ARTICLES
English as the lingua franca of a new age: Its more powerful than any law
If Congress has its way, English will become the official language of the United States. Thats a bold move. But the World Cup soccer tournament beat them to it.
For the first time, World Cup referees and their assistants will have to show proficiency in written and spoken English in order to be among the 44 officials taking part in soccers global tournament this summer. If any game is international, its football, as its called in most of the world. But when it comes to making tough calls on the field, the 2006 World Cup will have an English accent.
English has become a second language for much of the world, without anyone in Washington, Madison or elsewhere decreeing it must happen. There are somewhere between 380 million and 400 million native speakers of English and at least as many others who speak it as a second language. Within a decade, according to a 2004 report to the British Council, 2 billion people will be studying English and half of the world (about 3 billion people by then) will speak it to one degree or another.
English has become lingua franca, or universal language, for reasons that...
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A Common Language
Review of 'The Adventure of English', Melvyn Bragg, Hodder & Stoughton
For a good, highly readable overview of how English developed and where it may be going, Melvyn Bragg's book, based on the TV series of the same name, does the job. Bragg traces the roots of English back to the Frisian and other Germanic languages of those who invaded Britain from the 5th century onwards - the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes. He follows the growth of what have become the varied forms of modern English, not only through the familiar paths of the Norman invasion, Chaucer, Shakespeare and so on, but also through looking at other influences on English - the words of the Wild West in America, the Creole languages of the Caribbean, or the vocabulary the British brought from India. Indeed, the lists of words can become overwhelming at times.
His view of English is in some ways very democratic: the role of the ordinary people and particularly the oppressed is stressed, whether through the survival and transformation into Middle English of Anglo-Saxon under Norman French rule or the advance of Australian English. His account of Wycliffe...
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