1. English as a global language by David Crystal
Why a global language?
There are obvious reasons as to why English has become a global language. English is
everywhere you hear it on tv, spoken by politicians from all over the world and whenever you
travel, people will most likely understand you in hotels and restaurants.
What is a global language?
A language achieves a genuinely global status when it develops a special role that is
recognized in every country. That role is most evident in countries where most of the citizens
speak the language as a mother tongue. To become a global language, the language has to
be taken up by other countries around the world. There are two main ways this can be done:
1. The language can be made the official language of a country, to be used as a
medium of communication (government, the law courts, media and the educational
system)
2. A language can be made a priority in a country’s foreign-language teaching, even if
the language hasn’t an official status in that country.
What makes a global language?
A language becoming a global language has little to do with how many people speak the
language, but has more to do with who those speakers are. For example: Latin became an
international language throughout the Roman Empire. That was because they were more
powerful than the people they suppressed. A language becomes an international language
for one main reason and that is: the power of the people who speak the language. Especially
their political and military power. But the military power of a nation may establish a language
it’s the economic power of a nation that maintains and expands the language.
Why do we need a global language?
People using different languages need a lingua franca(common language) to communicate
with one another. For example: a pidgin(a simplified form of a language, which combines
elements of different languages). If there is a global language people would be able to
communicate easier with each other. Because there are limitations on what can be done with
translations. International academic and business communities need a lingua franca to
communicate.
What are the dangers of a global language?
It is possible that a global language can cultivate an elite monolingual linguistic class. People
who have the advance of learning such language can use it to get richer, whereas people
who aren’t as exposed to the language stay poor. Some advantages are:
1. Worldwide communication
2. No misunderstandings
3. The focus can be on more important things
Other factors which can play a role in a global language:
1. Linguistic power
2. Linguistic complacency
3. Linguistic death
Could anything stop a global language?
There is a scenario where that is the case, that something could put a stop to a global
language. And that would be automatic translation, if this domain continues to be as fast as it
has been in the past decade, there is a distinct possibility that it will be normal for people to
communicate with their first language and the computer ‘taking the strain’ away.
2. Paraphrase chapter 2, Crystal
English is the global language and there are two explanations for that. They have to do with
geo-historical and geographical aspects. Together, they brought the English language into
existence.
Different kinds of English were put together into a new language. These kinds of English
came from all over the world. English is now presented in every continent, and in islands of
the three major oceans. The Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans are a part of it. The socio-
cultural explanation has to do with people all over the world.
Originally the global English language started in England in the fifth century and began to
spread around the British Isles. After being a language in Wales, Cornwall, Cumbria and
Southern Scotland the language spread out to Scotland. Also, Ireland fell under the English
language.
Walter Raleigh brought the English language in 1584 for the first time to a New World,
America. This happened because of a group explorers that landed in North Carolina and
established a small settlement. The first permanent English settlement existed by colonists
and was called Jamestown. Also, they created an area called Virginia which was origin
coming from Queen Elizabeth the virgin. In From that point, many others came to America
and spoke English in their settlement. In 1640 more than 25.000 immigrants came oversees.
The English language was making process further to the north and the contact with Canada
in 1497. In this time, there was a conflict with the French going on in Canada. After a war,
new places in Canada were settled from New England. The English language in Canada
was born.
When the English language was settled in America, it also spread in the South. This was a
consequence of the importation of African slaves to work on the sugar plantations. The
Caribbean islands started to talk English. The result of the slavery was the growth of several
forms of communication between the slaves and the sailors. Many of whom spoke English.
In India the numbers of English speakers increased by speakers in the USA and UK. The
level of education was high and the language spread easily through the whole country.
Perhaps a third of the people of India are now capable of holding a conversation in India.
Dutch colonists arrived in the Cape as early as 1652 but the British involvement in the region
started in 1795. English was the language of the law, education and other aspects of public
life. The development of gold and diamond areas in African caused further British settlement
in 1870. There were many sorts of dialects in the English language in Africa. Some accents
used to sound like Australian English but in Africa, the English language was seen as a
second language.
3. Chapter 3 – Why English? The cultural foundation
Around the 1950s the traveller Richard Flecknoe reported that Spanish and Dutch are the
most useful languages to know during his 10 year journey through Europe, Asia, Africa and
America. English was only used occasionally. 100 years later however, a change was seen:
though French was the language of international diplomacy, English would be the language
of the future, with America as the key to success. According to John Adams (1780) this was
because of:
1. The increasing population in America and their ‘universal connection and
correspondence with all nations’.
2. The global influence of England.
‘English is the language of the future’ (William White, 1872), but how did they spread all over
the globe? Because when a language arrives in a new country, it has to prove its worth or it
will probably not be adopted. So how did English do this when it spread globally in the 19th
century? The cultural foundation for the growth of English as a global language, was made in
the social-history of the 19th
century, which will explain this.
Political developments
In all the countries the British Empire owned, colonial or differently, they spend a lots of
money on education for the natives and on infrastructure, to win their hearts and get unity.
After the British empire left those countries, many of those now multilingual countries, chose
to adopt English as their official language, so their inhabitants could communicate on an
national level.
Access to knowledge
During the 18th
century the British were the fastest economically growing country in the
world, with Gross National Product rising with an average of 2% per year. Most of the
innovations were British:
- Harnessing of coal, water and steam to drive heavy machinery. (high-speed rotary
press mass of publications in English)
- Development of new materials, techniques and equipment in manufacturing
industries.
- New means of transportation.
All these new inventions added tons of new words to the English lexicon. Also because they
were made in an English speaking country, the instructions were made in English, so if you
did not speak English, but wanted to learn more about them, you had to learn English. Many
Britons went teaching abroad, about the new methods of industrial production, earning a
good living. Several inventors were also attracted from the continent to Britain, because here
they were appreciated for their work.
In the 19th
century, the growth of transport systems (steamships, railway, road network)
fuelled by new methods of mass production, new means of communication (telegraph,
telephone) and new sources of energy (oil) were being made or invented.
4. By the end of the 19th
century, America had overtaken Britain as the world’s fastest growing
economy. So America turned into a magnet for European Scholars. According to the
Chambers concise dictionary of scientists 45% of the people from 1750 – 1900 were working
in English and even more were working together with English-speaking scholars.
In the early 19th
century, the international banking system grew rapidly, with new
organisations which supported foreign and national companies and were the base of the
growth of world trade and investment resulting in an ‘economic imperialism’.
Taken for granted
In the 1900s there was no doubt about English being the global language, only what kind of
English should be used.
Chapter 4
Why English? The cultural legacy
The most important thing for the English language, in the post-war world, was the way in
which the cultural legacies of the colonial era and the technological revolution were being felt
on an international scale. English was now emerging as a medium of communication.
International relations
The English language is one of the official languages used in the UN and is used in most
proceedings of most other major international political gatherings.
The media
English is used in the media(the press, advertising, broadcasting, cinema and popular
music), in international travel and international safety.
English in advertising began very early on and as the international markets grew, the
‘outdoor media’ began to travel the world, and their prominence in virtually every town
and city is now the most noticeable global manifestations of English language use.
Cinema altered the nature of home and public entertainment and provided fresh
directions for the development of the English language. It was when the sound was
added to movies that the English language dominated the movie world.
All the major recording companies in popular music had English-language origins.
Radio sets around the world hourly testify to the dominance of English in the popular
music scene today.
Over time the traveling trend can develop into a major influence because a language
has to be interpreted, learned and imposed.
For international safety English has been the language people use on the seas and in
the air.
Education
English in the medium of a great deal of the world’s knowledge especially in science and
technology. English has become the normal medium of instruction in higher education for
many counties. The ELT(English language teaching) business has become one of the major
growth industries around the world.
5. Communications
Three quarters of the world’s mail is in English and 80% of the electronical information is
currently in English. The first protocols devised to carry data on the Net were developed for
the English alphabet, using character set(called Latin 1). In the meantime, English continues
to be the chief lingua franca of the internet.
The right place at the right time
In the 17th
and 18th
centuries English was the language of the leading colonial nation –
Britain.
In the 18th
and 19th
centuries it was the language of the leader of the industrial evolution –
also Britain.
In the late 19th
century and the early 20th
it was the language of the leading economic power
– the USA.
English emerged as a first-rank language in industries which affected all aspects of society.
Chapter 5
The future of global English
What kinds of development could impede the future growth of English? Several possibilities
can be envisaged. A significance change in the balance of power – whether political,
economic, technological or cultural.
The rejection of English
It can happen that people of a country feel so antagonistic or ambivalent about English that
they reject the option to give English a privileged status. The rejection can come from a
strong reaction against continuing to use the language of a former colonial power. Economic
arguments which might persuade a country to reduce its investment in the English language.
The need for intelligibility and the need for identity often pull people and countries into
opposing directions.
Contrasting attitude: the US situation
The USA has come to be the dominant element in so many of the domains identified in
earlier chapters so that the future status of English must be bound up to some extent with the
future of that country. The power which has fuelled the growth of the English language during
the 20th
century has stemmed from America. The USA contains nearly four times as many
mother-tongue speakers of any other nation and it has been more involved with international
developments in the 20th
-century technology than any other nation. The USA is in control of
the new industrial(electronic) revolution. And it exercises a greater influence on the way
English is developing worldwide that does any other regional variety.
6. New Englishes
The best way to define a genuinely global language is that its usage is not restricted by
countries or by governing bodies. No one can claim sole ownership of English. There is no
way in which any kind of regional social movement, such as the purist societies, can
influence the global outcome. There are probably already more L2 speakers than L1
speakers. An inevitable consequence of these developments is that the language will
become open to winds of linguistic change in totally unpredictable ways.
The linguistic character of New Englishes
Several of the ‘New Englishes’ of the past have been well studied, notably AmE and AusE,
but the way the language has evolved in settings where most people are native speakers is
likely to be very different from the way it will evolve in settings where most are non-native
speakers.
The future of English as a world language
Language is an immensely democratizing institution. To have learned a language is
immediately to have rights in it. You may add to it, modify it, play with it, create in it, ignore
bits of it, as you will. The local words begin to be used at the prestigious levels of society, by
politicians, religious leaders, socialites, pop musicians, and others. Using local words is no
longer seen as careless or ignorant within a country, it’s respectable. The next step is to
move from national to international levels.
An English family of languages?
First: to have a community with a single mind about the matter. Second: to have a
community which has enough political-economic ‘clout’(informal influence/power) to make its
decision respected by outsiders with whom it is in regular contact.
A unique event?
There has never been a language so widely spread or spoken by so many people as
English. The balance between intelligibility and identity is especially fragile, and can easily be
affected by social change, such as swing in immigrant policy, new political alliances, or a
change in a country’s population trends. Because there are no precedents for languages
achieving this level of use, we do not know what happens to them in such circumstances.
If there is a critical mass, does this mean that the emergence of a global language is a
unique event, in evolutionary terms? It may be that English, in some shape or form, will find
itself in the service of the world community for ever.
