Chapter 1: The World's Language - Part 1: The Ubiquity of English

The Mother Tongue: A Fact Check

Introduction

This series is going to be a bit different than my other posts. It’s centered around a single book. Bill Bryson’s The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way. The Mother Tongue sparked my interest in linguistics, so it has a soft spot in my heart.

It was never a NYT bestseller, but it’s currently ranked #16 in Linguistics Reference on Amazon.¹ Taking into account all of the various editions, however, The Mother Tongue ranks 4th in Linguistic Reference.² For a book published in 1990, albeit with a 2011 reprint, that’s rather impressive.

However, it’s also extremely inaccurate.

My first big clue about the inaccuracies was a statement found in the chapter on swearing. Bryson claimed that Finnish had no swear words, and that Finns instead used ravintolassa (translated by Bryson as ‘in the restaurant’).

[citation needed]

So, here I am, working on a project a over a decade in the making.³

The Method

My intention is to verify facts as they stood in the 1990—the original copyright date for the book. Bryson provides a bibliography, but no footnotes. It seems that much of his sourcing, at least for the initial chapter, comes from newspaper articles. I’ve used Newspapers.com to track down those original articles, while also attempting verify the accuracy of the articles themselves.

Each fact will be given a verdict, similar to the one used by Snopes.

• True.

• Mostly true. The majority of the fact is accurate, and the inaccuracies don’t hinder the overall point.

• Not meaningfully true. It may be factually true, but it’s not important to the point that’s being made.

• Mixed. Some elements are true and some are false.

• Mostly false.

• False.

• Unknown. I can’t verify this claim.

I’m not listing every single fact here—partially because I’d be copying the whole book out, and I don’t think that’s entirely legal—but I’ll be hitting the most relevant sections.

And so, onward we go!

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The Ubiquity of English

Chapter 1: The World’s Language

In the nine pages of Bryson’s chapter, there are so many claims that I had to break my fact checks up. These claims come from the first three pages.

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Claim:

More than 300 million people in the world speak English

Research:

This claim floated around various papers unsourced, usually accompanied by “Experts tell us” or “It is known.” However, the original source of the claim appears to come from a National Geographic Society report on English.⁴ I haven’t been able to find the original report,⁵ but an article on the report in 1962 cites the NGS report when writing that “some 300 million people speak English.”

It seems other academic literature struggles to make any specific estimates.⁶ 300 million seems to be the lower end of those estimates.

Verdict: True.

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Claim:

Bryson lists a variety of ‘humorous’ usages of English by non-native speakers:

…an announcement in a Yugoslavian hotel: "The flattening of underwear with pleasure is the job of the chambermaid. Turn to her straightaway."

…warning to motorists in Tokyo: "When a passenger of the foot heave in sight, tootle the horn. Trumpet at him melodiously at first, but if he still obstacles your passage, then tootle him with vigor."

…instructions gracing a packet of convenience food from Italy: "Besmear a backing pan, previously buttered with a good tomato sauce, and, after, dispose the cannelloni, lightly distanced between them in a only couch."

Research:

1. The first instance of phrase in a newspaper is February 1973. There is no discussion of its origin.⁷ The next instance, in May 1973, claims the sign is from Czechoslovakia.⁸ Then, in 1977, the sign is said to have been seen in Tokyo.⁹ In 1983, the paper provides a list compiled by Bryson that includes the text, attributing it (for the first time) to a Yugoslavian hotel.¹⁰

2. This shows up in a paper from 1919, unsourced.¹¹ They did, at least, keep the country consistent.

3. This is first seen in 1971.¹²

Verdict: Unknown.

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Claim:

Indeed, Robert Burchfield, editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, created a stir in linguistic circles on both sides of the Atlantic when he announced his belief that American English and English English are drifting apart so rapidly that within 200 years the two nations won't be able to understand each other at all. That may be.

Research:

Burchfield was editor of the OED.¹³

An article in The Times of London (via Associated Press) reports on Burchfield’s Chicago leg of the Oxford University Press 500th Anniversary tour, in which he does make such a claim.¹⁴

The source of the ‘stir in linguistic circles’ appears to be an article published in multiple papers titled “Is language splitting the U.S. and Britain?”¹⁵ After first noting Burchfield’s claims, the journalist presents the other side:

One of Britain’s leading philologists, Patrick Hanks, says quite the opposite is happening. …

Randolph Quirk, professor of English language and literature at London University … adds: “The very fact that Mr. Burchfield can go to America to lecture in 1978 with no great difficulty must indicate that there is no gulf.”

It doesn’t appear that article cites the perspective of anyone from the other side of the Atlantic.¹⁶

Verdict: Mostly true.

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Claim:

…the rest of the world continues expropriating words and phrases…

Already Germans talk about ein Image Problem and das Cash-Flow, Italians program their computers with il software, French motorists going away for a weekend break pause for les refueling stops, Poles watch telewizja, Spaniards have a flirt, Austrians eat Big Mäcs, and the Japanese go on a pikunikku.

Research:

Ein Image-Problem is typically hyphenated, while der Cashflow is a single word.

Il software is accurate, as is telewizja, and pikunikku.

The claims of both French and Spanish are inaccurate.

Big Mac is currently spelled with a standard a in Austria, and I wasn’t able to verify whether or not that was the case in 1990. It also seems irrelevant, as it’s the name of a product.

I haven’t been able to locate where he got these specific examples.

Verdict: Mixed.

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Claim:

For the airlines of 157 nations (out of 168 in the world), it is the agreed international language of discourse.

Research:

This is a very strangely worded sentence, and I’m still not entirely sure that I’ve read it correctly. Bryson is discussing airlines of nations, but it’s hard to tell if it’s out of 168 total nations (which is incorrect)¹⁷ or if he’s counting the number of countries with airlines (which is also incorrect).¹⁸

Additionally, it’s difficult to tell if he means that all of their operations are done in English, or that if they have an international airline, they use English. Either way, I haven’t found a good way to verify this.

Verdict: Mostly false.

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Claim:

In India, there are more than 3,000 newspapers in English.

Research:

This seems to be relatively accurate, but there were also over 30,000 newspapers published in India at the time.¹⁹

Verdict: Not meaningfully true.

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Claim:

The six member nations of the European Free Trade Association conduct all their business in English, even though not one of them is an English-speaking country.

Research:

The six member nations of the EFTA were Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, Austria, Finland, Sweden.

The founding nations included Austria, Denmark, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, the last of which is an English speaking country.²⁰

Verdict: Not meaningfully true.

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Claim:

When companies from four European countries—France, Italy, Germany, and Switzerland—formed a joint truck-making venture called Iveco in 1977, they chose English as their working language because, as one of the founders wryly observed, "It puts us all at an equal disadvantage."

Research:

Iveco was founded in 1975. It was a merger of five brands from three companies—France, Italy, and Germany.²¹

I haven’t found a source for the quote, despite checking a number of newspapers.

Verdict: Mostly false.

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Claim:

For the same reasons, when the Swiss company Brown Boveri and the Swedish company ASEA merged in 1988, they decided to make the official company language English,

Research:

The Swiss company’s name is technically Brown, Boveri, & Co., but they were frequently referred to as Brown Boveri in papers. I can’t verify the official company language, and the company is defunct.²²

Verdict: Unknown.

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Claim:

when Volkswagen set up a factory in Shanghai it found that there were too few Germans who spoke Chinese and too few Chinese who spoke German, so now Volkswagen's German engineers and Chinese managers communicate in a language that is alien to both of them, English.

Research:

Volkswagen did set up a factory in Shanghai, but I haven’t been able to find a source for his claim regarding language usage.²³

Verdict: Unknown.

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Claim:

Belgium has two languages, French and Flemish, yet on a recent visit to the country's main airport in Brussels, I counted more than fifty posters and billboards and not an one of them was in French or Flemish. They were all in English.

Research:

At the time, Belgium only had two official languages. German has since been added.²⁴ I can’t verify Bryson’s experience.

Verdict: Mixed.

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Claim:

In early 1989, the Pasteur Institute announced that henceforth it would publish its famed international medical review only in English because too few people were reading it in French.

Research:

It was actually because too few articles were submitted in French, rather than that too few people were reading it in French.²⁵

Verdict: Mostly true.

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Claim:

"English is just as much big business as the export of manufactured goods," Professor Randolph Quirk of Oxford University has written. "There are problems with what you might call 'after-sales service'; and 'delivery' can be awkward; but at any rate the production lines are trouble free." [The Observer, October 26, 1980]

Research:

Randolph Quirk never taught at, let alone attended, Oxford University.²⁶

The quote is from July 9, 1978 in The Observer.²⁷

Quirk’s quote feels more like an opinion than an actual fact. He provides no substantive evidence in the remainder of the article.

Verdict: Mixed.

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Claim:

Indeed, such is the demand to learn the language that there are now more students of English in China than there are people in the United States.

Research:

The earliest source I can find for this claim is from a chairman of an economics department at Trinity college speaking at “a seminar on developing the Vermont economy through educational resources.”²⁸

In 1986, there were an estimated fifty million people in China learning English.²⁹ The population of the United States in 1990 was 250 million,³⁰ so while it’s possible that over 200 million people began learning English in China during that four year span, it’s unlikely.

Verdict: False.

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Conclusion

The final verdicts:

• 1 - True

• 2 - Mostly true

• 2 - Not meaningfully true

• 3 - Mixed

• 2 - Mostly false

• 1 - False

• 3 - Unknown

We’ll continue on with Bryson’s claims regarding English vocabulary and grammar next time!

Final Fun Fact:

I managed to find the source of Bryson’s Finnish swear word claim in the course of researching this post.

The journalist, Alex Hamilton writes

I remembered in Finland having no native swear words, and adapting “ravintolassa” for this purpose. It means “in the restaurant” but after constant use, uttered in tones of rage and frustration, some of my Finnish friends were inclined to blush when they heard it. Are not context, and more importantly acting and tone, just as relevant as the general connotations of language? “Entirely so,” [Randolph Quirk] says.³¹

Hamilton visited Finland, but didn’t know any Finnish swear words, so he himself made up a pseudo-swear that took on the connotations of an actual swear word. It’s not that Finnish doesn’t have any native swear words—it’s that one guy didn’t know any of them.

1. In paperback. The audiobook is ranked #31 and the ebook is ranked #63. (As of July 26, 2023.)

2. It’s beat out by Like, Literally, Dude by Fridland; Fluent Forever by Wyner; and The Language Instinct by Pinker. It’s hard to tell the overall Amazon ratings, because each type (audiobook/ebook/hardcover/paperback) is ranked separately.

3. I’d intended to make a series of blog posts on my very first blog I started back in 2012, but college took priority.

4. Weeks, George. “Some 300 Million People Speak English.” The Columbus Ledger, 25 Dec. 1962, p. 8, www.newspapers.com/article/the-columbus-ledger-some-300-million-peo/128927843/. Accessed 26 July 2023.

5. I’ll update this post if I manage to locate the original report.

6. Kachru, Braj B. “World Englishes: Agony and Ecstasy.” Journal of Aesthetic Education, vol. 30, no. 2, 1996, pp. 135–55. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/3333196. Accessed 5 July 2023. ​ ​

Twentieth Century English - an overview. Oxford English Dictionary. (2020, June 17). https://public.oed.com/blog/twentieth-century-english-an-overview/

7. “British Airways - Fractured English.” The Sunday People, 4 Feb. 1973, p. 8, www.newspapers.com/article/the-sunday-people-british-airways-frac/128928447/. Accessed 27 July 2023.

8. “Comedian Jimmy Martinez.” The Miami News, 25 May 1973, p. 18, www.newspapers.com/article/the-miami-news-comedian-jimmy-martinez/128928511/. Accessed 27 July 2023.

9. Lo Bello, Nino. “Fun with Fractured Inglish.” The Gazette, 30 Jan. 1977, p. 19, www.newspapers.com/article/the-gazette-fun-with-fractured-inglish/128928550/. Accessed 27 July 2023.

10. Bonner, Lee, and Bill Bryson. “Signs from around the World Compiled by Bryson.” Clarion-Ledger, 30 Jan. 1983, p. 96, www.newspapers.com/article/clarion-ledger-signs-from-around-the-wor/128928649/. Accessed 27 July 2023.

11. “Jap Rules of the Road.” The Pantagraph, 10 Apr. 1919, p. 3, www.newspapers.com/article/the-pantagraph-jap-rules-of-the-road/128927988/. Accessed 27 July 2023.

12. Simple, Peter. “A Safe Success: Bad Translations into English.” The Daily Telegraph, 5 Oct. 1971, p. 14, www.newspapers.com/article/the-daily-telegraph-a-safe-success-bad/128929136/. Accessed 27 July 2023.

13. “Dictionary Editors - Robert Burchfield.” Oxford English Dictionary, public.oed.com/history/chief-editors/#burchfield. Accessed 5 July 2023.

14. “American English a Far Cry from Mother Tongue.” The Times, 3 July 1978, p. 20, www.newspapers.com/article/the-times-american-english-a-far-cry-fro/128929908/. Accessed 27 July 2023.

Another expert says American and British English are diverging so fast that in another 200 years Britons and their one-time colonists may need interpreters.

Beginning with the battle of Concord, Americans and Britons have been on a parting course that promises eventual incomprehensibility, says Robert Burchfield, chief editor of the Oxford English Dictionary. …

The physical separation and other differences between the United States and Britain have set the colonists at linguistic odds with the motherland, Burchfield said in an interview here. …

Another cause of the growing difference is that the United States continues to receive immigrants, while Britain to a greater extent has closed her doors, Burchfield said.

15. Hills, Nicholas. “Is Language Splitting the U.S. And Britain?” The Sault Star, 17 July 1978, p. 4, www.newspapers.com/article/the-sault-star-is-language-splitting-the/128929762/. Accessed 27 July 2023.

16. The lecture took place in the U.S., but it was given by a British scholar.

17. Not including USSR states, there were 178 sovereign states by the end of 1989. (In Bryson’s defense, there were a lot of changes in that era.)

Wikipedia Contributors. “List of Sovereign States by Date of Formation.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 31 Mar. 2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_date_of_formation.

My list does include a former sovereign state (Zaire), but that still puts the count over 168.

“List of Former Sovereign States.” Wikipedia, 21 Sept. 2020, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_former_sovereign_states.

18. I used Wikipedia’s lists of airlines by country and list of defunct airlines to determine whether a country had an operational airline in 1990. Of the 179 nations, 19 of them did not have airlines in 1990: Andorra, Dominica, Grenada, Liechtenstein, Federated States of Micronesia, Saint Kitts and Nevis, San Marino, Timor-Leste, Tuvalu, Vatican City, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Mali, Palestine, Qatar, Togo.

19. Wikipedia cites an Encyclopedia of India for this statistic.

20. Wikipedia Contributors. “European Free Trade Association.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 4 Jan. 2020, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Free_Trade_Association.

21. “Iveco.” Wikipedia, 6 Jan. 2021, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iveco.

22. “BBC-Brown, Boveri and Asea Announce Merger.” AP News, 10 Aug. 1987, web.archive.org/web/20210226183326/apnews.com/article/9d699a81e7edcd99c39f324b1ce41a38. Accessed 26 July 2023.

23. AP News. “COMPANY NEWS; Chinese Venture for Volkswagen.” New York Times, 20 Nov. 1990, www.nytimes.com/1990/11/21/business/company-news-chinese-venture-for-volkswagen.html. Accessed 26 July 2023.

24. “Languages of Belgium.” Wikipedia, 31 Dec. 2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Belgium.

25. Tempest, Rone. “Furor over Pasteur : Fewer Words of Wisdom Are French.” Los Angeles Times, 12 Apr. 1989, www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1989-04-12-mn-1672-story.html. Accessed 26 July 2023.

[Dr. Maxime] Schwartz, a prominent molecular biologist who last year became director of the Pasteur Institute, is surprised by the storm his decision has caused. But he defends the change as necessary to keeping alive the struggling French journals on immunology, microbiology and virology.

“You need a common language in science,” he said in an interview in his office, where a bust of Pasteur looked on. “Unfortunately, the one that has imposed itself is English. English has become the international language in science.”

Part of the problem, he said, has to do with le snobbisme of French scientists, many of whom would prefer to have their research published first in an American or British publication rather than in their native France. This hit close to home in 1983, when a Pasteur Institute researcher, Luc Montagnier, chose to announce his isolation of the AIDS virus (later disputed by a rival claim in the United States) in the American magazine Science instead of in one of the Pasteur journals.

Often, Schwartz said, there is good reason for the English bias.

“If a scientist wants his work to be known,” Schwartz said, “he has to publish it in a language others understand. There are examples of French journals having something first only to have a later American publication get credit.”

Under this kind of pressure, in 1973, editorial review boards at the Pasteur Institute began accepting articles in English. In that year about 10% of the articles were in English.

By 1987, close to 100% of the articles submitted to the institute were in English, even though about 60% of them came from researchers in French-speaking countries.

By last year it was clear that something more drastic needed to be done. The number of articles submitted for publication had fallen to a trickle. Quality was declining.

“We had to do something,” Schwartz said, “because the publications were in trouble.”

The most dramatic step came this year when the titles were changed to English and Louis Pasteur was demoted to subtitle status: “Established in 1887 as the Annales de l’Institut Pasteur.”

26. Wikipedia Contributors. “Randolph Quirk.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 10 Apr. 2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randolph_Quirk. Accessed 26 Oct. 2019.

27. Quirk, Randolph. “The Importance of Exporting English.” The Observer, 9 July 1978, p. 10, www.newspapers.com/article/the-observer-the-importance-of-exporting/128932239/. Accessed 27 July 2023.

28. Donovan, William J. “Trinity Speaker Urges Education, Business Forces Work Together.” The Burlington Free Press, 17 Nov. 1983, p. 26, www.newspapers.com/article/the-burlington-free-press-trinity-speake/128958334/. Accessed 27 July 2023.

29. Keqiang, Wang. “Teaching English as a Foreign Language in China.” TESL Canada Journal, Special Issue 1, Nov. 1986, pp. 154–60.

30. ​“1990 United States Census.” Wikipedia, 11 Mar. 2022, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1990_United_States_census.

31. Hamilton, Alex. “A Quirk and a quibble.” The Guardian, 7 Oct. 1980, p. 9, www.newspapers.com/article/the-guardian-a-quirk-and-a-quibble/128958999/. Accessed 27 July 2023.