THE English language is always changing. It draws from innumerable sources and is spoken by growing numbers around the globe (‘world’ in true English).

I wonder at which stage it ceases to be English, in the sense that it is no longer owned by the English and becomes everyone’s property. That time must be close, if not already gone.

Languages tend to change at a steady rate and comparatively slowly.

Since the shock of the Norman Conquest, that has not been so for English. The Saxish standard of Winchester clung on in the West into the 13th Century, but it was being eclipsed by a new Chancery English.

The Chancery English which emerged was essentially a mixture of English, Danish and Norman French with an occasional Saxish word such as ‘busy’ or Kentish word such as ‘left’.

English is almost unique in the way that words at the core of the language are not English but Danish, e.g., mother, father, sister (modor, vader, zwuster in West Saxish).

One reason why folk use non-English words such as dictionary (‘wordbook’ in New-English) is because they are writing in Ancwe (Ancillary World English); not in New-English, i.e, English which draws on its native resources, as German has done, instead of borrowing as Ancwe does.

Folk scoff at the Academie Francaise but its existence is proof of the fact that French is still French and belongs to the French. The English need to develop New-English as their national tongue.

Robert Craig, Weston-super-Mare