Watch Your Language Blog

English as a global language, diversified

The Financial Times recently published an interesting article about English as a global language.

My attention was caught by the following point: The preferred global status of standard English as spoken by (the shrinking number of) native speakers may be ensured, at least for a while, through its dominant presence on the Internet and the widespread appeal of English-language music, film and TV programs.

At the same time, speakers of English as a second language around the world, particularly those who live in bilingual communities, are taking ownership of their own, perfectly valid, lexical and structural versions of English—and not just in India. So, while the number of different languages spoken around the world has been halved in the last 500 years (through a combination of nationalist movements and colonialization) and promises to be further dramatically reduced in the next 200 years (see the diagram), there is some hope left for future linguistic diversity.

Language speakers like to accommodate their speech to the speech of others—they have a hard time staying consistent, as well as separating the second language from their native tongue. Consequently, as English spreads more widely, among the benefits, the spread also leads to the loss of control, or to put it more nicely, letting go, and that's when different "Englishes" flourish. Is this what Vulgar Latin was like in AD 500? (ZVIEZDANA)


November 9, 2007