English is finally emulating other Romance languages and will get a specialist organisation to define the rules and stop the decline of the language.
Centuries after Italian got an Academy to maintain linguistic standards in 1582, followed by French in 1635, Spanish in 1713 and Portuguese in 1779, an Academy of English is being set up by the Queen’s English Society.
“French and Spanish have supreme authorities that try, while moving with the times, to define what is good and acceptable usage and what is not,” the Queen’s English Society said. “They do not stop the language from changing over the years but they do provide a measure of linguistic discipline and try to retain valid and useful neologisms while rejecting passing fads that may be in use today but are not destined to endure.” The Academy wants to set up a similar system for English. “We need to formulate the basic rules of English language and grammar and ensure that English has a backbone,” Queen’s English Society acting chairman Rhea Williams told this newspaper. The main force behind the academy is retired translator and interpreter Martin Estinel, Ms Williams said and when asked why it took so long for an academy to be set up, she said that “any society works on the ideas that people have.” “English is the most amazing living language, it constantly keeps accepting new words for all sources. It has one of the biggest vocabularies of any language,” said Ms Williams, who is a member of the academy. She added that English really needed something like the Academy to stop the decline and misuse of the language.
“The Academy is a 21st century attempt, drawing precisely on the digitalised nature of the world today, to provide an authoritative and respected Academy of the English Language that is both strict in its criteria yet open to all the many regional flavours that English has to offer,” she added.
The Academy would formulate universal rules for English despite regional and national variations that creep into the usage of the language.
“We need to have standardised English which people across the world can understand. Each country uses English in its own way and this can easily continue. However, we need to have some basic and standard rules which will be adhered to by all speakers of English,” Ms Williams added.