How interesting it is to see that Georgia, at one time a Soviet country, in an effort to distance itself from its Russian superpower neighbour has made the learning of English compulsory in its schools. The assimilation of a second language has become a political choice in our times.
English is a member of the huge Indo-European family of languages. Today, this is the most spoken group of languages in the world.
Most are mutually incomprehensible, owing to their many changes over the years. Slavic, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Indian dialects and Celtic all stem from that same family.
Our own language comes from Old English, a form of Low German brought to the island of Britain in the fifth century by invading Germanic tribes of Saxons, Jutes, Friesians and Angles. Ah, but what about the people who were already there? Romans were there speaking Latin, and a form of Gaelic was being spoken by the indigenous population.
However, due to the ferocity of the invaders, and a possible plague that swept through the island in 550 AD, Low German took over - a matter of chance but it was a momentous one. The Norman invasion of the 11th Century brought French to England. It became the language of the courts but it never superseded Old English. What it did do was give many French words to the language.
From then on, until the time of Elizabeth the First, there was a period of slow development. The printed Bible of the early 1600s standardized grammar and vocabulary. It became the single concrete model of the language in use at the time.
Then came Shakespeare. He himself was responsible for inventing or recording at least 1,700 new words. The story of the growth and dissemination of English, as it became the world language for trade and technology from then on, is a fascinating one.
The library has several good books and media which look at how English came to be one of the world's most important tongues.
One of my favourites is Bill Bryson's Mother Tongue, though the Story of English in both book and video form is very enjoyable.
Empires of the Word is a more scholarly work which follows the development of many languages and looks at why some died and some (like Welsh) are now enjoying a revival.
The library has a fairly comprehensive collection of foreign language books. French is well represented of course, as are Chinese, Japanese, German, Korean, Hindi and Punjabi.
We also have a great collection of language tapes and this is a great way to start to learn another language.
