Mutual Intelligibility

Ok, so what do I mean by mutual intelligibility? The simple answer is that everyone who speaks, in this case British English, would be able to understand what is said even though the grammar, pronunciation and words are different from their own idiolect. So people who speak different dialects would understand variations in language. Of course, there is mutual intelligibility between a person's spoken and written language but can all speakers of British English really understand one another? Let's face it we are not just talking about geographical or regional differences but also social differences.

If you were talking about other languages this would not even be a question. Norway and Denmark shared a language until 1814 and then the union failed and two different dialects became two different languages. It has been a long time but I am certain that very few people would argue that Norwegians and Danish can understand one another. When you think of the size of China and the number of dialects I am sure that noone would suggest that every Chinese person would be able to understand all of their compatriots. Some of the Romance languages, such as Spanish, French and Italian are probably more mutually intelligible among their speakers.

This is a bit political and I do not want to insult any of my friends but I was living in Yugoslavia at the time of its division and all of a sudden Serbo-Croatian became four separate languages , that of Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin. A number of years have passed and I know many of the aforementioned who can no longer understand their geographical neighbours. Again what were dialects have now become languages which are no longer mutually intelligible.

Approximately, 57 million people in the UK speak English and one billion are learning it across the world, so how can I be expected to understand everyone? I am just talking about British English the other world Englishes I will leave for the next blog.

Give me a break, I will try to understand you all but I am from Essex and have my own set of linguistic issues. Send me a text or write it on a scrap of paper, that at least will be a little more standardised. Is it just me or does anyone else think that we are heading back towards the original reason that good old William Caxton introduced the printing press to England? The jolly old egg question! Now if you do not know about Caxton then that was not mutually intelligible. The irony!