English enjoys a unique position in the world as one of very few natural languages, other than Welsh, French, Hebrew, Japanese and Korean, to enjoy protection as the national language of a Free State, Britain, and the impetus of being the working language of a sophisticated society. At the same time, the collapse in the status of English in the rest of the world outside Britain over a mere half-century qualifies as a truly remarkable cultural catastrophe in a century of catastrophes.

English is called 'na Ankelzisse' in Common, which is not a great transliteration. It is not known for sure where the decision to name English this way was taken, but this form was attested and popular by the middle period. Other formerly-used names worked harder to capture the phonology of the original, like 'na Inkylyx' or even 'na Ynkylyx'. There is a general tendency in modern High Common to like to use the suffix -zisse for languages other than Common, so that may have helped drive the official adoption of the rather odd name the Order eventually chose.

Pre-Collapse Status

Prior to the Global Collapse, English was the global lingua franca, the most widely spoken language on Earth when L1 and L2 speakers are taken into account. It was the language of international communication, of science and technology, of diplomacy, and the pre-eminent language of global culture.

The former high status of English can be attributed to two successive global hegemonies, the British Empire, and right on its heels, just as the Empire began to decline, the post-World War II American global hegemony. The Americans practically invented the post-War global order. Sometimes called the 'indispensable state', they were indispensable in the running of the post-War order, and also instrumental in its eventual destruction. No one else could have so effectively destroyed what they created.

Pre-Collapse English was a pluricentric language, with a standard form for each country in which it was a national language, but no language academy like Common's na Akkatemi na Xafen Zisse (AXZ) or French's Academie Française to dictate the standard form. Instead, the standards were cobbled together in a loose consensus of important authorities like dictionary makers. The most important natively-spoken standard varieties were, more or less in order of importance, American, British (at the time 'Received Pronunciation', or RP), Canadian (extremely close to the American variety), Australian and New Zealand.

By far the dominant form pre-Collapse was the American variety. It was mutually intelligible with standard British English and most local varieties of British English, although British people tended to have an easier time understanding Americans than vice-versa. There were differences in vocabulary and expressions, and significant differences in pronunciation, especially when it came to vowel sounds, and to the letter R. North American dialects were mostly rhotic, meaning they pronounced the letter R in many places where it simply serves to change the quality of the preceding vowel in British English.

We are familiar with the many varieties of English in Britain - there were many, many more forms existing globally outside of the national standards.

Decline in Status

At the founding of the Order, the status of English and its prestige were somewhat eroded due to the overall collapse in status of English-speaking countries and general global hostility towards the defunct United States, but English basically retained its pre-Collapse status out of necessity. It was the de facto working language of the Order as well as the main global lingua franca, the language of science and technology, and the primary language of a number of states.

The Order sought to change this. The attack was two-pronged. First, they poured resources into building up Common as a fully competent technical language and providing education in that language. Secondly, they deprecated the use of English as much as they could and still run society, and they deliberately killed English-language education, even in English-speaking areas. In the overall process of Commonisation, or 'Uxáfen' (see attached article on Commonisation), English was initially tolerated when necessary in order to accomplish necessary objectives, but the process of language replacement became progressively more nightmarish and brutal. Eventually, a generation of educated people came up who were more comfortable working in Common than in English, and this progressed to the point where English was essentially chased out of the workplace and public life.

Current Status

In the modern Order, English has ironically regained a sense of prestige as a classical language. Wealthy elites learn it late in their education along with other classical languages like Mandarin in order to connect with the cultural legacy available in these languages, and out of an overall sense that multilingual education increases students' sophistication.

However, the fact that many (by no means all!) elites can speak some classical (American) English by no means equates to a sense of sympathy for actual English-speaking populations. Elite L2 English speakers actually look down on native English speakers, because the English of native speakers is nothing like the classical English of fancy elite education, and NWO elites regard native English speakers as backwards and ignorant people who can't even speak English properly. Quite ironic when you hear the truly atrocious Common accents of most elites who have learnt English in college.

Without the influence of a global English popular culture, a standard form, and education, English has begun to drift and split apart into increasingly distinct dialects, and I fear the process is only accelerating. I travelled across Ireland and North America, and I made an effort to connect with English-speaking communities wherever I went, and I found them to be extremely varied. In general, I struggled to understand them, especially in Epekwit, and in turn they often struggled to understand me, again especially in Epekwit.

An interesting but small bright spot was Québec, where I found a small English-speaking community that was tolerated by the regime and allowed to be educated in English, although they all spoke French in order to get along in Québec society, and those people scrupulously adhered to a very nearly perfect pre-Collapse Canadian English with just a few new French incursions. We had no trouble understanding each other.

Modern varieties of English are heavily influenced by the other languages they live side-by-side with, and especially by Common. To give a couple of examples, everywhere I went, the Common word 'trol' was used as the English word for 'terrorist' or 'extremist', and in central coastal Cascadia, the word 'ruth', from the Common 'ruz', was used as the word for worth or value, or to be worth something, with 'ruthis' meaning 'valuable' or 'worthy'.

The overall status and health of English in former English-majority territories of the NWO varies by region. There has been enormous immigration to these territories, as populations fleeing war and climate change moved in and rebellious populations were deported. Taking Epekwit as an example, English-speakers are a minority in this once heavily English-majority region. Aggravating this trend is the lack of public education in English, and the fact that many English families have stopped raising their children in English in a bid to secure advantages for their children by ensuring they are fully Common-speaking.

Kaskétija has a somewhat larger and healthier English-speaking community, although it is certainly in sharp decline, and similar could be said of Xykako and Nuják. Kanata is perhaps more advanced in the loss of English. I did not visit na Myrika, but I hear that a heavily modified form of English is strong amongst the poor in that region.

From what I understand, English is relatively healthy in Australia, partially by virtue of the fact that the only people who move to that baking and parched land are migrant workers working in the mines who tend to live in company towns away from the main population centres in the relatively more temperate areas, and New Zealand has a relatively strong and conservative English dialect (and Maori is relatively healthy as well) by virtue of the fact that New Zealand voluntarily capitulated to the Order, managed to secure good terms of entry for itself, and is too remote and poor to attract too much attention.

The decline of English in Ireland was particularly shocking to me, although interestingly, Irish has actually made modest gains.

Generally speaking, English is little-understood outside those communities that ancestrally spoke English. Also, it is more the norm than the exception that people who speak English natively are illiterate in the language, or if they can read and write it after a fashion, that they try to write it phonetically in a very Common-influenced way.

The important take-away is that if you know something about the former high status and wide-spread use of English and assume that your English will get you by in the Order, you need to rethink your plans. Even in formerly English-speaking areas, you will often find situations where no one speaks English, and even if you do encounter English speakers, there is a very good possibility you will not understand them very well, and they will struggle to understand you. The fact you have an outside chance of encountering classically-educated elites with their appalling, ersatz American English is not really much comfort or ultimately much use. There is no substitute for a command of Common, unfortunately.