Annual Themes

A language that was the tongue of three tribes 1,500 years ago is today the language of nearly two billion people. It has three-times more non-native speakers than native speakers. No other language comes close to matching that, and it is that that makes English global. It is the modern lingua franca, the language used by the Russians to talk to the Nigerians, the Germans to talk to the Spanish, the Chinese to talk to the Brazilians

This year English Language Day celebrates ‘English the Global Language’. A language that was the tongue of three tribes 1,500 years ago is today the language of nearly two billion people. It has three-times more non-native speakers than native speakers. No other language comes close to matching that, and it is that that makes English global. It is the modern lingua franca, the language used by the Russians to talk to the Nigerians, the Germans to talk to the Spanish, the Chinese to talk to the Brazilians.

English is found on every continent. It has major speech communities in over seventy countries. It is the language of the internet.  It is language of air-traffic control, of international travel, and of international business.  It is the language of science.

English comes in a huge variety forms across time from Old English through Middle English to Modern English and through space from Australian through Jamaican and Indian to Zimbabwean. It exists in a thousand dialects, slangs and street forms. It exists in two major written forms, American and British. Those forms are not materially different, and the uniformity of written English provides the world with a consistent, and flexible mode of intercommunication.  

With the role of being a global language goes the need for a large vocabulary, and the vocabulary of English is huge. The online Oxford English Dictionary has over 600,000 headwords; word collectors claim counts of one million and more words. Remarkably, the vocabulary of a university-educated person is about 50,000 words, and any one speaker can only use a tiny portion of the full range of English. Trades, groups, professions and activities have all their own vocabularies; the International Scientific Vocabulary is the largest with 200,000 words though each scientific area has its own subset of that great number. English has borrowed words from 350 languages, mainly from French (20,000) and from Latin (20,000). English has given words to as many languages as it has borrowed from, and it has probably given to very many more.

The English language is not only the vehicle of our heritage; it is the greatest jewel in that heritage. If we celebrate the English language, we do not do so with any sense of its superiority to other languages spoken in our community but only to recognize that English is the foundation of our heritage and the one language that we all have in common. It involves us all. It is a heritage so rich and diverse that is not possible to sum it up, but the English language is important to absolutely everyone in the United Kingdom. Salman Rushdie puts it best: ‘What seems to me to be happening is that those people who were once colonized by the language are now rapidly remaking it, domesticating it, becoming more and more relaxed about the way they use it—assisted by the English language’s enormous flexibility and size, they are carving out large territories for themselves within its frontiers.

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The OED says of ENGLISH: ‘The original sense of the adjective must have been ‘of or belonging to the Angles’, i.e. with reference to a Germanic tribe which apparently inhabited the district of Angeln in the south of the Jutish peninsula around 400 A.D. and was so named on account of its area of settlement.’

We can be ‘fired up’ like a kiln when we are all ready to go. We may also seize the moment and ‘strike when the iron is hot’ without being aware of metalworking. We may sense only a thin ‘veneer’ of politeness in some people and enjoy knowing that a veneer was a thin layer of wood long before it had this metaphorical use.

Saturday 13 October is English Language Day and the theme for this year’s annual celebration of the English Language is the language of making and craft.

We can be ‘fired up’ like a kiln when we are all ready to go. We may also seize the moment and ‘strike when the iron is hot’ without being aware of metalworking. We may sense only a thin ‘veneer’ of politeness in some people and enjoy knowing that a veneer was a thin layer of wood long before it had this metaphorical use.

When we use our hands to make new things we also need to make new words to describe what we are doing. Words such as – appliqué, batik, still-life, origami, papier-mâché, and so on. Often we take words from other languages or combine them from existing words.

Sometimes we make a new word like ‘daguerreotype’ but it does not survive. In this case, replaced by the more familiar ‘photograph’.

Writers are also ‘makers’. When we make a book the medium we are using is words (and sometimes pictures). Poets and playwrights and authors make stories out of words which, like a beautifully made ‘thing’ can transport us to other worlds.

If you would like to find out more contact us at The English Project.

If you decide to run your own event, why not tell us about it?

Location Lingo: We and our partner, the Ordnance Survey, embarked on the major exercise of collecting your nicknames for the familiar places around you.

We were awarded grants from Heritage Lottery Fund and Hampshire County Council for a project we called ‘Placing Your Language’. This enabled us to organise 32 different events in 28 different locations in Hampshire organised by over 20 individuals over 8 months and enjoyed by more than 15,000 people.

To get a flavour of what happened do have a look at the materials which appear on our website:

Location Lingo: we and our partners, the Ordnance Survey, embarked on the major exercise of collecting your nicknames for the familiar places around you. (It’s not too late to contribute your nicknames – just follow the link from our homepage!). Such names could refer to a bridge, a wood, an ugly building or any item in the landscape – even your entire town. Our database now comprises thousands of names and their associated locations. They tell an important cultural and historical story of how people interact with their surroundings, as well as revealing a lot of ingenuity and humorous wordplay!

The activity met with great interest and the English Project trustees appeared widely on national radio and television describing the value and significance of vernacular geography. The work wasn’t without controversy, however; many people reported amusing but derrogatory nicknames for their own towns which were picked up by their local press. The result was some heated debate in the media between council officials, who wished to defend the pleasant nature of their town, and those residents who could see an appropriateness in the nicknames.

Calligraphy at the City Museum: South Hampshire Calligraphers came to demonstrate the skill of their art and to allow others to try their hands too.  Guests included Winchester MP Steve Brine.

Place Names Past, Present and Future: our annual English Language Day lecture was a fascinating account of the origins of English place names with a look at present day trends for naming streets and communities.  It was given by Dr Paul Cavill, Director of the English Place Names Society. Find out about the place names of Hampshire in our SCHOOLS zone.

Theatre Sleuths: do you know the language of the theatre? As part of our 2010 events children were given the opportunity to play language detectives at Winchester’s Theatre Royal. They found answers to such questions as: Why is it considered unlucky to whistle in the theatre?  From which ancient language does the verb audire come? The theatre borrows much termionology from which of the armed forces?

Our young contestants also solved puzzles and word-search games and had a great time. The overall winner was Jo Welch with 15 correct answers. Find educational materials in our SCHOOLS zone.

Treasure Hunt: a fiendish treasure hunt was compiled for us by Kevin Ashman, one of TV’s renowned Eggheads.  It was a very challenging trail where competitors attempted to identify Hampshire towns.  The winning prize was dinner with Kevin himself!

The Changing Face of Place Names and Toponomy:  two programmes of activities for children were created by Hampshire Archives and Local Studies to allow pupils to explore place names.  These focused on examples from the Beaulieu Estate in Hamphire.  Many schoolchildren enjoyed these exercises as part of English Language Day and the learning resources may be downloaded from our Learning Zone. 

Magic Maps: Children of a wide age-range came together to invent their own mysterious place names and make a magical map to take home with them. They also discovered how real places in Hampshire came to get their names. Magic Maps was run in: Alton, Andover, Basingstoke, Eastleigh, Fareham and Gosport.

100 Places that tell the story of the English Language: a study begun by student Isabel ‘Issy’ Millett during her short stay with the English Project is to become a prestigious new book to be published in 2013.

The English Language in Hampshire: English Project trustee Professor Chris Mulvey presened a lecture in Winchester’s Discovery Centre which traced the English spoken in Hampshire from its historical roots to its present day influences by immigrant communities in London.  Download this and other talks by Chris Mulvey in our RESOURCES zone.

Guided Walks Exploring the Place Names of Hampshire: Tourist guides from Winchester City Guides prepared and led special walks around Alresford, Winchester, Southampton and Gosport, focussing on the weath of local place names and their history. See the WCG’s 10 top tips for organising guided walks in our RESOURCES zone.

‘University Challenge’: the English Project’s version of the popular quiz took place between the Universities of Sussex and Winchester. It was a close contest but Sussex just took the honours.

The English Project launches world’s first ever English Language Day on October 13th, a landmark day to celebrate and explore the changing shape of the world’s 7,000 spoken “Englishes”.

Below you will find our press release for the very first English Language Day in 2009:

The English Project launches world’s first ever English Language Day on October 13th

Landmark day to celebrate and explore the changing shape of the world’s 7,000 spoken “Englishes”.

Phillip Pullman, Susie Dent and host of other celebrities support the Day.

Charitable body, The English Project, will launch the world’s first ever English Language Day on October 13th, to mark the first occasion on which English was used in Parliament and to raise awareness of the estimated 7,000 varieties of English spoken in 100 countries worldwide.

English Language Day is being held to mark 13th October 1362, when Parliament was opened for the first time by a speech in English, rather than in French. In the same Parliament, a Statute of Pleading was approved that permitted members in debate to use the English language, making it an official language of law and law-making. The English Project, which recently created the best-selling book Kitchen Table Lingo, has chosen “The Language of Law” as the theme of this year’s inaugural event.

Award-winning author Phillip Pullman and Countdown’s lexicographer Susie Dent are patrons of English Language Day, which will henceforth be celebrated annually through a number of national events, publications and collaborations in conjunction with leading public figures, academics and institutions.

Commenting on the launch of the Day, Bill Lucas, English Project Trustee and Professor at the University of Winchester, says:

“Amazingly, although English is spoken by more than 2 billion people on the planet – roughly one third of the world’s population – there has never been a day when we can celebrate its full glory. We hope that October 13th will become a major event in the annual calendar.”

Patron Philip Pullman comments:

“Every speaker of English has the right to bring new words or expressions into being, or give new meanings to old ones. I hope The English Project will help many people to realise what a treasure we have in our language.”

Susie Dent adds:

“Our language has never been richer, stronger, or more diverse. There can be no better time to celebrate its vitality; the English Project is giving us the chance to do just that.”

The English Project will be hosting three inaugural events to mark English Language Day 2009 at leading law firm Taylor Wessing in partnership with The City University London and The University of Winchester:

• An evening debate on whether the language of English Law is in need of fundamental reform, led by celebrities, judges and QCs, including Judge Stephen Gerlis, Richard Gordon QC, Anne Atkins and Shaun Ley
• A conference for sixth form students from London and Hampshire schools, where science journalist and renowned science writer Rita Carter will explore “legalese and the brain”
• An event for university law students and practitioners on the origins and use of legal language, led by top lawyers and academics from The University of Winchester and The City Law School, City University London