While talk of English losing its official status as an EU language may be exaggerated, could a consequence of Britain's absence from the Union be that British English will lose its priviledge of being the automatic choice for the classroom?
I heard, and I can't remember where exactly, that there was pressure from the EU to ensure British English was the standard in EU (and by extension EEA) classrooms - what with Britain being a member state. Does anyone know if this is/was the case?
With Britain's withdrawal (and the real possibility of No-Deal), does this then mean that another consequence of Brexit could be the adoption of US English in the classroom? Many people might well prefer this having more affinity with US culture than that of the UK.
Could it be another step towards British irrelevance on the world stage, with the langauge of Shakespeare being cleaved from his homeland?
I hate Brexit but I don't think English will be diminished, on the contrary I think it will expand much more and lot more EU countries will increase their exposure to the English language.
English was and is the most common language to communicate with others, also pop culture among other cultures is fully dominated by English. So the importance of English as is today will not change, and the education system has recognised this for a long time which is why English is the dominant language when it comes to learning another language at school.
As for changing it to US English, I do not see this happening, for this to change they should change all books, tests and exams nationwide at the exact same moment due to exams being made on national level, way to expensive and to much of a hassle and it simply would make no sense to do so.
That has never been the case. The only reason that English is so relevant now is because the US. Keep in mind that French was the language of the world a 100 years ago. British English has only been important in countries in the British Empire.
Sure it would be expensive and a hassle, it wouldn't be an overnight change. But why would people want to continue to learn the form of English of an inward-looking country sliding into irrelevance. Many Swiss and European learners have little to no interest in British culture or any interest in living or working in the UK so will they change focus - towards the US, or even create a EuroEnglish?
But that's not true. Kids all over Europe learn British Standard English. Adult learners in Language Schools in Switzerland learn British Standard English. Cambridge provides examinations all over the world. British English is not confined to former colonies.
No one in Europe ever learnt or ever will learn hillbilly English, which is the US version. Differences are not that big so might as well learn the proper way of speaking it.
In the grand scheme of things I think the issue is pretty insignificant. English is English and it doesn’t matter if people spell it ‘color’ or ‘colour’ or talk about a sidewalk or a pavement. In Switzerland there’s a hotch potch of English anyway caused by people going to either the UK, Oz, the US or other English-speaking parts of the world on language exchanges.
I think Europe has got more pressing issues than getting in a flap over what type of English the use to communicate.
Not so long ago French was the lingua franca of the Organisation that became the EU. Ironically it wasn8217;t the British joining that changed this, it was those Western European counties that were already familiar with English as the most prevalent second language.
It is very doubtful that all the eurocrats in Brussels (or Strasbourg or Luxembourg) will change their means of community because of Brexit.
English is also the language of the United Nations, Aviation, Computers, etc.
Over the years we will see the different Englishes coming together because of what we watch on TV.
But not to worry as more and more yanks are now speaking Canadian English because their network TV has been hiring Canadian news presenters, etc. (because of their neutral accents).
But that's the issue, it would have to be an "overnight" change.
Exams are made on national level, and the same exam is given on all schools (tho on diff difficulty levels), students have to learn for what is on the exam, so nationwide they would have to introduce something new in all classes, the only distribution in this would be if they decide to do it in steps so students don't have a change in English if they for example go from second to 3rd class. But since people skip classes, or have to redo them, and some systems take 4 yrs for the same exam as where other systems will take 3 or 5 yrs they can never streamline such unless actually giving diff exams for the same thing (which I see never happening)
Now on the very long term and due to youth taking so many things from movies and music, it might be that in the far future UK English will adapt so much from US English that eventually the languages grow together in a way a lot of English would at this moment find disgusting
I'm sorry, I didn't realise that EF was only for discussing significant issues. So now you've put your rubber stamp on it, does that mean discussion over? If all we has to talk about were significant things then life would not be as interesting.
You are right that from a communicative perspective (and at the end of the day is that not what language is for) it doesn't matter which form is used, but for all the Brexiteers out there, I wondered how they felt about their historic dialect potentially being usurped.
This has been happening since movies started coming out of the US wholesale back in the 40s and 50s. Most Brits use Americanisms daily without even noticing it. The most recent Ive noticed since leaving the UK is that people say goosebumps now instead of the British version, goosepimples, and say butt instead of bum. But there are dozens of every-day words and phrases which have already crossed the pond. All languages develop and change over generations.