{"id":76370,"date":"2026-04-30T08:00:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T06:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/a-desk.org\/?p=76370"},"modified":"2026-04-29T14:55:36","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T12:55:36","slug":"english-white-noise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/a-desk.org\/en\/magazine\/english-white-noise\/","title":{"rendered":"English White Noise"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Recently I was in Italy, in a small city by the sea, and found myself in the company of some locals. We were speaking in English, while one among the group could not speak any at all, and remained excluded. For twenty odd years\u00a0I\u2019ve\u00a0lived outside of Ireland, outside of English, and\u00a0I\u2019ve\u00a0grown used to how English follows me in such a setting. People will\u00a0apologise\u00a0however they can. What do they\u00a0apologise\u00a0for? Their English, whether it be a total inability to speak it at all &#8211; smiles, upward turned hands, eyes shining forgiveness &#8211; or for a self-declared low quality. I grow uncomfortable: people\u00a0shouldn\u2019t\u00a0apologise\u00a0for not speaking English to me, in their own country.\u00a0What\u2019s\u00a0more, they\u00a0shouldn\u2019t\u00a0then end up being excluded from a conversation. But it\u00a0happens. English rushes in, like a river current, ignoring the mute rock, and gurgling past, ever onwards.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">A line by the journalist Mathieu Aikens: &#8220;The white noise of English pervades the entire world,&#8221; written while following refugees, of many nationalities, as they traversed continents to reach west Europe. It\u2019s an apt description: English is pervasive, in various frequencies and pitches, and why it fits the <a href=\"https:\/\/thefunambulist.net\/editorials\/deleuze-the-minor-literature\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Deluezian concept of a minor language\/literature:<\/a> A minor literature is not one written in a minor language &#8211; rather it\u2019s a minority working with a major one. <\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">English has long been deterritorialized. First by Empire as a colonial force, then as &#8220;the empire speaking back&#8221; and now, in today\u2019s world, as a supra-national lingua franca, powering webspeak, cultural sharing or dodging advertising. And if the image has captured every corner of the world, and smartphones have published them, English gives voice to many as they move around the world, allowing mediated handshakes. To communicate with one another we speak, we apologise and make do with just one or two incorrect words (<\/span><i><span data-contrast=\"auto\">okay<\/span><\/i><span data-contrast=\"auto\">,\u00a0<\/span><i><span data-contrast=\"auto\">yes<\/span><\/i><span data-contrast=\"auto\">,\u00a0<\/span><i><span data-contrast=\"auto\">please<\/span><\/i><span data-contrast=\"auto\">).<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Standard English is over; the Queen is dead. Translated English is standard now. <a href=\"https:\/\/a-desk.org\/en\/magazine\/english-as-arbiter-the-weight-of-the-center\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Vincenzo Latronico<\/a>, a writer who has written his generation&#8217;s pan-European novel, should know. Our conversation covers the ins and outs of the role English has in literary, artistic life today. Also its role in Proust&#8217;s conception of literature as being invariably written &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/a-desk.org\/en\/magazine\/english-as-arbiter-the-translators-authority\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">in a kind of foreign language&#8221;<\/a>: he admits to thinking often of an impossible work of literature that is written in English as a second language. Like\u00a0Beckett perhaps, renouncing\u00a0English to\u00a0attain\u00a0the pureness his art\u00a0required.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Literature can\u00a0sometimes play\u00a0catch up.\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/a-desk.org\/en\/magazine\/englic-or-the-pervasiveness-of-english-in-iceland\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span data-contrast=\"none\">K\u00e1ri P\u00e1ll \u00d3skarsson<\/span><\/a><span data-contrast=\"auto\">\u00a0writes how English is pervasive in everyday life in Iceland. Giving a dispatch from a fascinating language region of just 370,000 speakers of one of the continent\u2019s oldest written languages (Vincenzo pointed out, via Kundera, that the Eddas and Sagas are possibly the start of modern Euro-literature), we hear how English is working its way into Icelandic literature.\u00a0<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\"><a href=\"https:\/\/a-desk.org\/en\/magazine\/six-seven-sest-sedem\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Ana Schnabl,<\/a> one of Slovenia&#8217;s most exciting writers, looks at the speed of Internet English\u2019s ability to influence other languages: how the borrowing and loaning of the Internet\u2019s vocabulary and phrases means Slovenia is changing faster than ever.\u00a0<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>(Featured image: <span data-olk-copy-source=\"MessageBody\">\u00a9 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/jay.anyways\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Juliet Barbieri<\/a><\/span>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Recently I was in Italy, in a small city by the sea, and found myself in the company of some locals. We were speaking in English, while one among the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2984,"featured_media":76359,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8453],"tags":[8878,8884,9032,9033,9010,9034,8879,8695],"coauthors":[8452],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>English White Noise by John Holten<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"English White Noise: Reflection on English as white 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