Who Speaks English Today? By Jennifer Jerkins

            Some times I go to the loo and have shrapnel in my wallet. While reading Jennifer Jerkins article Who Speaks English Today, I was surprised to be personally struck by McArthurs six provisions which diffuse the three commonly heard titles in TESOL; ENL, ESL, EFL. First McArthur argues that there is not a single variety of English, which I have always deemed to be true. How can we place a language standard when we have such diversity within one language? The limited examples of such diversity that used to come to mind are Ebonics or a southern twang. However, what most interested me was the ENL speakers whom I have never really considered despite them being in my own family. For example, my grandmother is from Bermuda, spent half her life in England; where the bathroom is often called the ‘loo’; followed by many years in New Orleans surrounded by a Creole speaking community. I have never considered her variety of English as anything but “standard” as that is all I know from her, however, in retrospect, her English is very distinct from mine, and again her own sister who lives in Australia; where change (as in coins) is call ‘shrapnel’. It hit me how interesting it is that in one family there is at least three distinct forms of English. This caused to me to consider my uncle in Kauai, Hawaii and his families unique English use. This small, but significant part of the article really got me thinking. If seemingly native English speaking family can have such distinctions, which had gone unnoticed to me for so many years, who really does speak legitimate English today? How has my English use been affected by my families English, which I have always thought to be “normal”? All of these ideas that first sparked my thinking flowed perfectly with the rest of the article and the so-called “English Maps” including the certain inner/outer circles of English speaking populations and the abundance of variety. I was pleasantly surprised to be able to relate the very first article and blog post to my personal life and interested to read about defining a “new English” now that I’m not really sure what my English is considered to be?