“There is no retreat from English as the world language; no retreat from an English speaking world. It is possible that a global language will emerge only once.” David Crystal
If a time traveler were to visit Europe in the 1700s, he would have been mocked and laughed at had he mentioned that English and not Latin or French had become our first global language. Such an idea was preposterous. How could a crude barbarian language spoken by low peasants ever be a threat to the perfection of Latin Or the beauty of French or the logic of Greek? Impossible.
And despite the odds, here we are taking English and its benefits for granted, reducing it to stereotypical misconceptions based on ignorance and fear.
Between 1880 and 1907 fifty-three universal languages were proposed. One of them called Volapük once claimed nearly a million followers. Esperanto was the greatest collective attempt in establishing a global language during the 20th century only to be forgotten by the upcoming generation.
English has naturally succeeded where others have failed. The question is Why and what’s gonna happen now?
Well one thing’s for sure: that nobody owns English anymore, once it has achieved the status of global language everyone who speaks it owns it. New Englishes with unique and complex grammars and vocabulary start to emerge, perhaps a new branch of languages is born and just as Latin gave birth to the romance languages (Portuguese, Spanish, French), English has already given birth to, South African, Indian, Nigerian, Jamaican, Chinese Englishes among many others which are for the first time scattered around the globe clearly reinforcing that British and American ownership is long gone.
A very common misconception is that English has succeeded because ‘It has less grammar than other languages’, or ‘English doesn’t have a lot of endings on its words, nor does it have gendered nouns, so it must be easier to learn’. But on the other hand, the unique use of auxiliary verbs, such as the meaningless “do” in the negative or interrogative; or the use of prepositional phrasal verbs, always confuses new learners from any other language.
Some aspects of the language are appealing to foreign learners: English has over the centuries borrowed thousands of new words from the languages with which it had contact and Its welcoming nature to new words and expressions as opposed say to the xenophobic French sentiment towards “foreign words”, has given English a much more cosmopolitan and familiar nature. From a lexical point of view, English is in fact far more a Romance than a Germanic language, after all, 70% of its vocabulary derives from Latin. There is also the absence in English grammar of a system of coding social class differences, which can make the language seem more ‘democratic’ to those who speak a language (e.g. Javanese) that does express an intricate system of class relationships.
So why English and not French? Or Latin? Or Mandarin? Or Arabic?
The obvious answer was made in form question by David Crystal in his 2002
Book English as a Global Language:
“Why did Greek become a language of international communication in the Middle East over 2,000 years ago? Not because of the intellects of Plato and Aristotle: the answer lies in the swords and spears wielded by the armies of Alexander the Great. Why did Latin become known throughout Europe? Ask the legions of the Roman Empire. Why did Arabic come to be spoken so widely across northern Africa and the Middle East? Follow the spread of Islam, carried along by the force of the Moorish armies from the eighth century. Why did Spanish, Portuguese, and French find their way into the Americas, Africa and the Far East? Study the colonial policies of the Renaissance kings and queens, and the way these policies were ruthlessly implemented by armies and navies all over the known world.
It may take a militarily powerful nation to establish a language, but it takes an economically powerful one to maintain and expand it.”
English was at the right place at the right time.
The late rise of the British Empire in the East coincided with the foundation of the Royal British Academy. The growing importance of English in the scientific community was a consequence of the greatest minds in the world establishing themselves in London and embracing and “perfecting” English for scientific purposes such as when Newton wrote Optiks in English defying Latin’s supremacy in scientific texts. The dissemination of mass communication in the late 1800’s, in which 90% of global broadcast was in English, was steered by the 2nd Industrial Revolution well on its way in The United States. A globalized economy dependent on English to perform financial transactions, The United States’ protagonistic military role in the wars of the 20th century, the birth of cinema and television, mass production consumer goods and countless other geographical-historical events paved the way for English to become what it has today: essential for survival.
The growing need of English for better work opportunities is especially felt within developing countries where English proficiency levels are low and consequently, fluent workers are highly coveted by multinational companies.
The use of a lingua franca is particularly appreciated by the international academic community where more than three-quarters of scientific papers today are published in English.
For the sake of global safety and security, English has been adopted as the official language of air traffic control, international nautical waters and safety procedures for flights, sailings and hotels. “Police speak” (law enforcement jargon) is essential for international bodies such as UN peacekeepers to operate anywhere in the world.
The incontestable power of English raises dystopian questions about our linguistic future. Will a global language obliterate the need to learn other languages? Will minority languages face inevitable extinction?
There are over 6k living languages today and the intellectual and social loss would indeed be a tragic event seeing that the languages you speak shape your worldview perceptions. The global threat of English has prompted worldwide collaborations in order to protect endangered languages from extinction. Dictionaries and literatures have been created in an attempt to catalogue and revitalize languages with a decreasing number of speakers. Strong nationalistic sentiments have arisen everywhere to try and deter the cultural and linguistic assimilation of English of minority cultures, as for instance, when Swahili was made official language in Kenya in 1960 because of the colonial resonance of English in the minds of children and adults who were viciously humiliated for speaking and other language than English within school grounds.
About 2 thirds of children today are bilingual and the increasing numbers of tools and research into language learning make English monolinguals seem lazy and arrogant. Research has found that about 30% of British exporters miss business opportunities due to poor language skills.
And what is the future of English? Linguistic forecasts of living languages are tricky and most of the time, inaccurate. The influence of speakers of English as a second language is starting to be felt and for the first time they outnumber native speakers of English. Whatever the future brings to us, it’s important to remember that English has already faced extinction and that there were many failed attempts in trying to control the language from being changed.
All we can do now is stand back and enjoy the ride……
