Two languages reached approximately one billion speakers
by the end of the 20th century: Mandarin, the official language
of China, and English, now the most widely used and studied
language of the world.
Yet one expert points out that the percentage of first-language
English speakers is declining globally while the first languages
used in rapidly growing regions of the world are increasing.
British Language Scholar David Graddol predicts that English
will probably “drop in dominance” by the middle
of this century to rank, after Chinese, about equally with
Arabic, Hindi/Urdu and Spanish. These next “four major
languages” are likely to be equally ranked by 2050.
Gone is the idea, as first suggested in the 19th century,
that the entire world will one day speak English as a "world
language." Consider that in the mid-20th century nearly
9 percent of the world's population grew up speaking English
as their first language. By 2050, this is estimated to drop
to 5 percent.
At the same time, however, it is predicted (or more or
less expected) that in this same year, more than half
of the world
will be proficient in speaking English - the majority of
speakers using it as a second or foreign language. Already,
by some
accounts, bilingual speakers outnumber native-speakers in
an estimated ratio of 3 to 1.
In this linguistic shift, most people will increasingly switch
between languages for different tasks, putting people who speak
only English at a considerable competitive disadvantage. While
English will likely continue to be used worldwide, monolingual
English speakers may find themselves unable to participate
fully in a multi-lingual society. With employers in many parts
of the world already looking beyond English, experts are now
saying that in the coming decades Mandarin is the next most
important language to learn for job opportunities.
"Native English speakers—particularly monolingual ones—have
been too complacent about the status of their language and
the lack of need to learn other languages," says Graddol.
As Graddol remarked in an interview with news and broadcasting
service, Voice of America:
"
We have grown up with the idea of dominance meaning that a
language actually pushes out other languages and takes over
the world. That's not actually what seems to be happening.
People are learning English as a second language; they are
not actually giving up their first languages. They are becoming
bilingual or multilingual. In India, for example, someone might
speak five, six, even seven languages and not think that is
a particularly unusual thing. When they go home, they will
talk to their family in another language, but when they go
to college they will use probably English."
English, the so-called “language of globalization,” still
commands international business, politics and diplomacy.
It is the language of science, aviation, computing, the media,
and tourism. As the official (or co-official) language of
over 45 countries, it is also spoken to a large degree in
other countries where it has no official status. Half of
all business deals are conducted in English, and it has become
the standard language for scientific writing, with more than
90 percent of literature in some scientific fields printed
in English.
Scott Montgomery, a geologist and the author of The Chicago
Guide to Communicating Science, writes: "Because of its
scale and dynamism, science has become the most active and
dynamic creator of new language in the world today. And most
of this creation is occurring in English, the lingua franca
of scientific effort."
But let us not forget that it was not always so. As once
stated in an editorial for The Economist: “In the eastern
half of the Roman empire, Greek remained the language of
commerce. Latin continued to be the language of the church,
and therefore of any West European of learning, long after
Rome had declined and fallen.”
But Greek and Latin were fixed languages with rigid rules
that failed to adapt as times changed. English, on the other
hand, is an evolving language, one which has always borrowed
or incorporated words and expressions from other languages
to ensure its own survival. While its prestige as the one “world
language” may be in dispute, English is likely to still
continue to be a language of political, commercial and cultural
importance for generations to come.
Yet, as experts are warning us now, speaking English alone
is not going to be enough for the 21st century. Multi-lingual
societies
require citizens who are fluent in at least one other language other
than their mother-tongue. This could put monolingual speakers at
risk to a new type of illiteracy. For in the foreseeable future
illiteracy will come to be viewed differently in multi-lingual societies.
And
this will affect anybody fluent in only one language, regardless
of whether the one language they speak is English, Tamil, Urdu, or
Mandarin.
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