This post began life as a rumination on languages in general but my mind works in mysterious ways and it drifted off into wondering why and how English had become the world’s language.
For me my interest in languages began at school. We were taught French and then German. For some reason those were lessons which I enjoyed and found interesting while I was generally bored during other lessons. I have subsequently worked out that to learn a new language requires understanding and not just the memorisation of facts/information to be repeated during the end of term exams. Additionally there was something about languages that burrowed its way into my psyche.
After leaving school it was many years before I needed to use either of those, by now rusty, languages I had been taught by which time I had taught myself Spanish because I was working in Spain.
In my travels working in different parts of the world I have been called upon to deal with documents in six different languages, two of which I can’t speak. But somehow I’ve managed to navigate my way through it all with reasonable success (you can do anything if you put your mind to it.) In the process I now know that languages are strange things and it is very often difficult or impossible to make accurate translations from one to another; and that is before taking into account the problem of dialects/accents/slang etc. As an example I understand perfectly the meaning of the German word gegenüber but I couldn’t possibly translate it accurately into English.
Everywhere I went there were people who spoke English and often quite a lot of people. So how and why has that happened? I have seen and heard discussions on how the language has spread and the usual reasons are trotted out: the British Empire, the influence of Hollywood, the spread of English and American pop music etc.
But can I offer a different reason which has been overlooked and that is the Industrial Revolution which began in this country about 300 years ago and the mechanical and engineering innovations which followed were quickly developed and improved.
The rest of the world took notice and other countries were keen to share in this ‘new’ world. And this could be called the start of ‘the brain drain’ as British engineers and tradesmen took their skills to other parts of the world and where they went they took their language and culture with them as well as the new terminology associated with all those innovations.
In wondering about the spread of English this post was further extended to include some examples of how this ‘new’ world was assimilated into local cultures.
These examples are mostly from my own personal experience of things I have encountered on my travels.
First stop is Bilbao. Did you know there is a transporter bridge in Bilbao? It is a smaller version of the more famous one on Teesside. The story is that it was built by engineers and tradesmen from Sunderland and their influence can be seen in the local football team who are known as Athletic Bilbao. You will notice they use the English word in their name instead of the Spanish word Atletico. The club also received a complete set of football strips in Sunderland Football Club’s colours. Football is a working class sport and so those visiting workers would have been to see games there and during their time in the city would have become friends with the local supporters.
Across the Atlantic to South America where I worked for a year or so and the surprising discovery that there are hundreds of cricket clubs in the sub continent. There is even an international tournament with Brazil being the current champions.
And back to football again, one of the leading teams in Uruguay is Peñarol whose full title is Peñarol Athletic and Cricket Club. There is also a club called Liverpool, believe it or not and that is because in the 19th century and continuing into the 20th there was a regular arrival of merchant ships carry coal from the port of Liverpool in England.
Valparaiso in Chile is built on a hillside and so there are 22 funicular railways to help people cope with the steep hills. These railways were built over a number of years and they are identical to the similar railways built around the coast of the UK. They are even painted the same colour of red and white although I think they have been painted in different colours since my visit.
To this day there is a substantial British ‘colony’ living in the city. In 1892, the ‘Club de Deportes Santiago Wanderers’ was established, the oldest active sports club in Chile, founded by Chileans under British influence; in 1895, the Valparaíso Wanderers, consisting solely of English members, was formed although there was a name change to Santiago Wanderers at some point but I’m not sure when.
Another sport introduced by the British was horse racing and I recall going to the races every Friday evening in the neighbouring town of Viña del Mar. and introducing an Argentine colleague to the joys of occasional unearned income.
About an hour’s drive south from Valparaiso is Isla Negra the location of one of Pablo Neruda’s houses. Neruda was a Nobel Prize winner and is regarded as Chile’s national poet. The house is a sort of tourist attraction and is well worth a visit, not least for its splendid views of the Pacific ocean. When visiting the first thing you will see is a splendid old steam engine. It was built in Lincoln, England in 1865 by Robey and co. who were famous as builders of steam engines.
Inside the house I heard a tour guide explaining to a group of visitors that Neruda was a collector of ship’s figureheads “..including the one from the ship of the famous English pirate Henry Morgan.”
Argentina has or had the one and only branch of Harrod’s. It was closed in 1998 and there have been various attempts to re-open it. You can read a potted history of the store here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrods_Buenos_Aires .And we must mention the football because the two leading teams in Buenos Aires have English names; River Plate and Boca Juniors. The name River Plate was chosen because of an incident during the construction of Buenos Aires Port: one of the members had seen how the workers of Dique nº 3 left their duties for a while to play a football match. The boxes they were working with just said “The River Plate” (the word Dique in this context means embankment or sea wall.)
Also in Buenos Aires in the La Recoleta district there are British red telephone boxes designed by Giles Gilbert Scott. I cannot find any information on how and why they are there but they are a further example of British cultural influence.
While I was in Chile I was working for a German engineering company, one of their leading engineering companies in fact. I was told that all of their overseas work was conducted in the English.
And many years ago I was told by an American girl that airlines make inflight announcements in English because it is the language that most people would be likely to understand.
In compiling these stories of the spread of the English language and British culture I have concentrated on South America because it is somewhere I know reasonably well having worked there a few years ago; but also because it is relatively free from Britain’s imperial ambitions.
So it was left to British engineers, tradesmen, merchant seamen and traders of all kinds to leave a favourable impression of Britain and the British on the people of the sub continent. It must have been favourable otherwise they would not have adopted so readily our language and pastimes.
