Should English have an "acadamy of the language" to tell us how to use it?

Question

Should we have a proscriptive institution "cleaning, fixing, and giving splendor" to the English language, like the Real Academia Española is supposed to do for Spanish? Why or why not? What would the purpose be? Would English speakers respect the language more if we did?

Yes, yes, "academy," thank you... typo

Answer 1

In short, my answer is no. I'll try to make my reasons brief.

1. First of all, where would such an institution be housed? If it were in England, for example, many Americans would have no desire to follow the prescriptions of an English institution. Just like English speakers in Canada, India, and England would probably not accept the prescriptions of an American institution. Also, there are many native speakers of English whose dialects are not accepted in the "core" of English-speaking countries in such places as Singapore and Nigeria.

2. People don't learn to speak English from books or institutions; they learn to speak English from the people around them. Think of the situation of the Real Academia, since you brought it up. Compare the number of Spanish speakers in Spain, the home of the Real Academia, to the number of Spanish speakers in the Americas and other countries. Why should such a large population of non-Spanish Spanish speakers have any reason to listen to such a small population of grammarians in Spain? And, of course, they don't, as you have surely recognized by now.

3. Differences between dialects do not mean that those dialects are good or bad. All dialects of a language are useful for communication; otherwise, people wouldn't use them. However, people do judge dialects based on their judgments of the people who use them. The criticism of "Ebonics" in the United States, for example, is often fueled by tacit racism. So, when it comes time for the English prescriptive institution to make a decision about which dialect is the appropriate one, how will they make it? Since all dialects are valuable for communication, the decision would be made based on something else, like economic power or racism, perhaps. Surely dialects with less status would lose out. That doesn't seem fair to me. These days there are many native speakers of English who aren't even recognized as native speakers by people from the U.S. and England in places such as Singapore and Nigeria. On top of that, English is such a powerful language that it has become more or less a worldwide lingua franca, used by non-native speakers to communicate with non-native speakers. Would a prescriptive institution really have the ability to dictate a dialect that would meet these people's needs?

4. English already has a few people who are already trying to do just what you have proposed, with limited success. The OED proclaims itself to be the ultimate authority on English vocabulary, but it didn't even have an American editor on staff until just a few years ago, meaning that many American words were not included in the dictionary. But surely people would not say that these are not real words just because they don't belong to the British English dialect. There's also the "E-prime" movement, which you can read about here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Prime
In the 1700s, grammarians such as Noah Webster and Robert Lowth wrote books that were intended to standardize the grammar of English, based mostly in their reasoning that English should be like Latin. Many of their grammar rules are still with us today, but that hasn't stopped native speakers from using things like split infinitives, double negatives, and stranded prepositions on a regular basis. After all, these grammatical features were in use in English hundreds of years before the grammar books were written, and they have persisted in English to the present. What makes you think that any other standardization movement would be more effective?

5. I don't think any kind of standardization of English is necessary. As mentioned, it's pretty obvious that there are differences among the dialects of English, but why should we need to neutralize these differences? I would argue that it's the variety in the dialects that gives English "splendor". To make an institution that declares how all other English speakers should use the language is to claim that only the prescriptivists have a right to use language. I say that no one has communication in his/her back pocket, and that speakers of any language are incredibly savvy in the way that they use the language to their personal benefit. To try to take that out of the hands of the masses is disempowering, in my opinion. I don't think that English _needs_ to be cleaned or fixed.

Answer 2

I don't know if English would be more respected, but it might give it more uniformity than what it has at the present. However, which English will be the correct one; American, British, or Australian? If we want to compare it the Real Academia, then we'd have to go with the British version, because that's where English originated, just as Spanish originated in Spain. However, I don't think many Americans would agree with that! It might sound like a good idea in theory, but one problem with the Real Academia is that they tend to forget how many other countries speak Spanish, and the people in those countries use words and phrases that are just as valid as the ones used in Spain. I could see that happening with the "Royal Academy of English". Not a bad idea, in theory. Good question! :)

Answer 3

No, because the Academies have proven be great wastes of time and money. No Academy has successfully stopped language change in any language--EVER. That is because language is always changing faster than any Academy can keep up with it. Language change happens generally in the teen and young adult years when people are least likely to care about anything the Academy says or does. It's a waste of time because it is generally just a "feel good" organization for the older generation.

Answer 4

I agree with Taivo somewhat. All languages change. If you want proof, try reading Shakespear. Or better yet, try reading Beowulf. Both are in English, but the language has changed over the years that an English speaker today can not understand Beowulf without translation. Shakespear will be that way eventually as well. I agree that the English language is not nearly as eloquent as it once was...but I also doubt there is much that can be done about it.

Answer 5

No, there should not be such an institution. The reason that english is such an effective language, and is so pervasive, is because it changes quickly and easily. New words and grammar are added all the time. In a quickly changing world, the flexibility of a language is one of its most important aspects.

Plus, i can understand people who speak different versions of english than myself. As can most english speakers.

Answer 6

No, there is such a wide and rich variety of English Dialects in the world, many in just the UK, where words and even grammar changes, not just accent. Standardisation would ruin that, and the local peoples would resent it.

Think how we British would feel being forced to use American English, or vice versa.

Answer 7

Yes, that would be great. Just like France and the French language in general has l'Academie française. I only recently found out that there was no such thing for English. Too bad.

Answer 8

It was done in the 1700s, in replica of the Academie Francais, as a way of regulating a purifying the English language. They wanted to bring language back to the golden ages- hence a lot of our stupid spellings.

And no, please let's not. Just the only thing we rid ourselves of is txt tlk; the language of the imbeciles.

Answer 9

Judging by the vast number of illiterate people on here, yes, we most definitely should!

Answer 10

That's a great idea. I think the RAE has done alot.