English Culture - Our Gift to the World
27 Oct 2003
[770w]
This month J M Coetzee won the Nobel Prize for Literature. For an Englishman like me, this was an occasion for reflection and a poignant kind of pride.
Coetzee, a South African, is a towering figure in English Literature. A fortiori though you have to go back to 1983 for the last winner from England, more than a third of the prizes since then have gone to authors who wrote in English. None will have been unaware of the sometimes bloody and disreputable history by which English came to be the first, or at least the dominant, language of their countries. Some have ancestors who were forcibly moved from one hemisphere to the next by native English speakers and had no reason to love the language. Some of them have written about this. Everybody knows the spread of the English language was an imperial by-product.
It is also true, though, that when the lower-lying portions of our insignificant off-green island have sunk again beneath the North Sea, we will leave a legacy worth having. The best of who we were will live on in the mouths of a billion people across six continents. Today English finds its highest expression outside England. English speakers who are not English bring to its established rhythms the additional sensibility of another culture. Writing English outside England one may be less strung up about using it in a pre-determined way.
To write a language well it helps to be a native speaker, whereas to say something interesting it helps to be in some respects an outsider: the great English language satirists have all been Irish. Grow up speaking a language which came from somewhere else and it's easier to inhabit the territory of the insider / outsider, which is fertile ground for great literature.
There may also be something about the language itself that makes this work. English travels well. With few inflections it invites you to play with it. A language of gobbets, bits and ideas, its strength and beauty is not a matter of formal elegance. Born a mongrel of French and German, it's a hospitable language in which foreign phrases need not feel de trop. There is no Acadamie Anglaise to tell us what is not English. We don't have laws to say what it should be. All we have is the OED, growing by several thousand words a year, to tell us what is.
As a culture, we have cast our bread upon the waters and, after many days we have found it again. Many of the most succulent neologisms are coined by native speakers born thousands of miles from Stratford on Avon. We can read a third of the best novels in the world going without having to wait for a translator. And our language is just the start.
People often say England has no culture, but the fact of the matter is English culture is stupendous: only it's public property. What is English national dress? Take a sepia photo of a wedding party in 19th century Salonika: baggy white trousers, waistcoats and flared sleeves; in the corresponding picture from Bavaria they're wearing lederhosen. And what are they wearing in this Yorkshire family group? The same suit and tie that's now worn for business and formal occasions across half the world.
Or do you think clothes are trivial? Other cultural artefacts bred in the damp soil of this sceptered isle include parliamentary democracy, free market capitalism, the rule of law, cricket, rugby and soccer and the industrial revolution. Now these too are common property, done better overseas than they ever were here. We should rejoice. Not only did we think up something good, but it was so good that everyone else wanted to have a go. Doesn't it make your heart ache with pride that our national football side gets its bottom kicked on a regular basis? Our gift to the world.
Of course our native culture is now nugatory. Other countries have grand national culture with a mass following: bullfights, the Oktober Fest, the Palio. All we have left is marmite, bitter and Morris Dancing. The only bits of English culture that remain uniquely English are the bits nobody else wanted. But I'm not repining. Culture is one of those things that the more of it you give a way, the more you have. Whenever we read a poem by Derek Walcott or hear about elections to the Japanese Diet or watch Lazio beat AC Milan, we should think ourselves lucky. It is, after all, as the man said, more blessed to give than to receive.
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wrote on 25 Jun 2005
A J HOLLAND wrote on 6 Jun 2005
If I make a comment I am told I am a racist, because Im proud of England and what it has given to
the world. however I am totally against a multiculture society. I do not wish to be Asian African
or of eastern block culture.
They never asked the English if we want to be mixed up, what right do these idealists have to tell us
what is good for us.----------witchcraft in London torturing children, makes my blood boil like an
Englishmans would.
wrote on 18 May 2005
wrote on 18 May 2005
james hindle wrote on 30 Mar 2005
great article, i am 24 and feel english people are loosing sight of what it is to be English. I am writing a final year dissertation on English culinary culture and the effects of mass culture on it. if you or anyone else has any suggestions or advice please email me!
thanks to all
James
Rachael wrote on 11 Mar 2004
Wonderful! I am sat in Hong Kong wondering what artefacts from our culture I can take to my sons Cultural Day at school. Now I have lots of ideas! Also, I am glowing with pride about England!
Sarah wrote on 23 Feb 2004
This article helped, me write my report on England. I just wanted to thank the writer of this article.
ToRn wrote on 4 Jan 2004
Cool!!!