The English Language (based largely on the book, The Story of English, by McCrum, MacNeil, and Cran) With half a million words or more, English vocabulary can outscore In synonyms all other languages, Including French and Spanish usages. How this phenomenon has come to be, Consult the chronicles of History, Countless invasions (since Caesar's decree) Across the English Channel and North Sea. In the beginning was a single tongue But Babel's building, hopefully begun, Brought Heaven's intervention and confused Communication. Yet one source suffused The syntaxes of Sanskrit, Latin, Greek, Then spread through the earth's regions, so to speak. In Albion, Celts, Romans, their part did play, But later the Germanic tribes held sway From the Fifth Century A.D. -- the Jutes, Angles and Saxons -- to plant English roots: The one hundred most common words today Come from this era that revered word-play. Then christians, like a venerable bead In this great chain of influence, did feed The progress with their Latin treasury Exemplified in church and monastery. Next came the Vikings, plundering gold, And but for Alfred, King of Wessex bold, Might have wiped out the English language then, But he had rallied the West Country men Then set out to set down by English pen Great texts. Now on to 1066 when French-speaking Normans seized complete control Instilling savoir-faire, favored parôle. But in the tales of pilgrims Chaucer penned, England's linguistic streams together wend By A.D. 1400. Then the printing press A London-centric language would express. That "christian king," Henry the Fifth, who sacked Harfleur, fighting the French, brought English back As the official language of his land, Sealed this at Agincourt with brethren band. Tens of thousands of new words bubbled up As Englishmen drank Inspiration's cup, Among them Thomas Elyot, Thomas More, But Shakespeare most of all comes to the fore. With flame divine, his genius ablaze, He coined many an eternal phrase, And that he sings beyond the wooden O, Thank compilers of the First Folio. He symbolizes England's Golden Age, Inventive inkpots writing for the stage (Those days when actors earned a living wage), The word became flesh in a poet's rage. A Muse of Fire rekindled Scripture too, Translations of the Testaments Old and New, The King James Bible John Bois oversaw, Published 1611. Milton saw -- The seeing-world too narrow for his mind -- Paradise Lost (and then Regained), though blind, Heard Pandemonium's counsel, Heaven's hymn, As Dr. Samuel Johnson said of him. And Johnson made his famous Dictionary In middle of the 18th Century. Soon, exploration and colonial dread Around the world the British Empire spread. Although the pen be mightier than the sword, The tongue a restless fire, the English lord At sword-point his imperial tongue enforced, As through the commonwealth Queen's English coursed, Though most soldiers a "cock's-egg" Cockney way Spoke "kerbstone English" Shaw put in his play Pygmalion. This voice of late began To be in vogue, larded with rhyming slang Like "pen and ink" for "stink," and "trouble and strife" For "wife." Meanwhile, "vowel cancer" became rife -- A strainèd strain of English, "Strine" nicknamed -- Down-under in a land the convicts claimed. Another New World was emergent too As English settlers, paradise in view, Sailed to America, their new life sought (Though others on a blood-drenched wave were brought). And there the English language absorbed much Other colonials spoke -- Spanish, French, Dutch -- And immigrants: Scots, Germans, Irish who Dispersed the language the oppressor knew, For Irish speakers of mellifluous tone, These kissing-keepers of the Blarney Stone, Although maligned for brogue or manners rough, Have made great English literary stuff. And on plantations liberation sang, Groaning for Africa with homesick pang, But when jazz came, borne on a southern lip, The Harlem jive-talk hummed of "hype" and "hip." Jews and Italians to the melting pot Assembled in the mottled polyglot, So in the mix the Yiddish chutzpah stirred, And terms like "shlep," "shtick," "schlock," and "schmooze" were heard. "American Language" some hail as a mark Of independence. The writings of Mark Twain, that master of vernacular speech, And Walt Whitman attain eternal reach. Noah Webster wrote the American Speller Which turned into a runaway bestseller, His Dictionary in 1828; And King showed how resistance can orate, Although the Bill of Rights and Constitution, Once writ to safeguard Freedom's institution, These days the U.S. government destroys, Engaging, meanwhile, euphemistic ploys, Helped by the multinational corporation, Deceptive phrases, jargon, obfuscation, By dull, prolixious prose, verbosity, Forgetting poetry's economy. Among the foremost formers of a phrase, George Orwell's prophecies describe these days -- With "thought-crime" and Big Brother's fascist role And Truth discarded down the "memory hole." Yet still our language its old novelty Retains, rejoicing in neology. Its "excellent jests, fire-new from the mint," Perpetuate Shakespearean instinct. Some 20,000 new words every year In lexicons and dictionaries appear, While, like a darting swallow, Babel's curse Comes not to rest as all the world converse. Charles Kingsley's prophecy has proved its worth (In Westward Ho!): that no wind sweeps the earth Without the echo of an English voice. It hath become a universal choice For international finance and commerce, The solvent in which science most traverse The globe, and Internet ideas disperse, A near-necessity to fill one's purse. The speech of media and diplomacy, The greatest literature and poetry, The sterling broadcasts of the BBC, Nations acknowledge its ascendancy. Though speaking tongues is never obsolete, English in Heaven takes intercessory seat: If not the language seraphim most speak, The means by which most souls their Maker seek. Go forth, then, speak and write, communicate, This divine utterance articulate. Let English words work what thy wit inspire, Wrought by the Muse of Pentecostal Fire. August 2006