"But We All Speak the Same Language"

Years ago, when my kids were in school in East Lansing, I sent a letter to the school asking the principal for some input regarding a project the class wanted to do. The principal sent my letter back, with corrections in red pen. Apparently, according to her, I had spelled certain words wrong. This necessitated a trip to the school to explain that American spellings are somewhat of an anomaly in a sea of other English-speaking countries, and that my spelling was perfectly correct. She had not realised there was a difference between the US and the rest of the English-speaking world. British, Scottish, Irish, Welsh, Australian, New Zealand, parts of the Caribbean, Bermuda, South Africa, and the US all “speak English”, but there is a wide variety of difference in each as well.

There was a time when there was little standardisation of English. In the 1700’s Samuel Johnson developed some rules for standard English, which became the basis of standard English throughout the British colonies and territories. In the 20^th century Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press contributed to the standardisation used in academic treatises and essays. American English was taught using Webster’s rules (Noah Webster, author of Webster’s Dictionary). With a large influx of immigration from non-English-speaking countries, American English became more phonetic, and spellings were changed to reflect that.

Language is a funny thing. Even as it may change (as in American English becoming more phonetic) in some ways it does not develop as quickly or in the same direction as the parent countries. Language in new countries tends to ‘ossify’ while language in the home country changes and evolves much more quickly. My husband has now been out of Japan for almost forty years, and has been told there that his language is quite “quaint” –that is, he speaks the language of his youth in post-war Japan. As a linguist, he has found it necessary when he is back in Japan to try to bring his own language use up-to-date, or at least to be able to see where the language has changed, compared to here in Canada. Most of the first-generation Japanese-Canadians speak and even more “archaic” form of Japanese.

How we use a language depends on so many factors. Where we were born, when we were born, where we went to school, how educated our parents were, how important education was for us, who our teachers were, how well we learned to read and how much we learned to read, whether or not we got advanced degrees in education, what the local dialects were, cultural and regional overlays, whether or not we are speaking a second language. Language involves absorbed and inherent understandings from within our family and social groups; nuances and local idioms are brought to bear. We can each use the same word, but depending on all those other accumulated factors we will understand it differently and use it differently. Every single one of us understands and uses the same words differently. It isn’t possible to say “this is what this word *means*”, because each of us brings to bear all of the sum of who we are including our life experience to the words we use, and what they mean to us. 

A friend of mine, a Presbyterian minister, was once called to a Portuguese-speaking Presbyterian church. The logic of the Presbyterian national church was that since Portuguese was a common language to the people from those countries, it made sense to have them all in one congregation. They did not realise that the Portuguese spoken in Mozambique, Brasil, Macao,  Angola, Goa, East Timor, Canada  and of course Portugal – are all different. Even if the words are the same, the usage changes, the accent changes and they become incomprehensible to each other, even though they are both speaking Portuguese.

As a preacher, there are times when I am floored by what someone got out of my sermon – what they heard, and what I was pretty sure I had said, were two completely different things. So when we who speak English fall into thinking we should be able to understand each other because “we all speak the same language”, remember that isn’t quite true.Understanding each other takes work, and a willingness to suspend our beliefs that we are right in order to hear the other.