Via NYT: Globish For Beginners
If the whole world speaks English, will it still be English?
by Isaac Chotiner May 31, 2010
Robert McCrum
In 1834, Thomas Babington Macaulay, the British historian and statesman, arrived in Madras. He travelled north to Calcutta, then India’s capital, to assume the role of Law Member of the Governor-General’s Council. “We know that India cannot have a free Government,” Macaulay had written to the Scottish philosopher James Mill the year before. “But she can have the next best thing: a firm and impartial despotism.” A few months later, Macaulay wrote a memo on Indian education, which stated, “It is impossible for us, with our limited means, to attempt to educate the body of the people. We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern; a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect.” The implication was obvious: Indians must learn the language of their occupiers.
Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2010/05/31/100531crbo_books_chotiner#ixzz0uZmdhl48
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