe they’ll take out all the silent letters as that does sound like the easiest change to make, especially since many people already do just that when texting on their phones, to save time.

Text Speak can be viewed as an entirely different language altogether. Shorten words down to be only their letter counterpart; but what makes that language different from every other, is the use of numbers as well. Inserting the correct phonetic-sounding number into a word saves time when needing to write out a long text message. In Text Speak, “m8” is considered an official word, and when translated into English, comes out as, “mate”. Many people disagree with the use of numbers as words, but their disagreement isn’t going to stop those who use that language, from using it.

I love the English language, and so I do not use Text Speak. Sure, it may be an easier language to learn from scratch compared to that of Japanese, but whilst I’ve grown to accept Text Speak when I get a message through formatted that way, I do hope that Text Speak stay within the realms of phones and occasionally computers, not seep into everyday English…

Then again, English isn’t technically original, as it is comprised of many other languages across the many ages, so maybe the possibility of Text Speak becoming the more generalised way we write isn’t too far from reality… but I will state here and now that I do love the English language as it is now, and in no other way.

Thanks for reading

Antony Hudson

(TonyHadNouns)