Of course, well before the British Empire exported its language through
conquest, colonisation and trade, Britain (in its various proto-forms) was
subject to invasion by other imperial powers - Romans, Saxons, Normans. Each
conquest is retained in the language and considerably enriches it, helping to
give us the large vocabulary and fine semantic shades at our disposable.
Linguistically, we're very lucky to have had such a bloody history.
So it's an imperial language in that it contains the echoes of past empires,
too. And with so many word-engines buzzing away across the world in english we
have more and more to try to understand in. I don't think that many now would
claim supremacy of one form over another.
I speak in my tongue and do not feel guilty about that (in a sense I am it, it
is me), and I love that I can write 'Neat - your pyjamas are phat, sport', if I
choose. Though ordinarily I wouldn't.
Franz KFC aside, German's certainly been the focus of language-guilt. I wonder
whether other past empires have such - any French or Japanese lurkers?
Ottomans?
Sam
At 02:50 AM 1/31/02 , you wrote:
>Language is not innocent. Language, in this case English, is not a nature,
>even an artificial nature, to be molded as if a docile medium by the artist,
>the poet, the writer. There is nothing new in that statement. Derrida would
>perhaps be well known on this list as one who investigated the structures of
>language, Samuel R Delany would be another, and came to this understanding.
>Kafta understood it only too well when dealing with the problems of writing
>in German: the impossibility of writing in such a language after the Jewish
>experience in World War Two and the impossibility of not writing in German. I
>am also thinking of the sociolinguists, MAK Halliday is the one I have read,
>who untangle as best they can the very structures of language which make it
>chauvinistic and despotic. If language is consensual then the implication is
>clear: one is commanded to consent to language. Deleuze also illustrates and
>understands the despotic structures of language. The history of the English
>dictionary is a history of defining national borders and the imperial reach
>of the British Empire. The Empire demands English. We write poetry in
>English. Who is the imperial Royal "we" in this statement?
>
>Black American English, so called, is not just another form of English that
>should be given just as much credence as so called Standard English. That
>statement is surely racist with a liberal chauvinism built into it. If, as so
>many have argued English is so tightly enmeshed in the structures of racism I
>should be liberal and not be a racist. I should write in some other language
>that perhaps does not enmesh itself in the active construction of a racist
>structure. Make racism go over there, somewhere else: I am not a racist. That
>statement should be made to howl with racism. Who am I, a privileged white
>Australian male, to say: I am not a racist? My very subjectivity which I was
>born into and educated in a racist culture can put racism over there, not be
>a racist? In putting racism over there, I would deny any responsibility for
>racism. I can call others racist for racism is over there. It is not my
>responsibility. I is now someone else's responsibility and I can, being a
>liberal who is not racist, let racism go on with its dirty work out of my
>sight, smell and hearing. I am not a racist but now I am supporting racism by
>refusing to take any responsibility for it.
>
>Racism is my responsibility just as much as it is the responsibility of
>Malcolm X and the American black rights movement, the struggle of Australian
>Aborigines, the refugees in concentration camps in the Australian desert. I
>cannot claim my innocence, make I some other which I put over there, to then
>claim with a weak liberal smirk: I am not a racist. I will and must take
>responsibility for my discourse, this I that I am. Discourse is a site of
>struggle. That struggle happens in language and against language.
>
>Artaud wrote something like: creation is an act of war. To create poetry
>Artaud smashes language. It is a violent act. It is a political act. To take
>responsibility and smash racism, sexism, homophobia, class oppression.
>
>If I am denied respect because some self appointed judge claims I abuse
>language that would surely be grounds for laughter and joy. As for the charge
>of elitism: why should one even bother answering to a charge which has the
>intent of defending stupidity with banal facts?
>
>many joyous times
>
>Chris Jones
>
>
>
>
>On Thu, 31 Jan 2002 02:22, you wrote:
>> Hi David
>>
>> actually much as i liked the drive against standard, nay imperial, English
>> in Chris Jones' post I didn't take on board that i was simultaneously
>> aye-ayeing to the slur of racism which seems bizarrely inappropriate under
>> those circumstances.
>>
>> I'd be keen to hear quite how Chris thought it was applicable?
>>
>> love and love
>> cris
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