English Without Tears:

 English without tears:

One may wonder what standard English is? During Elizabethan time the Natives English speakers  were not used to codified dialect, the English that is taught in schools, which was codified in grammar books started only around 18th century.

If Shakespeare is alive today, his English will not be used in todays standard English because there was no standard English in Elizabethan time when Shakespeare lived. There were several regional dialect then but were not codified as the standard English, the three English tripod the Irish, England and Scotland all speaks their regional varieties before 18 century.

Shakespeare wrote in the London dialect but without consistent because their was no concious codification of grammar and spelling at the time, to justified this assertion Shakespeare didn't even spell his name in a consistent manner. He variously spelled it as "shakspe" "shakspere" "shaksper" "shakspeare" and finally "Shakespeare" which the 18 century grammarians referred and that what we are used to today.

It is therefore true to say that a codified English which referred as standard English like grammar books and dictionaries starts only around 19 century which became fully used. In other words Shakespeare antedated standard English by at least a century.

The Shakespearean English in today century will look outdated especially were Shakespeare was used to double negative to produce a meaning example "I don't know nothing" or "I don't like nobody" or "I don't like no grammar" all are now grammatical taboos on contemporary English  because two negatives cancel each other because "I don't know nothing" would mean "I know something" so "I don't like nobody" would mean "I like somebody" and "I don't like no grammar lesson" would also mean "I like grammar lesson".  Therefore in today standard English Shakespeare playright "Much do about nothing" will have a different meaning like much do about something.

In 2015 during the President Buhari inaugural speech the President used similar word like "Iam for nobody but iam for everybody or I belong to nobody but I belong to everybody" well this can equally be codified as double negative superlative so it means I belong to somebody.

The three natives English speakers of Elizabethan time the Irish, Scottish and the England being a natives of English does not mean to be a standard English speaker. Many natives speakers don't speak standard English, they speak their regional varieties which are not necessary compatible with standard English and that why being a native speaker does not guaranteed proficiency in today English and in today's world one will find a non native English speaker teach a native English speaker their own language.

In Nigeria today excellent English speakers are keep surfacing that can favourably teached the natives of todays English, the number of Nigerians in the diaspora that taught the natives speakers English were many today, people like Farooq Kperogi at the Atlanta Georgia university were among the Nigerians that were engaged in the foreign discourse while at home Nigeria people like Sil Stober, Aliyu Baba Barau, Ronke Ayuba, Eugenia Abu, Ruth B. Opia, Blessing Abu, Muhammad Kudu Abubakar etc all are excellent speakers with Golden voice and pure varnicular Nigeria English with superfluous and contextual comprehension.

I recalled the speech delivered by Queen Elizabeth at the peak of Covid-19 pandemic was simple and straight forward without heavy and excessive vocabularies and it was easy understood to even a layman of English but ordinarily if such speech was delivered by a non native of English it will look like an amateur that why a non native when choose to right or speak he applied the used of heavy and excessive vocabularies and for alayman to understand and comprehend the contents one needs to consult a dictionary or number of dictionaries. The non native speaker is so pervasive in knowledge than the natives and to buttered and justified my point is from what we evidently read from our native writers like Professor Soyinka, late Professors Chinua Achebe, Patrick Wilmont, Adamu Adamu etc.

Abubakar Abdulkadir Abubakar.