# Misinterpretation of the word 'English' **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [August 15, 2003, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misinterpretation-of-the-word-english/195299 "2003-08-15T01:46:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2003, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misinterpretation-of-the-word-english/195299/21 "2003-08-19T06:59:41Z")
If American English is the language/dialect spoken in the Unted States, what do you call the language/dialect specifically spoken in England? English English? ---
**Author:** ![zoogirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b9bd4f/32.png) [@zoogirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoogirl)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2003, 7:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misinterpretation-of-the-word-english/195299/22 "2003-08-19T07:43:15Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by matt\_mcl \* > \*\*What bothers _me_ is when a Maple Leaf Flag is used on a Canadian website to mean English. What part of “two official languages” didn’t you understand?! > > (I use it on mine, with various other flags, to mean both English and French.) > > The only thing in this regard that bothers me more is calling French a foreign language. \*\* You know something Matt? Until right this minute I always automatically thought of French as a foreign language. I KNOW better, of course. It’s just that, as a lifetime BC’er, I never really got exposed to spoken French on a regular basis. I’ve been writing quite a bit lately, a novel and a half. They’re set locally and I’ve been making it a point to use Canadian/British spelling. I figure if I’m going to write an unashamedly Canadian story I might as well make it _look_ Canadian too! ---
**Author:** ![everton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecb155/32.png) [@everton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/everton)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2003, 10:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misinterpretation-of-the-word-english/195299/23 "2003-08-19T10:42:19Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Little Nemo \* > \*\*If American English is the language/dialect spoken in the Unted States, what do you call the language/dialect specifically spoken in England? English English? \*\* Well _we_ just call it English, but in places where it’s distingushied from American English (such as spell checkers) its usually called British English. MS Word calls it “English (U.K.)” and calls American English “English (U.S.)”. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2003, 11:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misinterpretation-of-the-word-english/195299/24 "2003-08-19T11:08:26Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Little Nemo \* > \*\*If American English is the language/dialect spoken in the Unted States, what do you call the language/dialect specifically spoken in England? English English? \*\* And why should we be forced to exercise this redundancy…? ---
**Author:** ![Capt\_B.Phart](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9fc29f/32.png) [@Capt\_B.Phart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt_B.Phart)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2003, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misinterpretation-of-the-word-english/195299/25 "2003-08-19T14:26:31Z")
On a trip to Vienna I unthinkingly referred to the language as “German” - didn’t seem to go down well with the guy I said it to! I reminded him about Americans speaking “English” and he thought I’d made an honest mistake (in fact I’d forgotten I wasn’t in Germany! - I’d been doing jobs in various countries including Germany and the Hefe-Weise was kicking in) So **tschild** , or someone, do Austrans speak Austrian? Or was I the victim of some Viennese wind-up? ---
**Author:** ![Futile\_Gesture](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f05b48/32.png) [@Futile\_Gesture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Futile_Gesture)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2003, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misinterpretation-of-the-word-english/195299/26 "2003-08-19T15:33:58Z")
OK. You’ve just proded a pet peeve of mine. **English the language did not come from England the country.** They share the same root, but the language did not follow on from the country. If anything it is the reverse. This means that early English (the language) was spoken in geographical areas outwith the boundaries of what later became England. The majority of the speakers lived within what became England, but not exclusively. So the English language is not from England and the current situation where native speakers of it live outside England has always been the case for the entire history of the language. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2003, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misinterpretation-of-the-word-english/195299/27 "2003-08-19T15:42:32Z")
> [@](#): > > **The majority of the speakers lived within what became England** Surely this is the point…? ---
**Author:** ![Futile\_Gesture](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f05b48/32.png) [@Futile\_Gesture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Futile_Gesture)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2003, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misinterpretation-of-the-word-english/195299/28 "2003-08-19T15:56:52Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by jjimm \* > \*\*Surely this is the point…? \*\* Well the point is I don’t speak a language that came from England and nor do Americans. Or Ozzies. Or Kiwis. Or anyone else. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2003, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misinterpretation-of-the-word-english/195299/29 "2003-08-19T16:23:13Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Futile Gesture \* > \*\*Well the point is I don’t speak a language that came from England and nor do Americans. > > Or Ozzies. Or Kiwis. Or anyone else. \*\* I’m not being facetious here - I really don’t get what you’re saying. When did English become English? Surely, from everything I’ve read, at the time of Beowulf, the Venerable Bede, or later Chaucer? But England didn’t begin its empire until around the time of Shakespeare. So in the general region of England, there was a large population of people speaking what was known as “English”, for centuries. The export of the language, and the subsequent independent evolutions of each regional variant, has only been happening for about 5 to 600 years (maybe longer, if you count Ireland, but they didn’t speak English for a very long time after invasion). ---
**Author:** ![Futile\_Gesture](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f05b48/32.png) [@Futile\_Gesture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Futile_Gesture)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2003, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misinterpretation-of-the-word-english/195299/30 "2003-08-19T17:04:34Z")
When ‘English’ became ‘English’ is obviously a debatable point. But if Scots dialect is the same language as Cockney (for example) dialect and English was been spoken in both areas prior to the formation of England, you can’t then argue that England is the origin of English. You’d as well argue that the Alps originated in Italy. Any spread from then on, whether it be by Empire or otherwise, was from a base that already extended beyond England’s boundaries. English was never England’s alone, it first belonged to Britain. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misinterpretation-of-the-word-english/195299.md?page=1)