Oscars show US conquest of English never happened

HL Mencken, the US writer, was no Anglophile. In his book The American Language, he rejoiced in the impending eclipse of the "stilted and precious" English spoken by England's elite.

America's English, he wrote, "is better on all counts - clearer, more rational and, above all, more charming".

In any case, the larger number of US English speakers meant that, in any dispute over what was correct, the American view should prevail.

"There is no reason under the sun," he wrote, why a language spoken in a country as huge as the US "should yield anything to the dialect of a small minority" in England.

Americans were not the only ones who found the standard English of the English ridiculous. "The Irishman, the Scotsman, the Canadian and the Australian laugh at it along with the American - and with the Englishman who has lived in the United States."

With English spreading around the world, language learners would make their choice. Russians were opting for the American variety. "In Japan and elsewhere in the Far East, the two dialects are in bitter competition, with American apparently prevailing."

Mencken's view that American English would render England's irrelevant was understandable. He completed his monumental work in 1948, when America's dominance and Britain's decline were evident. Had he been right, the consequences for UK companies and workers who depended on the language for their livelihood would have been dire.

Yet he wasn't right. The US outstrips the UK in manufacturing, technology and military might, but those who make a living speaking and writing standard UK English are doing fine.

Look at this year's Oscar nominees: Benedict Cumberbatch, Eddie Redmayne, Felicity Jones and Keira Knightley. It is true that much of the investment in British film comes from the US.

These actors may not sweep the Oscars but their popularity indicates that English English is still an international linguistic currency decades after Mencken declared it worthless.

When it comes to written words, London-based Pearson, owner of the Financial Times, and the Anglo-Dutch Reed Elsevier are still among the world's leading publishers.

Was Mencken right that foreigners would choose to learn American English rather than the English variety?

While most commentators have been preoccupied with the combative stance of Yanis Varoufakis, Greece's finance minister, and a few with his leather coat, I have been fascinated by his English.

I compared it with that of one of his opponents, Antonis Samaras, the defeated conservative prime minister. Mr Varoufakis studied at Essex and Birmingham universities; Mr Samaras at Amherst and Harvard Business School. Would Mr Varoufakis's English betray a British influence and Mr Samaras's an American one?

No. They both speak an English that, in accent, cadence and word choice, is distinctively Greek - that of the well-educated elite.

The same is true of English speakers from Brazil to Malaysia. Some return from university in the US or the UK having worked on their American or English accents but most speak an English that is their own.

Mr Varoufakis, after years of teaching in the UK, the US and Australia, uses standard English grammar. But I have written about what I have called Eurish, the English with its own grammatical tics that has developed in continental Europe and is not identifiably either American or British.

Where Mencken was wrong was assuming, in his early writings, that American and British English would diverge more than they did - and then, when they did not, that US power would mean everyone else would adopt its language.

In the end, the major streams of English remained mutually comprehensible, apart from the odd word or expression.

There is no need for anyone to adopt anyone else's accent or vocabulary, unless they want to. Anyone who achieves competence in the language can watch Downton Abbey or Orange is the New Black - or read novels in English from India or Nigeria.

There is a place for many forms of English. Unlike the Oscars, this was not a contest someone had to lose.

[email protected]: @Skapinker

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