1380984377.3491A History of English Language

A history of the english language 304
vantages of English for communication both internally and internationally, are sufficient
to overcome the reluctance toward using a colonial language. Swahili is the official
language in Tanzania, but government business is routinely transacted in English. Some
nations have deferred making the choice of an official language and continue to use
English simultaneously with one or more of the African languages. Even more complex
than the choice of an official language is the question of a standard. Among speakers who
learn English as a second language there will inevitably be a wide range of varieties, from
pidgin at one extreme to a written standard of international acceptability at the other.
Because many speakers know no English and many know only the patois of the
marketplace, West African English is remarkable for its varieties. With as yet no
identifiable West African standard, graders of examinations often have difftculty drawing
the line between an incorrect answer and a local variant. Such practicalities illustrate the
larger philosophical problem of correctness and acceptability in varieties of English that
diverge markedly from the international Standard English of educated speakers in Great
Britain, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and many
speakers in the West African countries. The question of whether a West African standard
will emerge, and if so, whether such a standard is desirable and should be taught, evoke a
wide range of answers that reflect a bewildering diversity of opinion concerning language
and its use. 23
Examples from Nigerian English illustrate the distinctions that must be made in
describing a regional or national standard. We have seen differences in pronunciation
among standard British dialects, and in Chapter 11 we shall see an even more basic set of
differences between British English and American English. It is to be expected that the
standard dialects of English throughout the world will vary according to settlement
history and the local linguistic influences that are at work. In Nigeria the phonological
systems of the languages spoken as first languages by the great majority of people—
Yoruba and Igbo and in the South and Hausa in the North—have contributed to the
distinctive Nigerian accent. Vowel harmony in Igbo, for example, causes follow to be
pronounced with the same back vowel in both syllables: Hausa speakers tend to
break up consonant clusters by inserting a vowel, so that screw becomes [s u k u ru]. The
smaller number of vowel contrasts in the
23
Cf. the contrasting views in M.A.K. Halliday, Angus Mclntosh, and Peter Strevens, The
Linguistic Sciences and Language Teaching (London, 1964), pp. 203−4 et passim; C.H.Prator,
“The British Heresy in TEFL,” in Language Problems of Developing Nations, ed. Joshua A.
Fishman et al. (New York, 1968), pp. 459–76; J.H.Sledd, “Un-American English Reconsidered,”
American Speech, 48 (1973), 46–53; and K.A.Sey, Ghanaian English: An Exploratory Survey
(London, 1973).