Many countries have some form of a language regulatory commission that acts as an arbiter in determining what constitutes correct language usage. France, for example, has the Academie Francaise and Norway has the Language Council of Norway. There’s an association of official Spanish language academies that is represented in most if not all Spanish speaking countries. These type of bodies don’t usually have the force of law, but act in an advisory capacity.
Why are there no “official” English language regulatory bodies? Do you think having one would be a good idea?
I think that the main reason various countries have official language police is because they are trying to prevent an invasion of English into their language and culture.
But English is the dominant language for our generation
And when you’re the boss, you don’t fear the little guys.
There’s the famous quote that English “doesn’t just borrow words; it pursues other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary”
Which country is going to sponsor this board or academy? Because British English is different than American English which is different than the English spoken in one of the other countries on five continents where English is a de jure or de facto official language.
Honestly, this makes about as much sense to me as a fashion board, that would act as an arbiter of what one could and could not wear. In other words, no, it is not a good idea.
The idea of a language regulatory body is not a notion from out of left-field. They’re quite common. List of language regulators - Wikipedia
What makes having one for English a bad idea? One could argue that the need to communicate with precision (and therefore greater universal understanding) is more important now than ever.
What makes it a good idea? What problem would this solve? Seems about as useful as a bicycle for fish. A great way to spend money if you’ve simply got too much laying around.
According to Cardigan’s list, that’s usually how it works. One for each country. Not sure how that helps anything. The US and UK might be “two countries separated by a common language”, but is there an epidemic of English speakers within the US misunderstanding each other? Enough to make a large, expensive language bureaucracy a good use of our time and money? Is it that hard to figure out “Y’all” and “pop” versus “you guys” and “soda”?
The Spanish model seems appropriate given the colonial nature of both cultures. Maybe the HQ is in London and chapters in places like Washington, Ottawa, Canberra, etc.
To be honest, the idea of an English language governing body isn’t something I’m particularly passionate about, but I couldn’t help notice that are a number of folks around here that are…how should one put it…sticklers for grammar, that the idea might hold considerable appeal.
How is such a body going to enforce violations of the rules of grammar, spelling, punctuation and so forth? And what does such enforcement mean when people knowingly violate the rules for artistic or literary reasons?
(That said, the use of “payed” instead of “paid”, which is widely done on this board, makes me twitch.)
There’s no need for one. It’s extremely rare for people to be confused by a word, and one of its strengths is in the way it evolved.
The very idea of a board being able dictate language is amusing. Maybe they can get King Canute on board to prevent the change, but I guess he’s all tide up.
It doesn’t appear the aforementioned language boards have much in the way of enforcement powers, and are advisory in nature, but it might be interesting if they had real power. Enforcement could begin with high profile individuals operating in situations where clear communications are absolutely essential. Publicly reprimand these folks when their intent is less than crystal clear. You know, like situations where it depends on what your definition of ‘is’ is, or when Obama tapps your phone during the very sacred election process. People, after all, look to their leaders to set the example.
France, Spain, and Norway probably really don’t need theirs either. I don’t have it to hand, but I’m quite sure in one of these threads, a french doper (I wanna say clairobscur) shared his opinion of the Academie Francaise which was that it is a basically a club for illustrious french writers, politicians and other notable academics. While they have a pro forma dictionary that they pretend to work on, and they issue mostly ignored edicts every once in a while on how french people should say ‘send an email’, they mostly just chill.
A lot of the functions of a language board are already done in English by private dictionary companies and the lexicographers they train and employ. Regardless of whether you have a board or not, language changes frequently and the movement of those changes from slang to informal to formal speaking and writing is pretty well filtered by the myriad journals, newspapers and publishers who maintain style guides and update and adapt as needed to satisfy their consumers.