The Queen’s English?

Her Majesty inserts the algorithm for The Queen’s English directly into my heart in 2004

Do you want to speak ‘the Queen’s English’, also known as ‘Standard English’? Well, I’m sorry to be the one to break this to you but, in the English speaking world, and despite the efforts of language schools and exam boards to suggest differently, there is no such thing as ‘Standard English’. I met the Queen of England once; she asked me, ‘And where do you do this work?’. Or, more precisely, she asked me, ‘And hwere do you do this work?’, putting the h in ‘where’ before the w. Now, I don’t know of anyone who teaches this pronunciation as ‘Standard English’, but I can testify that it is ‘the Queen’s English’. In reality, this practice of inverting the w and the h is a social class signifier intended to inform the listener that the speaker believes themselves to belong to an upper or elite social group who were, probably, educated together or similarly, and who were encouraged to express their inherent superiority in a variety of ways, including in their speech. There are parts of the world, such as the American South, where this hw practice is common without the same social implications, and there is historical evidence that this was once regular usage in England, but you are most unlikely to hear this speech form today in a market, bar or home throughout the English speaking world.

 If the Queen speaks differently from her subjects, as numerous Christmas speeches demonstrate, and if pronunciations and other aspects of the English language vary internationally, why worry about replicating a standard which, in reality, doesn’t exist? The joy of the English language is that it is adaptable and can incorporate the mother tongues and cultures of diverse people around the globe. Indian English, American English and Chinese English, for example, can sound very different and yet all are understood and recognised as English. This diversity also exists within the UK, the supposed ‘home’ of the English language. Visit the UK for the first time, thinking that you have learned to speak and understand English, and you might well be confused by the Babel of language differences you will encounter, such as the various pronunciations and grammatical differences of Londoners, Scots, the Welsh and the Northern Irish, and the dialect differences from Cornwall in the South to Yorkshire, the Midlands and the North East. Surely, the point of learning English is to understand and be understood by other English language users; this means being sensitive to the social and cultural differences that influence the ways in which they use the language. It also means being sensitive to the ways in which your own mother tongue and culture influence your use of English and avoiding, if you can, aspects of this that might confuse other English language users. Understanding and reflecting diversity in your learning of English is, in my view more useful and effective than aiming for some mythical standard that very few people, if any, actually achieve. I do teach some students to pass exams and, so far, they have all succeeded; but what I have learned from this experience is that passing exams and learning a language are two, very different activities. 

Of course, there is valuable learning to be gained from the exam syllabus and potential employers are guaranteed a level of competence that students will bring to their work, but this is not to be confused with an ability to use the English language effectively as a tool, for example, for the internationalisation of their business. This requires other communication skills that language schools focussed on exams do not teach and that the addition of the lexicon of ‘Business English’ also does not reach. Effective communication begins by recognising that English is no longer the exclusive property of ‘England’, that International English is increasingly freeing itself from these roots and that English, in its many forms, is now a global language with its own dynamic, that is developing in its own way without reference to the Queen or to the concept of a ‘Standard English’. Yes, the English language carries with it the negative histories of colonialism and exploitation that cannot and should not be ignored; but it also carries within it the seeds of a form of global communication that is increasingly in demand in our connected world.  I encourage you to think globally when approaching the English language and to be excited by the possibilities offered by this international language. Surely, this is a better prospect for the future, rather than worrying about the ‘standards’ of an outdated and increasingly irrelevant ‘English’ past.