FUTURE OF OUR MOTHER TONGUE

Shannon News, 2 December 1927, Page 3

FUTURE OF OUR MOTHER TONGUE

• What will be the effect of radio on the English language? Sir Robert Donald, G.8.E., L.L.D., o£ Toronto, who is keenly interested in the development of broadcasting in England, th e British Dominions and the United states, thinks that the threatened separation may be avarted by an international broadcasting. American English, which is so often unintelligible to the colonial and English readers, is fast becoming a language of its own. A conference of English and American educational authorities was held in London recently io consider means to be adopted to preserve the purity of the English language, while leaving it.the most elastic of all human tongues, the outcome of which was the formation of an international council consisting of three recognised experts on each .side. Sir Robert Donald suggests that the most important field should be the sphere of radio. "To radio." he says, "belongs the function of bringing closer understanding in a new sense, between the British and American people. The separatist tendencies operating in the language will be checked if the two authorities unite in an endeavour to establish one standard of spoken English."