English doesn't “borrow” from other languages: it follows them down dark alleys, knocks them over, and goes through their pockets for loose grammar and valuable vocabulary.
My miserably pedantic and uncreative Arts-graduate father persisted in foisting on me the crapulosity of parsing sentences, and curtailed my boyish adventurism in rifling the pockets of other languages. He is one of the reasons I have always hoped I was adopted. (My perennially unstable mother was the other.)
There is no such thing as proper English: I have no problems with loan words or evolving words. If they make sense, they are fine. In 1490, William Caxton felt the ground of his language moving under him, a century after Chaucer:
And certaynly our
langage now used varyeth ferre from that whiche was used and spoken whan I was
borne. In so moche that in my dayes happened that certayn marchauntes were in a
shippe in tamyes, for to have sayled over the sea into zelande. And for lacke
of wynde, thei taryed atte forlond, and wente to lande for to refreshe them.
And one of theym named sheffelde, a mercer, cam in-to a hows and axed for mete
and specyally he axyd after eggys. And the goode wyf answerde, that she coude
speke no frenshe. And the marchaunt was angry, for he also coulde speke no
frenshe, but wolde have hadde egges, and she understode hym not. And thenne at
laste a nother sayd that he wolde have eyren. Then the good wyf sayd that she
understod hym wel. Loo, what shode a man in thyse dayes now wryte, egges or
eyren. Certaynly, it is harde to playse every man, by cause of dyversite and
chaunge of language.
William Caxton,
Preface to Eneydos c 1490.
Here is a quick parallel translation: clumsy in a way, but easier to follow than an elegant version.
And certainly our language as it is now used varies greatly from that which was used and spoken when I was born. Insomuch that in my days certain merchants were in a ship in the Thames, ready to sail over the sea to Zealand. And for lack of wind, they tarried at Foreland, and went to land to refresh themselves. And one of them named Sheffield, a mercer, came into a house and asked for meat and especially he asked after eggs. And the good wife answered that she could speak no French. And the merchant was angry, for he also could speak no French, but would have had eggs, and she understood him not. And then at last another said that he would have eyren. Then the good wife said that she understood him well. Lo, what should a man in these days now write, egges or eyren. Certainly, it is hard to please every man, because of diversity and change of language.
Why do I care about this right now? Well, I am taking an old website, now stored here, and testing it to see if there is a book in it. Working title Early print instances of Australian language use, it looks at how special Australian words crept into out language. Conceived originally as a handy guide for writers of historical fiction, I have pinned down terms like billy, damper and even doover, probably coined as an April Fool's joke in 1942. I have yet to work out why it morphed into dooverlacky, because I am busy mining Henry Lawson's prose works, which I read at age 12 as an antidote to my parents' unpleasant pro-British stance.
Did you know that scab, once the sheep herder's enemy, became the squatter's friend and the shearers' enemy? Did you know that in the early 1800s a bushranger was never a thief, just a person who ranged the bush?
And where did goanna come from?
Did you know that what the Brits call pavement, and the Yanks call sidewalk was already a footpath in Australia in 1803? The pie floater I can take back to 1923, and it seems to have held firm in its meaning, unlike many other colloquial Australian items.
Our society is divided…We have…first, the Sterling and Currency,
or English and Colonial born, the latter bearing also the name of corn stalks (Indian
corn), from the way in which they shoot up. This is the first grand division.
—Peter Cunningham, Two Years In New South
Wales, third edition, vol 2, 1828, 108.
The names Currency
and Sterling, Cunningham said, were conferred
by ‘…a facetious paymaster of the 73rd regiment quartered here—the pound currency
being at that time inferior to the pound
sterling.’ By 1827, Cunningham had sailed to Australia four times as a surgeon,
supervising convicts, and he clearly felt he was an Australian by then, writing
of ‘our’ Currency lads and lasses.
He also noted that thieves’ slang terms (like plant and swag), along with Dharuk (Sydney Aboriginal) words like jirrand (afraid) might be heard in currency
slang. To others in Australian society, speech was a mark of class, but words poured
in from all over the world and these new Australians were already using words like
bandicoot, verandah and bungalow,
all from India, and creek, diggings, funnelweb, squatter and bush from North America. Various
Aboriginal languages gave us names of many plants and animals (like bingie, kangaroo, wombat, waratah and yabby) as well as bunyip, woomera and waddy, cooee and yakka.
So bother me not over changing words, or I shall give you a standing ovation on my definition. This involves placing you upright against a wall, and pelting you with eyren.
As it happens, I habitually speak cultivated (once, educated) English, and I was in Alex Mitchell's original sample of several thousand Australians, from which he discerned three Australian dialects: educated, general and broad, but educated (we call it 'cultivated' now, and it is what I used on the ABC). It gave me the most fun as an undergraduate, because the poodles who had been to a Public School would hear me speak in tones that said People Like Us to them, and wag their tails, asking what school had I gone to?
Remember that Henry Lawson was one of my boyhood heroes. Their faces would crumble when I used the beautifully rounded vowels that all my family use, to name my local (albeit selective) high school. "But you don't sound like a state school boy..."
Did I mention I was a natural Third Speaker? No matter, I am. I would smile gently, take them by the upper arm and explain to them that some people needed to go to a special school to learn how to speak. "With some of us, though," I would say gently, "it's just a matter of breeding."
I love the squishing sound of wilting poodles. After maybe twenty of those, word must have spread, because when they saw me coming, the poodles would cross their fingers, eyes, legs and the road. I used to try to time my delivery so there was a bus coming (not out of cruelty, just as social, genetic and environmental improvement), but I never got the timing right.
So with that unkind anecdote out of the way, on to an unkind hobby, also related to accent and speech.
Sit in a crowd as I have done, in a pub in Riga; a wine bar near Rome’s Spanish Steps; a hamburger joint in Siem Reap; a reindeer restaurant in Bergen; a Greek café in Banff; a chippie in Glasgow; a tapas bar in Cuzco; Murphy’s curry and Guinness house in San Francisco; high tea at Singapore’s Raffles Hotel; a coffee shop at Heathrow; a tea shop in Kandy; or a bangers-and-mash restaurant in Reykjavik. When you hear Australian tones (and trust me, you will), project your voice and call out “G’day!” with a hint of a rising terminal, but do it with your lips hardly moving, and your vowels as flat as a roadkill goanna after a road train convoy has passed through.
It always works: sit silently, unblinking and poker-faced, watching as Australian heads turn, urgently seeking their unseen compatriot who may, perhaps, have news from back home. That’s the home we care about, and that single “G’day!” reminds us all of where home is. It’s the place where they talk like us, but I have always wondered how we came to talk our way, and by fossicking around, I know our national voice was alive, two centuries ago, and that is what I am now chasing.
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