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English as a global language English is the global language. This statement may seem quite obvious and many people wouldn?t give it a second thought. English is spoken all over the world. English signs can be seen at airports, shops and hotels in most places one would travel to. But what exactly does the statement mean? English is certainly not spoken by everyone world-wide. English is not the official language in every country. So what does it mean to say that English is a global language? How did English become a global language? And will English remain a global language? Both native english speakers and non-native english speakers may have mixed feelings about the prevalence of the English language world-wide. native english speakers may feel concerned with how people in other countries may change the language to suit themselves. Non-native english speakers may begrudge the fact that they have to take on the task of learning a complicated new language in order to communicate. They may also feel that native english speakers have an unfair advantage in some situations. So how does a language come to achieve a global status? A language attains a truly global status when it develops a special role that is recognized in every country. Such a role is most evident in countries where the majority of the population speak the language as a mother tongue. In the case of English, this could include the USA, Canada, Britain etc. However, no language has ever been spoken by a mother-tongue majority in more than a few countries, so mother-tongue use by itself cannot give a language global status. To achieve this status, a language must be taken up by other countries around the world. They must decide to give it a special place within their communities, even though they may have few speakers of this language. This can be done in two ways. The language can be made the official language of a country. The language is used to communicate in government offices, law courts, the media and education system. In such countries it is essential to learn the official language early in life. English has now become the official language, or achieved special status, in over seventy countries world-wide. Secondly, a language can be made a priority in a country?s foreign-language teaching, even though the language has no official status. It becomes the language which children are most likely to be taught when they arrive in school. English is now the language most widely taught as a foreign language. English has emerged as the chief foreign language in over one hundred countries, such as china, Russia, germany etc. As the English language continues to spread, governments need to carefully ponder how to allocate resources for language planning. A government needs to plan ahead and decide whether it is in their best interest to actively promote English, or to develop the use of other languages in their communities. But as English has become a true global language that decision might already be made for them.
