Learn English – The influence of non-native speakers on the English language

grammarnon-native-english

I can’t lay my hands on the reference, but David Crystal has reported an increase in the use of informations by native speakers, as a result of its use by non-native speakers. The OED has 59 citations showing its use.

@Barrie England (link)

Recently, I posted a question hinting that the non-native speakers' request: "How do you call [it]?", was slowly becoming more common even among native speakers, even Barak Obama (one of the most eloquent orators in today's politics) used this construction in a recent speech held in Germany.

  • What expressions by non-native speakers are being used/adopted by English native speakers today?
  • How has global English affected “English as she is spoke” by BrEng, AmEng and AusEng speakers?

Best Answer

This is a very broad question, even if we limit ourselves to changes within the last, say 20 years or so. I'll make a start, though, working from first principles.

Two extremes of learning a language are memorise everything independently and find general rules. The first can lead to difficulties with new words or contexts, while the second tends to generalise too broadly, leading to instances such as your example of informations constructed as a plural of information. Where a student is surrounded by corrective influences such as competent teachers, this can mature to generalisation plus exceptions, which tends to lead to greater fluency. In the absence of corrective influences, however, it is possible for instances of incorrect generalisation to become established in local populations. Over time, this can migrate further afield, particularly if those local populations become recognised authorities in some field.

A second tendency in learning new languages is word-for-word translation, leading to the how do you call it phrase, presumably borrowed from languages such as French, Spanish or German. Examples include various instances of 'ethnic-speak', such as Finglish (Finnish + English) and Chinglish (Chinese + English).

A third tendency is to simplify grammatical structures based on structures in the native languages. An example is the tendency of native Russian speakers to drop articles (a, an, the) in English. Of course, some languages have more complex grammar than English, but if the complexity cannot be expressed in English because English isn't sufficiently expressive in that way, then the complexity tends to get lost in translation (literally).

Putting these all together produces a simpler, more grammatically uniform version of English. That has been the tendency historically, and it is perhaps natural for this to continue in modern times.

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