ACE                           The English Empire                Update on 04 November 2006

In its day the Roman Empire was the largest empire that the world had ever seen.  The empire originated from a society that was competent in both academia and military matters.  The military aspect of the empire has long since waned, but the academic aspect has remained in a number of societies.  Most notable of the academic residue is the language that the Romans donated to the world.  Latin is used by the Church, and by the scientific community in naming animals and plants in a unambiguous manner.  It is also used as an adjunct to the Anglo-Saxon root language.  Reasonably-educated folk often use a Latin tag to complement basic English words   English commonly takes words from other tongues where a specific meaning is required that is missing in our basic language.  Urdu, Eskimo, Australian-Aborigine, and many other languages have donated words to the British lexicon.  One of the more recent collections is the word 'schadenfreude' taken from German.  During WW2 we adopted many German words to enrich our vocabulary;  words like ersatz and blitzkrieg, as well as some words we thought-of as humorous: words like verboten and achtung, 

All sorts of plants and animal species have names that vary depending on where the creature is found.  But the scholar has a name that is recognised worldwide.  The fact that Latin is not a spoken language any more, removes the evolution-factor that plagues all the other languages.  It is highly probable that a particular type of microbe that has a Latin name now, will have the same name in a hundred years time.

Latin is the truly international language.  There is a case on record of a Polish priest and a Spanish priest who happened to meet each other in an isolated environment.  Neither man had any knowledge of the other's language, or of English.  The only common tongue was Latin.  The conversation between the two men was very stilted, as Church-Latin has very few words that relate to the modern society.  But the two managed a limited conversation.

But both men were inventive enough to hold a conversation using the basics of that ancient language.  Like the Syrian sergeant who explained to me that his family name was Jesus.  "My father name; you God his baby".  It took me a moment or two to work out what he meant.   What didn't help is that "Jesus" is pronounced totally different in Arabic.  It is closer to "Issau".  This Muslim soldier knew enough about Christianity to invent a way of telling me his surname in a way that I could understand.

But let's leave Latin and Arabic behind and think about the English language.  That leads to more speculation about other Biblical names and their pronunciation.  Have you ever heard "Mary" pronounced in Hebrew?  To the  English ear it had no similarity at all.

The English Empire.  Mention the title to most Americans and they will say:
"Don't you mean 'The British Empire?'
You reply "No, the English Empire.  You know the empire of our language that you belong to".  It is at that point you may well spark a glint of knowledge that had never crossed his mind before.  It is not that he didn't know that the English language originally came from England, it is just so much taken for granted that the language that they speak is called 'English'.  I met this very point at my first visit to the USA.  The Senior Program manager at ITT Fort Wayne (and he must have been a very-well educated man) didn't understand the word 'fortnight' and I apologised and said that 'I speak English English'.  I was wrong, of course, I should have said 'British English', but I do believe that he had never thought about the origin of his language.  Why should he? I don't  normally think about the origin of most of the words I use in daily speech.

We are all very ignorant of what is obvious to many other people

But come back to the English Empire.  It is, without doubt, the international language.  A lot of its popularity is that aircraft and computing is the child of the USA.  Some Brits are very dismissive of US English, but I take a broader view.  Their spelling has many differences, and their vocabulary varies from the British, but if a Londoner travels to rural Derbyshire, he will hear words that are totally unknown to him.  I have a page on this website covering East Midland's words that I have never heard in London (except by displaced Midland folk; see page ACC). So if you accept that English has a number of variants within Britain, you can't object to an ex-colony having words that we don't normally use.  Probably the most notable one being "gotten".

To my knowledge there is only one word in our language that has a different meaning on each side of the Atlantic.  "An ACRONYM in British English  is a group of letters that make a pronounceable word, whereas in American English, the pronouncability requirement is not required.  I base this statement on the different definitions in my Collins British-English and my Webster's American-English dictionaries.  This appears to me to be another example where American English is inferior to the British version.  Not only can't the Yanks differentiate between a measuring instrument and 39.37 inches, they confuse everyone by using the spelling "check" for the two totally different meanings of the homonym.  In the case of 'an acronym', if it is the same as 'an abbreviation', why coin a new word?  British English has a number of weaknesses too, but as seems to be so often the case, the Yanks "go further so you don't have to" (apologies to the Co-op for using their slogan)

I would like to see an Empire Day".  We used to have one, but it got changed to "Commonwealth Day".  It is on either May 24 or the second Monday in March.  Why it should be changed from Queen Victoria's birthday, I know not.  So I suggest that we celebrate "English Empire Day " on May 24, or on St George's Day which is on 23 April.  There's something for the British National Part to get their teeth into!

4 November 2006
As an addition to this essay, it is only recently that Germany announced that English would be their official language of business.  They would, of course, retain their own tongue for cultural and everyday purposes.  I don't know how long it took them to reach this decision, but back in 1980, Telefunken Board Meetings were held in English.  So now, Germany has joined the English Empire. Hitler must be rotating in his grave.  However, I have heard it said that he admired this country because this tiny island managed to acquire its enormous empire.  It would be interesting to hear his thoughts on the abdication of world status that we have, and are still undergoing.  This is where I have another bee in my bonnet.

22 August 2007
I think that Britain should step down as quickly as possible from being what is left of a world power.  We should get fully into bed with Europe and press the EU to become a body similar to the USA.  We (Europe) have a larger population and GNP than the USA.  We would be a bigger military power if we put our mind to it.  I hope I live to see it.  It is only the jumped up bigots who thank that we have the power that we used to have, that stops us from doing the sensible thing.  The USA has set up a wonderful political system; we should emulate it.  We needn't call it the White House or the Pentagon, but we should have the equivalent.  The EU should have its own army etc under the control of our President.  It would worry Uncle Sam as he would see that he wasn't the biggest kid on the block any longer.  It would also cause the Russian Bear to think hard.  China is not yet at a point where it is a threat, but The EU would see that it stayed that way.

As North America grew out of Europe, I can't see any likelihood that we would reach a point where either side might consider military action against the other. We would just be rivals, friendly rivals, most of the time.