Saturday, April 30, 2005
Do you speak Globish?
So English is being replaced as the global lingua fraca. Its replacement is Globish.
Jax
It happens all the time: during an airport delay the man to the left, a Korean perhaps, starts talking to the man opposite, who might be Colombian, and soon they are chatting away in what seems to be English. But the native English speaker sitting between them cannot understand a word.
They don't know it, but the Korean and the Colombian are speaking Globish, the latest addition to the 6,800 languages that are said to be spoken across the world. Not that its inventor, Jean-Paul Nerriere, considers it a proper language.
"It is not a language, it is a tool," he says. "A language is the vehicle of a culture. Globish doesn't want to be that at all. It is a means of communication.". . .
A retired IBM marketing executive, Nerriere speaks excellent English but switches to Globish if he is not getting through. "I look at their faces. Lack of understanding is very easy to decipher."
The main principles of Globish are a vocabulary of only 1,500 words in English (the OED lists 615,000), gestures and repetition. Grammar will be dealt with in the next volume, "Decouvrez le Globish," due next month.
The Web site also includes song lyrics because Nerriere reckons this is an excellent way to learn words, even if they are not on the Globish 1,500. (Link)
If you want to know more, try here.
Jax
It happens all the time: during an airport delay the man to the left, a Korean perhaps, starts talking to the man opposite, who might be Colombian, and soon they are chatting away in what seems to be English. But the native English speaker sitting between them cannot understand a word.
They don't know it, but the Korean and the Colombian are speaking Globish, the latest addition to the 6,800 languages that are said to be spoken across the world. Not that its inventor, Jean-Paul Nerriere, considers it a proper language.
"It is not a language, it is a tool," he says. "A language is the vehicle of a culture. Globish doesn't want to be that at all. It is a means of communication.". . .
A retired IBM marketing executive, Nerriere speaks excellent English but switches to Globish if he is not getting through. "I look at their faces. Lack of understanding is very easy to decipher."
The main principles of Globish are a vocabulary of only 1,500 words in English (the OED lists 615,000), gestures and repetition. Grammar will be dealt with in the next volume, "Decouvrez le Globish," due next month.
The Web site also includes song lyrics because Nerriere reckons this is an excellent way to learn words, even if they are not on the Globish 1,500. (Link)
If you want to know more, try here.
