LANGUAGE ISSUES -

ENGLISH AS A GLOBAL
LANGUAGE
 LANGUAGE ISSUES - ENGLISH AS A GLOBAL LANGUAGE

What is a Global Language?

There is no official
definition of "global" or
"world" language, but it
essentially refers to a
language that is learned
and spoken internationally,
and is characterized not
only by the number of its
native and second
At the height of the Roman Empire, Latin was the lingua franca of most
language speakers, but of Europe, Asia Minor and North Africa (from Wikipedia).

also by its geographical distribution, and its use in international organizations

and in diplomatic relations. A global language acts as a “lingua franca”, a
common language that enables people from diverse backgrounds and
ethnicities to communicate on a more or less equitable basis.

Historically, the essential factor for the establishment of a global

language is that it is spoken by those who wield power. Latin was the lingua
franca of its time, although it was only ever a minority language within the
Roman Empire as a whole. Crucially, though, it was the language of the
powerful leaders and administrators and of the Roman military - and, later, of
the ecclesiastical power of the Roman Catholic Church - and this is what drove
its rise to (arguably) global language status. Thus, language can be said to
have no independent existence of its own, and a particular language only
dominates when its speakers dominate (and, by extension, fails when the
people who speak it fail).

The influence of any language is a combination of three main things: the

number of countries using it as their first language or mother-tongue, the
number of countries adopting it as their official language, and the number of
countries teaching it as their foreign language of choice in schools. The intrinsic
structural qualities of a language, the size of its vocabulary, the quality of its
literature throughout history, and its association with great cultures or
religions, are all important factors in the popularity of any language. But, at
base, history shows us that a language becomes a global language mainly due
to the political power of its native speakers, and the economic power with
which it is able to maintain and expand its position.

Why is a Global Language Needed?

It is often argued that the modern “global village” needs a “global
language”, and that (particularly in a world of modern communications,
globalized trade and easy international travel) a single lingua franca has never
been more important. With the advent since 1945 of large international bodies
such as the United Nations and its various offshoots - the UN now has over 50
different agencies and programs from the World Bank, World Health
Organization and UNICEF to more obscure arms like the Universal Postal
Union - as well as collective organizations such as the Commonwealth and the
European Union, the pressure to establish a worldwide lingua franca has never
been greater. As just one example of why a lingua franca is useful, consider
that up to one-third of the administration costs of the European Community is
taken up by translations into the various member languages.

Some have seen a

planned or constructed
language as a solution
to this need. In the short
period between 1880
and 1907, no less than
53 such “universal
artificial languages”
were developed. By Member states of the United Nations (from Wikipedia).

1889, the constructed language Volapük claimed nearly a million adherents,

although it is all but unknown to day. Today the best known is Esperanto, a
deliberately simplified language, with just 16 rules, no definite articles, no
irregular endings and no illogical spellings. A sentence like “It is often argued
that the modern world needs a common language with which to communicate”
would be rendered in Esperanto as “Oni ofte argumentas ke la moderna
mondo bezonas komuna linguon por komunikado”, not difficult to understand
for anyone with even a smattering of Romance languages.

Many of these universal languages (including Esperanto) were specifically

developed with the view in mind that a single world language would
automatically lead to world peace and unity. Setting aside for now the fact that
such languages have never gained much traction, it has to be said this
assumption is not necessarily well-founded. For instance, historically, many
wars have broken out within communities of the same language (e.g. the
British and American Civil Wars, the Spanish Civil War, Vietnam, former
Yugoslavia, etc) and, on the other hand, the citizens of some countries with
multiple languages (e.g. Switzerland, Canada, Singapore, etc.) manage to
coexist, on the whole, quite peaceably.

Is a Global Language Necessarily “A Good Thing”?

While its advantages are self-evident, there are some legitimate concerns
that a dominant global language could also have some built-in drawbacks.
Among these may be the following:

 There is a risk that

the increased
adoption of a
global language
may lead to the
weakening and
eventually the
disappearance of Language hotspots, where many languages are near extinction (from National
some minority Geographic, using data from Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages).
languages (and, ultimately, it is feared, ALL other languages). It is
estimated that up to 80% of the world’s 6,000 or so living languages may
die out within the next century, and some commentators believe that a too-
dominant global language may be a major contributing factor in this trend.
However, it seem likely that this is really only a direct threat in areas where
the global language is the natural first language (e.g. North America,
Australia, Celtic parts of Britain, etc). Conversely, there is also some
evidence that the very threat of subjugation by a dominant language can
actually galvanize and strengthen movements to support and protect
minority languages (e.g. Welsh in Wales, French in Canada).
 There is concern that natural speakers of the global language may be at
an unfair advantage over those who are operating in their second, or even
third, language.
 The insistence on one language to the exclusion of others may also be
seen as a threat to freedom of speech and to the ideals of multiculturalism.
 Another potential pitfall is linguistic complacency on the part of natural
speakers of a global language, a laziness and arrogance resulting from
the lack of motivation to learn other languages. Arguably, this can already
be observed in many Britons and Americans.

Is English a Global Language?

As can be seen in more detail in the section on English Today, on almost
any basis, English is the nearest thing there has ever been to a global
language. Its worldwide reach is much greater than anything achieved
historically by Latin or French, and there has never been a language as widely
spoken as English. Many would reasonably claim that, in the fields of business,
academics, science, computing, education, transportation, politics and
entertainment, English is already established as the de facto lingua franca.

The UN, the nearest thing we have, or have ever had, to a global
community, currently uses five official languages: English, French, Spanish,
Russian and Chinese, and an estimated 85% of international organizations
have English as at least one of their official languages (French comes next with
less than 50%). Even more starkly, though, about one third of international
organizations (including OPEC, EFTA and ASEAN) use English only, and this
figure rises to almost 90% among Asian international organizations.

As we have seen, a global language arises mainly due to the political and
economic power of its native speakers. It was British imperial and industrial
power that sent English around the globe between the 17th and 20th Century.
The legacy of British imperialism has left many counties with the language
thoroughly institutionalized in their courts, parliament, civil service, schools
and higher education establishments. In other counties, English provides a
neutral means of communication between different ethnic groups.

But it has been largely American economic and cultural supremacy - in

music, film and television; business and finance; computing, information
technology and the Internet; even drugs and pornography - that has
consolidated the position of the English language and continues to maintain it
today. American dominance and influence worldwide makes English crucially
important for developing international markets, especially in the areas of
tourism and advertising, and mastery of English also provides access to
scientific, technological and academic resources which would otherwise be
denied developing countries.

Is English Appropriate for a Global Language?

Some have also argued that there are other intrinsic features of the
English language that set it apart, and make it an appropriate choice as a
global language, and it may be worthwhile investigating some of these claims:
 The richness and depth of English's
vocabulary sets it apart from other
languages. The 1989 revised "Oxford
English Dictionary" lists 615,000 words in
20 volumes, officially the world’s largest
dictionary. If technical and scientific words
were to be included, the total would rise to
well over a million. By some estimates, the
English lexicon is currently increasing by
over 8,500 words a year, although other
estimates put this as high as 15,000 to
20,000. It is estimated that about 200,000 The Second Edition (1989) of the Oxford
English Dictionary" runs to 20 volumes (from
English words are in common use, as Oxford University Press).

compared to 184,000 in German, and mere 100,000 in French. The

availability of large numbers of synonyms allows shades of distinction that
are just not available to non-English speakers and, although other
languages have books of synonyms, none has anything on quite the scale
of "Roget’s Thesaurus". Add to this the wealth of English idioms and
phrases, and the available material with which to express meaning is truly
prodigious, whether the intention is poetry, business or just everyday
conversation.
 It is a very flexible language. One example of this is in respect of word
order and the ability to phrase sentences as active or passive (e.g. I kicked
the ball, or the ball was kicked by me). Another is in the ability to use the
same word as both a noun and a verb (such as drink, fight, silence, etc).
New words can easily be created by the addition of prefixes or suffixes (e.g.
brightness, fixation, unintelligible, etc), or by compounding or fusing
existing words together (e.g. airport, seashore, footwear, etc). Just how far
 English’s much-vaunted flexibility should go (or should be allowed to go)
is a hotly-debated topic, though. For example, should common but
incorrect usages (e.g.disinterested to mean uninterested; infer to mean
imply; forego to mean forgo; flout to mean flaunt; fortuitous to mean
fortunate; etc) be accepted as part of the natural evolution of the
language, or reviled as inexcusable sloppiness which should be summarily
nipped in the bud?
 Its grammar is generally simpler than most languages. It dispenses
completely with noun genders (hence, no dithering between le plume or
la plume, or between el mano or la mano), and often dispenses with the
article completely (e.g. It is time to go to bed). The distinction between
familiar and formal addresses were abandoned centuries ago (the single
English word you has seven distinct choices in German: du, dich, dir, Sie,
Ihnen, Ihr and euch). Case forms for nouns are almost non-existent (with
the exception of some personal pronouns like I/me/mine, he/him/his,
etc.), as compared to Finnish, for example, which has fifteen forms for
every noun, or Russian which has 12. In German, each verb has 16
different forms (Latin has a possible 120!), while English only retains 5 at
most (e.g. ride, rides, rode, riding, ridden) and often only requires 3 (e.g.
hit, hits, hitting).
 Some would also claim that it is also a relatively simple language in terms
of spelling and pronunciation, although this claim is perhaps more
contentious. While it does not require mastery of the subtle tonal variations
of Cantonese, nor the bewildering consonant clusters of Welsh or Gaelic,
it does have more than its fair share of apparently random spellings, silent
letters and phonetic inconsistencies (consider, for example, the
pronunciation of the “ou” in thou, though, thought, through, thorough,
tough, plough and hiccough, or the “ea” in head, heard, bean, beauand
beauty). There are somewhere between 44 and 52 unique sounds used in
English pronunciation (depending on the authority consulted), almost
equally divided between vowel sounds and consonants, as compared to
26 in Italian, for example, or just 13 in Hawaiian. This includes some
sounds which are notoriously difficult for foreigners to pronounce (such as
“th”, which also comes in two varieties, as in thought andthough, or
in mouth as a noun and mouth as a verb), and some sounds which have a
huge variety of possible spellings (such as the sound “sh”, which can be
written as in shoe, sugar, passion, ambitious, ocean, champagne, etc, or
 the long “o” which can be spelled as in go, show, beau, sew, doe, though,
depot, etc.). In its defence, though, its consonants at least are fairly regular
in pronunciation, and it is blessedly free of the accents and diacritical
marks which festoon many other languages. Also, its borrowings of foreign
words tend to preserve the original spelling (rather than attempting to spell
them phonetically). It has been estimated that 84% of English spellings
conform to general patterns or rules, while only 3% are completely
unpredictable (3% of a very large vocabulary is, however, still quite a large
number, and this includes such extraordinary examples as colonel, ache,
eight, etc.). Arguably, some of the inconsistencies do help to distinguish
between homophones likefissure and fisher; seas and seize; air and heir;
aloud and allowed; weather and whether; chants and chance; fl, flue and
flew; reign, rein andrain; etc.
 Some argue that the cosmopolitan character of English (from its adoption
of thousands of words from other languages with which it came into
contact) gives it a feeling of familiarity and welcoming compared to many
other languages (such as French, for example, which has tried its best to
keep out other languages).
 Despite a tendency towards jargon, English is generally reasonably concise
compared to many languages, as can be seen in the length of translations
(a notable exception is Hebrew translations, which are usually shorter than
their English equivalents by up to a third). It is also less prone to
misunderstandings due to cultural subtleties than, say, Japanese, which is
almost impossible to simultaneously translate for that reason.
 The absence of coding
for social differences
(common in many other
languages which
distinguish between
formal and informal
verb forms and
sometimes other more
complex social Percentage of EU populations who claim to speak English (from InterSol).
distinctions) may make English seem more democratic and remove some
of the potential stress associated with language-generated social blunders.
 The extent and quality of English literature throughout history marks it as
a language of culture and class. As a result, it carries with it a certain
legitimacy, substance and gravitas that few other languages can match.
 On balance, though, the intrinsic appeal of English as a world language is
probably overblown and specious, and largely based on chauvinism
ornaïveté. It is unlikely that linguistic factors are of great importance in a
language's rise to the status of world language, and English's position
today is almost entirely due to the aforementioned political and economic
factors.

What About The Future?

Although English currently appears to be in an unassailable position in
the modern world, its future as a global language is not necessarily assured.
In the Middle Ages, Latin seemed forever set as the language of education and
culture, as did French in the 18th Century. But circumstances change, and
there are several factors which might precipitate such a change once again.

There are two competing drives to take into account: the pressure for
international intelligibility, and the pressure to preserve national identity. It is
possible that a natural balance may be achieved between the two, but it should
also be recognized that the historical loyalties of British ex-colonies have been
largely replaced by pragmatic utilitarian reasoning.

The very dominance of an outside language or culture can lead to a

backlash or reaction against it. People do not take kindly to having a language
imposed on them, whatever advantage and value that language may bring to
them. As long ago as 1908, Mahatma Gandhi said, in the context of colonial
India: “To give millions a knowledge of English is to enslave them”. Although
most former British colonies retained English as an official language after
independence, some (e.g. Tanzania, Kenya, Malaysia) later deliberately
rejected the old colonial language as a legacy of oppression and subjugation,
disestablishing English as even a joint official language. Even today, there is a
certain amount of resentment in some countries towards the cultural
dominance of English, and particularly of the USA.

As has been discussed, there is a close link between language and power.
The USA, with its huge dominance in economic, technical and cultural terms,
is the driving force behind English in the world today. However, if the USA
were to lose its position of economic and technical dominance, then the
“language loyalties” of other countries may well shift to the new dominant
power. Currently, perhaps the only possible candidate for such a replacement
would be China, but it is not that difficult to imagine circumstances in which it
could happen.

A change in population (and population growth) trends may prove to be

an influential factor. The increasing Hispanic population of the USA has, in the
opinion of some commentators, already begun a dilution of the “Englishness”
of the country, which may in turn have repercussions for the status of the
English language abroad. Hispanic and Latino Americans have accounted for
almost half of America’s population growth in recent years, and their share of
the population is expected to increase from about 16% today to around 30%
by 2050. Some even see the future possibility of a credible secessionist
movement, similar to that for an independent Quebec in Canada, and there
has been movements within the US Republican party (variously called "English
First" or "Official English" or "US English") to make English the nation’s official
language in an attempt to reduce the significance of Spanish. Official policies
of bilingualism or multilingualism in countries with large minority language
groups, such as are in place in countries like Canada, Belgium and
Switzerland, are an expensive option and fraught with political difficulties,
which the USA would prefer to avoid.

A 2006 report by the

British Council suggests
that the number of
people learning English is
likely to continue to
increase over the next 10-
15 years, peaking at
around 2 billion, after Countries where English is an official language (from Wikipedia).

which a decline is predicted. Various attempts have been made to develop a

simpler "controlled" English language suitable for international usage (e.g.
Basic English, Plain English, Globish, International English, Special English,
Essential World English, etc). Increasingly, the long-term future of English as a
global language probably lies in the hands of Asia, and especially the huge
populations of India and China.

Having said that, though, there may now be a critical mass of English
speakers throughout the world which may make its continued growth
impossible to stop or even slow. There are no comparable historical precedents
on which to base predictions, but it well may be that the emergence of English
as a global language is a unique, even an irreversible, event.

Reference:
Mastin, L. (2011). Language issues - English as a global language. Julio
2016, The history of English. Web site:
http://www.thehistoryofenglish.com/issues_global.html