…while the Normans used their native French as the language of the court and of literature, English became the language of England’s common, conquered people. Compare English words that come from that time ”” “fire,” “work,” “strong,” “heart” ”” to French words from that era: “glory,” “cordial,” “fortune,” “guile” and “sacred.” As McCrum explains, English disappeared from the written record, but survived “underground on the lips of ordinary people.” As a result, the language became democratized very early on.
That democratic character, according to McCrum, is partially responsible for English’s eventual global domination. While French imperialists forcefully imposed their own language on foreign countries in a “top-down” manner, English imperialists took a “bottom-up” approach. English would not be “imposed from above by the government” in the colonies, says McCrum. Instead, “the troops would arrive, and the language would flow again from the ordinary people.”
It sounds nice and democratic, but McCrum isn’t arguing that British Empire was a “benign” or “culturally beneficial” influence. “Clearly, the British Empire has much to answer for,” he says. “But at the level of language, the way in which it operated was very effective from the point of spreading English.”
This is silly. Half of the English language is of French origin – that’s why its vocabulary is so huge. English always *was the language of the people (after the Anglo-Saxons had expelled or assimilated the Welsh-speaking natives). What happened was that the Norman ascendancy eventually adopted English in the 13th century, then the language gradually infiltrated Ireland and lowland Scotland. Englsih spread naturally in America, Australia and New Zealand because these were Anglophone colonies settled by Brits. The British government had no particular interest in spreading English in the African colonies or India – this was more a by-product of missionary education, with the products of missioanry schooling becoming the post-colonial rulers.
The domination of English today is really a reflection of the economic and cultural power of America.
Try [i]Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue[/i] by McWhorter.
http://www.amazon.com/Our-Magnificent-Bastard-Tongue-English/dp/B002BWQ59K/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1275856267&sr=1-1