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English as a Global LanguageSome questions seem like they should have obvious answers. Who's buried in Grant's tomb? How many countries are there in the world? Which language has the most speakers worldwide? However, not all questions are as simple as they appear. Grant was entombed, not buried. The number of countries depends on international politics and definitions. What are we looking for in the question of how many people speak a language? native speakers? Fluent speakers? People with a working knowledge? When one looks at the idea of global language, one might be tempted to look at pure numbers. As a native language, English is surpassed by chinese and Spanish, and closely followed by by Hindu, Arabic, Bengali, Portuguese, Russian, japanese, and Punjabi (Ethnologue). With birth rate on the decline in the many countries where English is the native language, and on the rise in many of the countries where other languages in the top ten are spoken, one might consider that the future of English as a global language is in doubt. However, looking at the other languages in the top ten, the native speakers of most of them reside in only one or two countries (India, Bangladesh, Russia, Japan, and portugal and brazil). Conversely, English has gained its foothold globally through its colonial roots. This is also true of Spanish and Portuguese, but according to The Economist's column, The Triumph of English (2001), ?the latterday triumph of English is the triumph of the English-speaking united states as a world power?. The article in The Economist goes on to describe the tensions that exist in reaction to the dominance of English. English encroaches into worldwide music, commercials, advertisement, slang, and official languages. In the article, the scene is already set for the evolution of English into the global language of the future. Pidgin English is on the rise world-wide. French was once the language of international democracy. English is the language of international business. With the rise of the internet and the breaking down of global boundaries, pidgin English permeates culture. Even in Singapore, where standard English is an official language, the local pidgin called Singlish is gaining popularity. In 2008, the Daily Mail reported on the evolution of of English into Panglish (presumably a combination of pidgin and English). This evolution might create an English unrecognizable by English speakers today, and encourage a splintering of the languages into unintelligible dialects (Daily Mail, 2008). Braj Kachru of Ohio State University warns that "There have always been mutually unintelligible dialects of languages such as Arabic, chinese, Hindi and Latin. There is no reason to believe that the linguistic future of English will be any different.? (As reported in the Daily Mail, 2008). I believe that he fails to give credit to the unifying force of the Internet. Already, the accents of mainstream English world-wide can be very difficult to follow for both other native language speakers and EFL students alike. Accent problems and slang are likely to continue to affect the fluidity of communication in spoken English, but traditionally, written language is more standardized, and even as English continues to devolve into IM and texting spellings and lingo, I believe that a common communicable English will emerge. In conclusion, it is not the native speakers of English that will keep English prominent as a global language for the future, rather it is the worldwide community second language learners of English (or third or fourth). Not all experts agree as to whether the future includes only one global language, or if French President Nicholas Sarkozy is correct in his vision of the future of Arabic as the language of the future (The Brussels Journal, 2008). As the face of global Internet communication has changed, from chat rooms to email, My Space to Facebook, The Economist's article of ten years ago already bases its ideas on an outdated view of the modern world. The future of English as a global language will continue to evolve. In the meantime, the continued desire for English language instructors world-wide indicates that English is unlikely to go the way of Greek and Latin. References: The Triumph of English, The Economist, 2001, http://www.economist.com/node/883997?Story_ID=883997 Ethnologue, languages of the world http://www.ethnologue.org/ethno_docs/distribution.asp?by=size Languages by number of native speakers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers (much as it pains me to site Wikipedia, their tables are well-laid out and cited in this case) Sarkozy: ?Arabic Is the Language of the Future?, 2008, http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/3591 How English as we know it is disappearing ... to be replaced by 'Panglish', 2008, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-546469/How-English-know-disappearing---replaced-Panglish.html#ixzz1RjztlRDS
