Standard U.S. English, standard Japanese
One question I’ve been asked by my ESL students in Japan is, just where is “standard” American English located geographically?
Most countries define a given region as the “official” dialect of their language, which is then used in textbooks nationally. In China the standard language is the Beijing dialect of Mandarin, in Italy its based on the regions of Florence and Tuscany, and in Britain it emanates from the twin pillars of “Queen’s English” and the BBC. The “official” English used in the U.S. is a bit harder to pin down, and it’s sometimes referred to as Standard Midwestern, since it tends to flow from that part of the country.
In 1868, Japan’s capital was officially moved from Kyoto to Edo, which was renamed Tokyo meaning “east capital,” in imitation of China’s cities of Beijing and Nanjing, the “north” and “south” capitals. This meant that the “standard” Japanese language changed from the colorful, intoned speech of the Kansai region to flatter, more robotic-sounding dialect of the Kanto Plain, something that Osaka hasn’t quite forgiven Tokyo for yet.
Like the U.S. and Great Britain, Japan does not have an “official’ body to define its language is like the Académie française, and it’s generally up to the publishers of the Kojien, Japan’s answer to Oxford and Webster as the most prestigious dictionary, to bless new words by including them in its pages.
I think you’ll find there are institutions that “bless new words,” media producers like NHK, Asahi Shimbun, and Nihon Keizai Shimbun publish annual “shingojiten” (dictionaries of new words) in several editions for different categories, like business, technology, etc. Plugging “新語辞典” into amazon.co.jp will yield 689 hits.
In Japan, the mass media is the arbiter of common usage, they have language committees that consider which words are acceptable and likely to come into widespread use, and they distribute those words through their media, making them common usage by sheer repetition. Media producers with a national audience are careful to make sure their new language choices are most acceptable to the widest audience.
November 20th, 2007 at 8:56 amI’ve always looked to Hollywod to set the standard for US English. The US is very much consumer media focused.
I’ve always looked to Japundit as the official body on Japense English
November 20th, 2007 at 2:28 pmAmerican English is not standard English. Standard English comes from London, where a handful of American exchange students still speak it.
I have always though that California was standard, dude.
November 20th, 2007 at 7:07 pmI knew this little post wouldn’t get by without some arrogant person claiming American English was not valid.
Each country gets to set its own standards. Since America was the first one to stop putting the queen on its currency, it broke off from British standards long before Britain’s better-behaved former children. Brits may not like it that America gets to set its own standards for its language but that doesn’t make it any less valid. England has no say in what America does anymore. That’s what happens when a colony becomes independent.
November 21st, 2007 at 8:56 amI’ve been told that American television news anchors are trained to speak this “Standard Midwestern” because it’s the most neutral or something. So though there might not be an official body to recognize it, if people are trained to use “Midwestern” there must be some type of catalog or compiled knowledge base of standard American English somewhere I think.
November 21st, 2007 at 1:15 pmThere’s an old story (perhaps an urban legend) that the Navy prefers promoting Midwesterners to Executive Officers, because they have to announce the Captain’s orders over the loudspeaker, and their voices and pronunciation are the least likely to be misunderstood.
November 21st, 2007 at 3:04 pmI don’t think that TV announcers are trained to speak like Midwesterners, many of them ARE Midwesterners. For example, Johnny Carson’s famous voice was the model for many who followed, he grew up in Iowa and Nebraska.
My Alma Mater in Iowa has a large ESL program that attracts many Japanese exchange students, many of them come here because of the neutral accent everyone speaks here. I know a lot of foreign students with prior language, I always get a kick out of trying to identify the nationality of their teachers, I find it amusing when I hear an Asian student speaking with a British or Aussie accent.
Um… What was said was said, Shari, was that American English is not the same as Standard English. This is correct for two reasons.
The first is that Americian English is in fact a family of dialects, with a set of shared differences from the language as it is spoken elsewhere (soccer instead of football, elevator instead of lift) and which all originate from the USA. If it was a single, unified dialect of the language…there would be no need to ask what area it comes from.
The second is that Standard English is is, well, English — the Queen’s English, to be exact. It’s also known as British English, but this is rather a misnomer.
There is, however, something known as Standard American English. This is a combination of the Standard Midwestern accent combined with a vocabulary stripped of regional terms. (The Standard Midwestern accent is not only found in the Midwest; there’s a small area of the South where it’s spoken by the natives.)
November 23rd, 2007 at 8:34 am