The Impact of 9/11 on the English Language

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The Impact of 9/11 on the English Language

Paul Payack

As we remember the events of September 11, 2001, an effective measure of how much that event affected us can be found in the language we speak. Important historical events inevitably leave their mark on language. Wars, in particular, have had profound and lasting effects upon the English language.

The invasion of England by William the Conqueror in 1066 and the subsequent 200 years of French conquest resulted in the English language replacing almost half its vocabulary with French words. (In this last sentence, \"invasion,\" \"conqueror,\" \"subsequent,\" \"result,\" \"language,\" and \"vocabulary\" are all borrowings from French.)

World War II also had a profound impact upon the language, forever changing the meanings of many English words. \"Holocaust\" is now capitalized to refer to a specific aspect of that war, \"joe\" and \"java\" refer to coffee, \"torpedo\" (originally a torpedo-shaped fish that emits an electric charge), are just a few. World War II also added words to our vocabulary. \"Quisling,\" \"jeep,\" \"blitz,\" \"java,\" \"flak,\" \"D-Day,\" \"sonar,\" radar,\" \"bazooka,\" and \"atom bomb\" didn't even exist prior to World War II. Now all these words are ingrained in the language, their meanings long since expanded to much more mundane plateaus.

Although only time will tell whether the impact will be permanent, it is not too early to look for an impact of the terrorists attacks of September 11th on English.

Of course, \"World Trade Center,\" \"Twin Towers,\" \"Kabul,\" \"Kandahar,\" and even \"Afghanistan\" itself, have taken their places on the map of US historical moments alongside, \"Iwo Jima,\" \"ork Chop Hill,\" \"earl Harbor,\" and \"The Tet Offensive.\" The names \"Bin Laden\" and \"Taliban\" have fallen to our museum of genocidal maniacs and political parties beside Hitler and the Nazis, Stalin and the Soviet Communist Party. Words that hovered around the edges of the news are now entering the general vocabulary, words like \"jihad,\" al-Qaeda,\" \"Hamas,\" \"holy war,\" \"warlord.\"

The new terms arising in our vocabulary reflect a keener interest in Islam. Everyone now knows that Ramadan a major Islamic holy day. Many of us added \"burka,\" the body covering women were required to wear under the Taliban, to our vocabulary. \"Taliban\" itself is a new word for most of us and certainly \"shoe bomb\" is a new word and concept. The spelling of Qu'ran has changed from the less accurate transliteration \"Koran\" and better transliterations of other words, such as Mohammad,\" are also emerging-all part of a greater attention paid to Islam and the Arabic nations.

Other words have taken on new meanings. Until September 11, 2001, it was common to head people speak of starting all over again at \"ground zero.\" Today we are not only keenly aware that the original meaning was the epicenter of a nuclear explosion, but New Yorkers are already spelling it with capital letters, \"Ground Zero.\"

\"Terrorism\" has taken on a new meaning, too. It is now not only an activity that occurs in far away places; it is something that takes place at home. The new security measures at airports and the new Department of Homeland Security bear blatant testimony to this fact.

Finally, the meaning of \"hero\" is broadening to cover those who carry out heroic acts in the normal course of their occupations. Heroes previously were those who undertook spontaneous acts of peace in peace or war. That assumption has probably changed forever.

We still do not have a name for this new kind of war, the war against terrorism where the defenders are often local policemen and firemen and attacks are not against military objectives but against innocent civilians. Some time ago we called it \"The Global Counter-terrorism Campaign\" for lack of a better name. Just as \"The Civil War\" eventually replaced \"The War Between the States,\" and \"World War I\" came to replace \"The Great War, once we have a clearer picture of what this kind of war really is, someone will find a name for it.

Each December, yourDictionary.com publishes a new \"Top Ten Word List of the Year\". Of course, our \"Top Ten Word List of the Year 2001\" was heavily weighted with words directly related to the events of 9/11 and their immediate aftermath:
1. Ground Zero
2. W. (Dubya)
3. Jihad
4. God
5. Anthrax
8. the suffix \"-stan\" as in Afghanistan


Now we add a \"Top Ten 9/11-Related Words\" List which, in retrospect, has unfortumately withstood the test of time, the words being seared into our collective consciousness.

Top Ten 9/11-related Words
1. 9/11 or September 11th Another day that will live in infamy.
2. Ground Zero The now sanctified ground at the epicenter of World Trade Center disaster.
3. World Trade Center (Also WTC or Twin Towers). Complex of office towers in Lower Manhattan where some 250,000 people from around the world worked or visited in a day. Over 3,000 died there on September 11.
4. Heroes Specifically the NYFD and NYPD and the passengers of Flight 93, but actually all firefighters, Police, EMTs, and hospital workers at Ground Zero, the Pentagon and Pennsylvania countryside, and passengers of other hijacked flights, etc.
5. Giuliani The Man of the Year by any measure. This name could become an eponym of political responsibility and courage.
6. Terrorism The word that has added itself to the vocabulary and burned itself into the consciousness of all English speakers.
7. Al Qaeda \"The Base.\" The international network of terrorists that has brought us a new kind of world war.
8. God, Allah, Yahweh Three words that are supposed to share one meaning but which seem to have diverged in the minds of many. Let's hope we can reunite them before it is too late.
9. Anthrax The Greek word for \"coal\" (for the black scabs it produces) becomes the world's first postal disease and terrorists' biological weapon of choice.
10. The Taliban The students of the Islamic religion (mostly from Pakistan) who ran the Afghani government since the Soviet withdrawal.