The future of English in an awakening world

The world is never so dark that it cannot get darker, but the Cradle of English will reveal what one small patch of London ground was able to accomplish in making the world lighter

In the short time since the idea for the “Cradle of English” was conceived, a lot has happened in the world. Most obvious and with the greatest explicit impact has been the unholy trio of pandemic, economic depression, and the increasingly tightening screws of environmental peril.

Less obvious but every bit as pervasive has been another unholy trio with tendrilling links to those first three concerns: the intensifying clash between haves and have nots; the related conflict between increasingly rabid nationalisms and beleaguered multi-culturalism; and a keener sensitivity to the threats to individual liberty posed by the growing power of digital technology.

Given all this, it would seem that the world has become a petri dish for the poetic musings of Matthew Arnold – “. . . we are here as on a darkling plain, Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, Where ignorant armies clash by night,” and of WB Yeats – “The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.”

Clearly, much is going to have to change if we are to rediscover the dynamics of consensus – or at least a keener talent for tolerating differences of background and, critically, opinions. While everyone is being encouraged to be more circumspect in what they say and do, the questions for everyone to address when curating history and building the future include this one:  are those voices that are deemed to be excessive to be stilled?

In many cases, possibly yes. We could do with a quieter world. But are those voices to be stilled to include those who advocate for the study and celebration of the English language? Given the moonlit fairyland of Canzuk on the one hand and, on the other hand, the more thoughtful and still problematic historical re-assessments that have arisen at places like The National Trust, it is far too easy to conflate the behaviour of English people over many centuries with the language they spoke.

It is not for the Cradle of English to explain, much less answer for the myriad correlations throughout history of human languages and human behaviour. Future study of this topic will surely be a sustaining fascination for philosophers of language, linguistic archaeologists, and natural language processors for many years to come.

The nugget of wonder at the soul of Fleet Street is what innovative collaboration and energy was able to accomplish over a few short centuries in one tiny corner of London. It enabled civilizational advances in law, science, literature, and the highest articulations of human aspiration and liberty. And it was facilitated by the accession of a language sparked by the sheer variety of genius that came together on this ground.

Whatever unhappy results accrue from unintended consequences, our progress as a species has far more to learn from the example of the intended consequences of concerted inspiration: and the language in which it was expressed.