Rudyard Kipling

34 A WORLD LANGUAGE

The attitude of the British towards the native populations in the

Empire was marked by a sense of superiority in their role as imperial

masters. The poem below captures this attitude wonderfully. It was

written by Rudyard Kipling, who was sometimes referred to as the

prophet of British imperialism. He was very popular in his time,

even winning a Nobel prize. Today many nd his work embarrassing

and racist. The poem below is a famous defence of imperialism.

The White Mans Burdenby Rudyard Kipling

Take up the White Mans burden

Send forth the best ye breed

Go bind your sons to exile

To serve your captives need;

To wait in heavy harness

On fl uttered folk and wild

Your new-caught, sullen peoples,

Half devil and half child.


In patience to abide,

To veil the threat of terror

And check the show of pride;

By open speech and simple,

An hundred times made plain.

To seek anothers profi t,

And work anothers gain.


The savage wars of peace

Fill full the mouth of Famine

And bid the sickness cease;

And when your goal is nearest

The end for others sought,

Watch Sloth and heathen Folly

Bring all your hope to nought.


No tawdry rule of kings,

But toil of serf and sweeper

The tale of common things.

The ports ye shall not enter,

The roads ye shall not tread,

Go make them with your living,

And mark them with your dead!

burden byrdeforth framye = you (pl)breed avle, oppdra/oppsedeexile [eksal] eksil, utlendighet/eksil, det bu i utlandetcaptive fangewait on oppvarte, tjene/teneharness seletyfl uttered udisiplinert, i uordensullen treg, muttpatience tlmodighet/tolmodabide holde ut/halde utveil [vel] tilslre, gjemme/gymecheck stoppegain her: nyttesavage villfamine hungersndbid pbysloth dovenskap, slvhet/slvskapheathen [hi:n] hedensk/heidenskfolly dumhet, galskap/dumskap, galskapnought = nothingtawdry billig, juglete/billeg, jugleteserf livegen, slave/liveigen, slavesweeper en som feier/ein som feiartale historieport havn/hamntread tr p

001-219_AccessToIntl.indd 34001-219_AccessToIntl.indd 34 25-02-07 13:06:1025-02-07 13:06:10

35A WORLD LANGUAGE


And reap his old reward:

The blame of those ye better,

The hate of those ye guard

The cry of hosts ye humour

(Ah, slowly!) toward the light:

Why brought ye us from bondage,

Our loved Egyptian night?


Ye dare not stoop to less

Nor call too loud on Freedom

To cloak your weariness;

By all ye cry or whisper,

By all ye leave or do,

The silent, sullen peoples

Shall weigh your Gods and you.


Have done with childish days

The lightly proffered laurel,

The easy, ungrudged praise.

Comes now, to search your manhood

Through all the thankless years,

Cold-edged with dear-bought wisdom,

The judgement of your peers!

Rajesy (1860-1926): Colonial Life in

Madagascar, 1904

reap hste/haustereward belnning/lnnhost verthumour gjre til lags/gjere til lagsbondage [bndd] trelldom/treldomstoop bye segcloak tildekke/dekkje tilhave done with vre ferdig med/vere ferdig medproffer tilby, rekke fram/tilby, rekkje framlaurel laurbrungrudged vel untcold-edged med kald eggpeer likemann


1 UNDERSTANDING THE POEM

According to Kipling what was the White Mans Burden?

What reward did Kipling suggest the White Man would receive for carrying his burden?

What attitude to the natives does Kipling reveal in the fi rst stanza?

In the third stanza Kipling suggests benefi ts of the white mans rule for the natives. What are these positive things he suggests the white man can do? Why does this fail, according to Kipling? What does this say about the imperialists attitude to other people in the world?

Leaving home to serve in a foreign country might not be high on a young mans list of things to do. Kipling appeals to a particular male emotion in the last stanza to encourage him to pick up the white mans burden. What does he appeal to? What is your opinion of this?

2 TALK ABOUT IT

What is the effect of the repetition of the fi rst line of each stanza?

This poem was written in 1899 as an appeal to the United States to assume the

task of developing the Philippines, recently won in the Spanish-American War. What is so provocative about this poem today? If you were a citizen of a colonized territory, how would you respond to Kipling?

Relate the poem to the soap advertise-ment below and discuss what they say about the attitude the Western world had when it came to less developed areas. Do these attitudes still prevail?

a)

b)

c)

d)

e)

a)

b)

c)

36 A WORLD LANGUAGE


3 IMPROVE YOUR LANGUAGE

Norwegian students, as you can see from the brief text below, do not like the English apostrophe. Fix the text below by putting the apostrophe in the places where it be-longs.

I picked up my books and walked towards the door. I was tired of Joannes attitude about political issues. She thought I should

chill out. Her idea, well her best ideas focus, was on the next dance programmes starting time on television. I told her that opinions about things were important, our genera-tions hope for and contribution to the fu-ture. And whats yours, she asked. My what, I asked. Your focus, she said. Its on the worlds chances to survive, I said. The future is ours, we have to think of our childrens future. At fi rst I thought she was going to be angry with me, you know for my not saying that my main focus was her, but I corrected my lifes mistake by saying the magic word chil-dren with the magic pronoun our. Then she looked at me, her eyes all weepy and said,

I care about our childrens future too. The politicians talk is all nonsense, but really I do care.

4 RESEARCH

Search the net using the title Brown Mans Burden. Pick one of the sites you fi nd. It may be an editorial, an article, information or even a poem/parody. Prepare a group presentation in class on the response to Kiplings poem.

37A WORLD LANGUAGE


38 A WORLD LANGUAGE


39A WORLD LANGUAGE

The attitude of the native populations under the power of the British

Empire was often marked by feelings of rage and bitterness. This is

re ected in the poem below. Born in British Guiana (now Guyana),

John Agard is a playwright, poet, short-story and childrens writer. In

1977 he moved to England, where he lecturers at schools through-

out the UK to promote Caribbean culture. He is the co-editor of A

Caribbean Dozen (1994) and From Mouth to Mouth (2004) with his

partner, the poet Grace Nichols (see Wherever I Hang, p. 103).

Pan Recipeby John Agard

First rape a peoplesimmer for centuries

bring memories to boilfoil voice of drum

add pinch of painto rain of rage

stifl e drum againthen mix strains of blood

over slow fi rewatch fever grow

till energy burstwith rhythm thirst

cut bamboo and curewhip well like hell

stir sound from dustbinpound handful biscuit tin

cover down in shanty townand leave mixture alone

when ready will explode

John Minton (1917-57): A Street Corner in Jamaica, 1951

pan gryterecipe oppskriftsimmer smkokefoil hindrestifl e kvelestrain art, rase, typecure salte ned og trke


1 UNDERSTANDING THE POEM

Choose the statements below that best describe what the poem is about and explain why you think so.

The poem is a recipe for Caribbean foodThe poem is a metaphor for the anger of the Caribbean peopleThe poem is a warning of the growing discontent of oppressed peopleThe poem expresses a love of foodThis is a poem of anger and rageThis is a poem about calypso steel-pan musicThis poem is about racial tensionsThis poem suggests third-world angerThis is an anti-globalization poem

2 TALK ABOUT IT

The poem uses four verbs and one noun that express anger. Find them in the poem. Is there a progression of intensity with these words? What is the effect of this?

While the poet gives the sense of rage, he also gives examples in the fi rst fi ve stanzas of why this rage has developed. Find these examples and discuss what you think he means by each. For example: The fi rst reason is the rape of a people.

A metaphor is a way of making some-thing stand out by identifying it with another thing; the poet says that A is B (e. g. my love is a rose). The purpose of the metaphor is to make something stand out, or to get a point across in a more emphatic and effective way. The whole poem the pan recipe, is a metaphor. Discuss the effect of this metaphor. Is this an effective way of expressing the dis-satisfaction of a group of people?


The imperative form of the verb gives instructions or commands. We make the imperative using the base form of the verb, like the infi nitive. For example:

watch Watch the pan!play Play quietly!talk Talk to me!put Put three eggs in a bowl!

Find the imperative verbs in this poem.What is the effect of using the imperative form in this poem?

a)

b)

c)

d)

e)

f)

g)

h)

i)

a)

b)

c)

a)

b)

40 A WORLD LANGUAGE


4 WRITING

Write a text where you give your personal response to this poem. What could you mix into the recipe to stop everything from exploding?

5 RESEARCH

Look up this poet or his partner, Grace Nichols, on the net and choose another poem you would like to present in class or in a smaller group.

A WORLD LANGUAGE 41

Kaaria Muchera (contemporary artist): Be Free Three


There is almost no nook or cranny of the world where you cannot fi nd International English these days as the following article makes clear.

For Mongolians, E is for English, F is for Future

By James Brook, New York Times, February 15, 2005

Ten year old Urantsetseg doesnt look like the representative of an im-portant government policy. Shes just a little girl trying to fi nd words to describe the picture on her T-shirt, a picture of three fi sh with big teeth swimming after a frightened looking smaller fi sh. Father shark, mother shark, sister shark. She stops, frowning, looking at the little frightened fi sh. Then she cries out LUNCH!

Even out in this Mongolian village with dirt roads and wooden huts, the sounds of English can be heard from the youngest students. This is part of a nationwide campaign to make English the most important foreign language of this country, found deep in the middle of Asia, surrounded by Russia and China.

We are looking at Singapore as a model, said Mongolias Prime Minister, Tsakhia Elbegdorj, in clear American English learned at Harvard gra-duate school. We see English not only as a way of communication, but as a way of opening windows on the world. Mongolias camel herders may not be calling each other dude yet, but Mongolia is an example of the steady march of English as a world language. Just as it has in many European countries, English is taking hold in Asia, encouraged by the infl uence of American culture through the internet and globalization.

The rush to learn English in Mongolia has had its problems. After being elected in June 2004, Prime Minister Elbegdorj shocked Mongolians by promptly declaring that the nation would become bilingual, with Eng-lish as the second language. That was too much, too fast for this nation of 2.8 million. Later the Prime Minister lowered his sights and developed a national curriculum in which English would begin to replace Russian as the most important foreign language taught here.

A WORLD LANGUAGE42

policy politikkfrown rynke pannen/rynke pannaherder gjeter/gjetar encourage oppmuntre, drive framelect velge/veljeprompt hurtig, rasktbilingual [balgwl] tosprklig/tosprklegcurriculum [krkjlm] pensum


The government is merely catching up with private businesses. This building is three times the size of our old building, says Dollnjin Orgil-maa, director of Santis Educational Services, as she shows us around her three-story English school. Started in 1999 as the fi rst private English school, it now faces competition on all sides. At Mongolian International University, all classes are now held in English. In the capital, Ulan Bator, electronic communication is also spreading the infl uence of English. There are bilingual Mongolian websites and bilingual SMS messages on mobile phones. Cable television offers English news and movie chan-nels. And there are radio stations broadcasting the Voice of America and the BBC. There are also two English-language newspapers and a growing number of bilingual store signs and restaurant menus. English is so popular that Mormon missionaries here offer free lessons to attract potential converts!

Growing tourism explains some of these developments. At the start of 2004, the number of foreign tourists increased by 54%, including some nine thousand Americans double the number of the year before. Only the number of Russians declined, refl ecting the weakening position of Russia and the Russian language in the country. Russian is going down-hill very fast, says Tom Dyer, an Australian teacher. Within a decade Mongolia is expected to switch from the Cyrillic alphabet used in Rus-sian to the Roman alphabet used in English. This is seen by some as yet another step away from the past, confi rming Mongolias independence and identity.

A WORLD LANGUAGE 43

broadcast kringkasteconvert en som har konvertert til en annen religion/ein som har konvertert til ein annan religionconfi rm bekrefte/stadfeste, bekrefte


A WORLD LANGUAGE44

Mongolias other great neighbor, China, has adopted a wait-and-see policy towards Mongolias sudden passion for English. It can afford to. Chinese-language studies are also booming. Mongolians have a long history of learning many languages, a history that goes all the way back to the old Silk Road that passed through its territory. But for many of Mongolias young people today, it is English that is viewed as hip and universal. Chinese is boring, says one of Urantsetsegs ten-year-old classmates as she talks with her interactive English computer program. Amarsanaa Bazargarid, a 20-year-old student at Mongolian Technical University, is optimistic. Id like English to be our offi cial second lan-guage. Mongolians would be comfortable in any country.

It is about more than comfort. Munh-Orgil Tsend, Mongolias foreign minister, said in an interview, If there is a shortcut to development, it is English; parents understand that, kids understand that. After trying to retrain about half of Mongolias 1400 Russian-language teachers to teach English, Mongolia has now started a program to attract English teachers from outside the country. I need 2000 English teachers, said

Puntsag Tsagaan, Mongolias minister of education, culture and science. He explai-ned that he hopes to attract English teac-hers, not only from Britain and North America, but from India, Singapore and Malaysia as well. He sees a bright future for a bilingual Mongolia, If we combine our academic knowledge with the English lan-guage, we can do out sourcing here, just like Bangalore (India). (See page 182,

The Impact of Globalization).

Expanding English

In South Korea, six private English villages are being established for students who pay to be taught by native English speakers from all over the world. The biggest one, costing over $85 million is near the capital, Seoul. It will have Western buildings, signs and a population of resident English speakers.

Movie stars Audrey Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart on the Genghis Khan hotel, Ulan Bator

retrain omskolere


1 UNDERSTANDING THE TEXT

a) What picture is on Urantsetsegs T-shirt?b) Why does Mongolia use Singapore as a model?c) What did the prime minister declare when he was elected in 2004?d) What kinds of media now provide English in Ulan Bator?e) Why has the number of Russian tourists declined?f) What does China think of the growth of English in Mongolia?g) From where does Mongolia hope to attract English teachers?

2 TALK ABOUT IT

a) The reporter clearly thinks that it is surprising that pupils are learning English in Mongolia. Why? Did you fi nd it surprising?

b) English is taking hold in Asia, encour aged by the infl uence of American culture through the internet and globalization. Can you guess some of the infl uences the author is talking about? Are these also active in Norway? Is Norway subject to more infl uences?

c) Chinese is the most widely spoken fi rst language in the world. Do you think more Mongolians will learn Chinese or English in the future? Do you think Chinese will ever rival English as an

international language? Why, or why not?

d) English schools in which all classes are held in English are popular in Asia. Do you think this would be a good way to learn English? Would you like to attend such a school in Norway? Give reasons for your answer.


Fill in the words in their correct places below. Note: there are more words in the list than correct places for them in the text:

thousands, feeling, employers, latter, collect, classes, move, speakers, business, instructors, cater, suffi cient, torn, inter-net, living, private, second, different, resourceful, personnel, maximize

The teaching of English is becoming a big . All over the world you can fi nd fi rms that to the needs of the local population. The diffi culty is often fi nding teachers with skills to do the teaching. There are some who prefer to use native and others who are willing to use teachers who have English as a language. Among some of the are teachers from India, Singapore or the Philippines. In the future it may not be necessary to the teachers to the pupils. The use of the may make it possible

a)

45A WORLD LANGUAGE


46 A WORLD LANGUAGE

about English as a world language.

You are an English teacher. Write a letter to the Ministry of Education in Mongo-lia asking about working conditions in the schools there. Ask about what you think you would need to know before accepting a job there. For example, what will you get paid? Where will you live? Vacations? And so on.

5 RESEARCH

Try to fi nd out how successful the program has been to make English into Mongolias second language since 2004. Use the internet (go to access.cappelen.no) to fi nd government programs and other sources that give information about this and that refl ect the use of English there. Prepare a short report to your class or make a wall poster sum-ming up what you fi nd.

Contact Santis Educational Services or another English-speaking school in Mongolia and exchange e-mails with pupils there. Find out where they come from, how old they are, what they study, what they want to use their English for, what they do for fun and so on.

Try to fi nd information about one of the six English villages in Korea mentioned under Expanding English. See side-bar p. 44. How big is it? What does it cost to attend? Can you fi nd pictures of it? Make a presentation of your fi ndings to your class.

for to be of miles away from their and yet still see and hear them. Then classes in Vietnam may have teachers living in London.

Change the tense of the following paragraph from present to past.

Paula gets up in the morning and brushes her teeth. Then she takes off her pajamas and puts on her clothes, being careful to tie her shoes correctly. Break-fast is waiting for her when she walks downstairs. She kisses her mother and sits down to eat. Now she gets her coat from the cupboard and picks up her school books from the living room. She is ready to take the bus to school. But she needs money for the bus fi rst. She asks her brother if she can borrow the bus fare. Ok, he says, But only if you pay it back to me tonight. Paula agrees and leaves for the bus stop.

4 WRITING

Write a short report for the Ministry of Education in Mongolia about the situation of English in the country and about the program that the government there has started (see Toolbox p. 371). Conclude your report with a set of recommendations for meeting the goals of the program.

Write a letter to a pupil studying English in Mongolia. Introduce yourself and your school. Go on to explain how English is taught at your school and the position that English holds in Norway. End up with your personal opinions

a)

b)

b)

a)

b)

c)

c)


47A WORLD LANGUAGE

When a language becomes as wide-spread as Interna-tional English, strange things can begin to happen to it. The following articles spotlight a few of these.

Here, There and Everywhere

Think of the many kinds of International English as a bouquet of fl owers, all stemming from a common an-cestor, but each grown from its own soil and having its own special history, form and beauty. At the base are found the native English-speaking countries, including Britain and the United States, comprising about 420 million people. These are the roots of English. Above them are ranged the countries in which English is spoken as a second language, a much larger number. Finally, there is the largest group of all, spreading out above both the many countries in which English is spoken as a foreign language. More and more coun-tries are entering these last two groups every year. As a result, non-native English speakers now outnumber native speakers 3 to 1. This great variety has already made a lasting impression on the language. It has created new vocabulary, new views on what is correct and incorrect English, and perhaps even completely new Englishes (see p. 48).

Vocabulary

New English words refl ect local responses to different environments. Here are a few examples of new English vocabulary formed in different regions of the world:

New ZealandKiwi New ZealanderPommies British personskindy kindergardenchilly-bin cooler

The Expanding CircleChina 1,313,973,713Egypt 78,887,007Indonesia 245,452,739Israel 6,352,117Japan 127,463,611South Korea 48,846,823Nepal 28,287,147Saudi Arabia 27,019,731Taiwan 23,036,087Russia 142,893,540Ukraine 46,710,816Mongolia 2,832,224Zimbabwe 12,236,805

The Outer CircleBangladesh 147,365,352Ghana 22,409,572India 1,095,351,995Kenya 34,707,817Malaysia 24,385,858Nigeria 131,859,731Pakistan 165,803,560Philippines 89,468,677Singapore 4,492,150South Africa 44,187,637Sri Lanka 20,222,240Tanzania 37,445,392Zambia 11,502,010

The Inner CircleUSA 300.218.082UK 60,609,153Canada 33,098,932Australia 20,264,082New Zealand 4,076,140

bouquet [bke] bukettstem stammeancestor [nsest] stamfarsoil jordcomprise innebefatte/omfattebe ranged rangerekindergarden barnehage


sheilas girlscobbers friends

Indiabatch-mate classmate or fellow studenthead-bath washing ones hairgoonda a bad person, criminalsit on someones neck to watch carefullystand on someones head to supervise carefully

Singaporeairfl own transported by airplane tuition teacher private tutorkiller litter trash thrown from tall apartment buildingzap to photocopykiasu must-win attitude

Standards

Just as vocabulary can change from area to area within the world of In-ternational English, so can grammar and pronunciation. For example, the expression She look very sad may be wrong to native speakers, who would insist on She looks very sad. But it sounds just fi ne to mil-lions of people in Asia. Are they wrong? Non-native English speakers are now a majority. Who decides what is right? Some experts believe that the rules must make way for the users. For example, many non-native speakers (including Norwegians) have trouble with the English sound

th (/), as in the and thing. Why should non-native speakers spend hours practising to not say de or ting? Does correct pronunciation really matter when, for example, a Norwegian speaks with a Japanese? After all, international pilots have been allowed to say tree for three for decades to avoid confusion on the radio. Why not avoid confusion on the ground, too?

Englishes

According to some observers things have gone so far that entirely new Englishes have been created. Among these are Englog (English and Tagalog) in the Philippines, Hinglish (Hindi and English) in India,

48 A WORLD LANGUAGE

Examples of Englishes:

Englog Make kwento to me what

happened(Tell me the story about what happened)

Hinglish Dad, time kya hua hai?

(Dad, what time is it right now?)

Spanglish Hola, good morning, cmo ests?(Hello, good morning, how are you?)

Well, y t?(Well, and you?)

Japlish Japlish candy wrapper:

Your health and loveliness is our best wish. Give us a chance to realize it.


Spanglish (Spanish and English) along the US-Mexican border and Japlish (Japanese and English) in Japan. The future

Professor David Crystal, one of the worlds leading experts on language, no longer believes that one form of English ought to be able to tell another what is right. He believes that in the future people will have three forms of English; one they speak locally as their dialect, a national variety for education and business, and then a standard International English for communicating with foreigners. All this will come, of course, in addition to the mother tongue of most of these English speakers who (like you) will be non-native. Make way for the multi-lingual speakers! International English has only just begun to grow. The best is yet to come.

49A WORLD LANGUAGE

multilingual fl ersprklig/fl eirsprkleg


1 UNDERSTANDING THE TEXT

Tick off the correct answer among the sentences below.

There are more native speakers than non-native speakers of English There are fewer native speakers than non-native speakers of English There are fewer non-native speakers than native speakers of English

New words are made by committees New words are made by speakers New words are made by dictionaries

Kindy means chocolate egg Kindy means small child Kindy means kindergarden

Cobbers are shoe makers Cobbers are mates Cobbers are police

Englog is from Indonesia Englog is from Equador Englog is from the Philippines

2 TALK ABOUT IT

Should grammar rules be decided by a majority or should there be standards that everyone follows? Write a list of pros and cons on this issue and then discuss with your classmates.

David Crystal believes that all non-native speakers will one day have a local dialect of English. Do you think that Norway has such an English dialect; that is, a characteristic way of speaking English? Do you think Norway will develop one in the future? What characteristics might it have?

If you could change one rule in English grammar or phonetics, what would it be? Why that rule? Compare your choice with others in your class.


Try to re-write the following lines using standard rules of English grammar and spelling:

Yesterday I is going to the mall. Is bying me wife a new handclock for the birthing date. Her no like de ting. Trow it inna de garbage an change de locks on the fl at. Me much sad. Her much sad. Maybe me by she fl owers and kissy-kissy?

a)

b)

c)

50 A WORLD LANGUAGE


4 WRITING

Write ten sentences using some of the new words listed under Vocabulary on pp. 47-48. For example:

I hid some cans of beer in the chilly-bin, but my mother was sitting on my neck so I couldnt take one out.

Write an essay in which you argue either for or against relaxing the rules of English grammar to include other

Englishes (see Toolbox p. 369).

5 RESEARCH

Go to access.cappelen.no. See if you can fi nd other new Englishes on the net. Where do they come from? What are they a mixture of? How large are the popula-tions that use them? Then make a short report to your class entitled:

Englishes of the World

Some people would say that gangsta rap music from the black communities of the United States, has created its own form of English. See if you can fi nd the lyrics of some gangsta rap songs and then com-pare them to standard English taught in school. How do they differ? Can you re-write them in standard English? Make a presentation of your fi ndings in class.

There are many websites dedicated to Japlish and the special way in which English is employed in Japan. Visit some of these sites and make a collection of some of the more interesting Japlish expressions. Put your collection on a poster for your class.

a)

b)

a)

b)

c)

51A WORLD LANGUAGE


Rudyard Kipling

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Transcript of Rudyard Kipling