INTRODUCTION TO LANGUAGE ACADEMIES
Other languages (French and Spanish, for example)
have bodies that try, while moving with the times, to
record what is good and acceptable usage and what is
not. They do not stop the language from
changing over the years but they do provide a measure
of linguistic discipline by accepting useful
neologisms (new terms) while rejecting passing
fads. The French and Spanish
"Academies" were founded many centuries ago
and have gained in stature and respect with time.
English has never had any such
"Academy". The 21st
century is a bit late to start one, especially as
English, even more than the immensely widespread
languages of French and Spanish, has become a truly
universal language, spoken and used as a means of
communication amongst people all over the
world. But precisely because our language is so
widespread — and also because there has been a
dreadful devaluation and deterioration of education
in our hectic modern, digitalised world — we do
desperately need some form of easily accessible
reference for what is generally considered an
accepted standard of good English above all in
England — the ancestral home of the language
— and, by extension, in Britain. So The
Academy of Contemporary English is a 21st century attempt,
drawing precisely on the digitalised nature of the
world today, to provide a respected "Academy of
the English Language", a reference that without
claiming to be coercive is both strict in its
criteria yet open to all the many regional flavours
that English has to offer.
Why is it necessary to have any sort of "Academy" or whatever for the use of a language in the first place?
To answer this question, we need firstly to decide what a language is and why we need one in any case. Why do we utter noises and perform the act of talking? We do that to communicate. Certain animals also communicate by making noises (birds and dolphins, for example) but we humans are the only animals capable of shaping the sounds by forcing air from the lungs through a set of vocal chords and then moulding them with our throats, tongues, teeth and lips. Why do we go to all that trouble? Because we want to form very specific sets of sounds that are called words and we give each word a very specific meaning. By stringing these word patterns together, we form sentences that express what we are thinking in such a way that another person, on picking up that sound pattern can convert it back into a thought which is identical to our original thought. That is simple enough. But for this to work, we have to have a code.
For an overview of language-regulating academies, their histories and achievements, select the buttons below.
