The extent and importance of the English language today make it reasonable to ask whether we cannot speculate as to the probable position it will occupy in the future. It is admittedly hazardous to predict the future of nations; the changes during the present century in the politics and populations of the developing countries have confounded predictions of 50 years ago. Since growth in a language is primarily a matter of population, the most important question to ask is which populations of the world will increase most rapidly. Growth of population is determined by the difference between the birth rate and the death rate and by internation migration. The single most important fact about current trends is that the Third World countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America have experienced a sharp drop in mortality during the 20-th century without a corresponding drop in the birth rate. As a result, the population of these areas is younger and growing faster than the population of the industrialized countries of Europe and North America. The effect of economic development upon falling growth rates is especially clear in Asia, where Japan is growing at a rate only slightly higher than that of Europe, while southern Asia, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh – is growing at a rate more than twice as high. China is growing at a moderate rate, between that of Europe and southern Asia, but with a population in excess of one billion, the absolute increase will be very high. According to a recent United States analysis, by 2050 the United States will be the only developed country among the worlds twenty most populous nations, where as in 1950 at least half of the top ten were industrial nations. The population of the less developed countries is expected to grow from 4.9 billion in 2000 to 8.2 billion in 2050, while the more developed countries will hold at 1.2 billion [Barbara Grossete “Against a Trend, U.S. Population will Bloom, U.N.says” New York Times; (February 28, 2001), Section A, p.6].
India is expected to replace China as the world’s most populous nation in half a century. The proportion of the world’s population in the economically developed countries will shrink during the next half century in comparison with the proportion in the presently developing countries. Since most of the native speakers of English live in the developed countries, it can be expected that this group will account for a progressively smaller proportion of the world’s population. Counteracting the general trend somewhat is the exceptional situation in the United States, the only country among the most developed ones that is growing at a slightly more than a replacement rate instead of actually declining.
If the future of a language were merely a matter of the number who speak it as a first language, English would appear to be entering a period of decline after 4 centuries of unprecedented expansion. What makes this prospect unlikely is the fact that English is widely used as a second language and as a foreign language throughout the world. The number of speakers who have acquired English as a second language with near native fluency is estimated to be between 350 and 400 million.
Thus the total number of speakers (English) range between one and one and a half billion (1 billion-1.5 billion).In some of the developing countries that are experiencing the greatest growth, English is one of the official languages (e.g. in India, Nigeria and the Philippines).
In some countries English is a neutral language among competing indigenous languages (vernaculars), the establishment of any one of which would arouse ethnic jealousies. In most developing countries communications in English are superior to those in the vernacular language (e.g. Swahili in Tanzania is not established for education for lack of textbooks).
Among European Languages it seems likely that English, German and Spanish will benefit from various developments. The breakup of the Soviet Union and the increasing political and economic unification of Western Europe are already resulting in the shifting fortunes of Russian and German. The independent states of the former USSR are unlikely to continue efforts to make Russian a common language throughout that vast region, and the presence of a unified Germany will reinforce the importance of the German language, which already figures prominently as a language of commerce in the countries of Eastern Europe. The growth of Spanish will come mainly from the rapidly increasing population of Latin America, while the growth in English will be most notable in its use throughout the world as a second language. It is also likely that pidgin and creole varieties of English will become increasingly widespread in those areas where English is not a first language.
The world is fully alive to the need for an international language. It is evident from the number of attempts that have been made to supply that need artificially. Between 1880 and 1907 fifty-three universal languages were proposed. Some of these enjoyed an amazing, if temporary, vogue. In 1889 Volapuk claimed nearly a million adherents. Today it is all but forgotten. A few years later Esperanto experienced a similar vogue, but interest in it now is kept alive largely by local groups and organizations. Apparently the need has not been filled by any of the laboratory products.
An artificial language might serve some of the requirements of business and travel, but no one has proved willing to make it the medium of political, historical or scientific thought, to say nothing of literature. The history of language policy in the 20-th century makes it unlikely that any government will turn its resources to an international linguistic solution that benefits the particular country only indirectly. And without the support of governments and the educational institutions that they control, the establishment of an artificial language for the world will be impossible. Recent history has shown language policy continuing to be a highly emotional issue, the language of a country often symbolizing its independence and nationalism( e.g. Ukraine).
The emotions working against the establishment of an artificial language work even more strongly against the establishment of a single foreign language for international communication. The official languages of the United Nations are English, French, Russian, Spanish, Chinese and Arabic (6.).
Since World War II English as an official language has claimed progressively less territory among the former colonies of the British Empire while its actual importance and number of speakers have increased rapidly. In 1935 English was the official language of one-fourth of the earth’s surface. As the colonies gained independence, English continued to be used alongside the vernaculars.
In many of the new countries English is either the primary language or a necessary second language in the schools, the courts and business. The extent of its use varies with regional history and current government policy, although stated policy often masks the actual complexities. In Uganda, for example, where no language is spoken as a first language by more than 16 percent of the population, English is the one official language yet less than one percent of the population speaks it as a first language. In India, English was to serve transitional purposes only until 1965, but it continues to be used officially together with Hindi and 14 other national languages. In Tanzania, Swahili is the one official language, but English is still indispensable in the schools and the high courts. It is nowhere a question of substituting English for the native speech.
Braj B. Kachru [The Sacred Cows of English. English Today, 16(1988), 8.] notes that it is clear fact of history that English is in a position of unprecedented power: “where over 650 artificial languages have failed, English has succeeded. One reason for this dominance of English is its propensity for acquiring new identities, its power of assimilation, its adaptability for “decolonization” as a language, its manifestation in a range of varieties, and above all its suitability as a flexible medium for literary and other types of creativity across language and cultures.
Recent awareness of “endangered languages” and a new sensivity to ecolinguistics have made clear that the success of English brings problems in its wake. The world is poorer when a language dies on average every two weeks. For native speakers of English as well, the status of the English language can be a mixed blessing, especially if the great majority of English speakers remain monolingual. On the other hand at an advantage are well-educated specialists from European countries who have other linguistic assets (besides the knowledge of English).[Michael Toolan, “Linguistic Assets,” English Today, 15.2.(April 1999), 29.]
English is the dominant language of the Internet, with more than half of the Internet hosts located in the USA and as many as three-fourth in the USA+other English-speaking countries. The technology that made knowledge of English essential also facilitated online English-language instruction in countries such as China, where demands for English exceed the available teachers.
In September 2000 Bill Gates predicted that English would be the language of the Web for the next 10 years because accurate computerized translation would be more than a decade away. Still predictions are not always realized as e.g. four months later China announced the world’s first Chinese- English Internet browser with a reported translation accuracy of 80 percent.
Since English occupies such a prominent place in international communication, it is necessary to consider some of the features that figure prominently in learning English as a foreign language. Some of these features may facilitate the learning of English and others may make the effort more difficult. The question is: How readily can English be learned by the non-native speakers? Does it possess characteristics of vocabulary and grammar that render it easy or difficult to acquire?
It is easy to assume that what we in infancy acquired without sensible difficulty will seem equally simple to those attempting to learn it in maturity. But for most of people learning any second language requires some efforts and some languages seem harder than others. The most important point here is the closeness of the speaker’s native language to the language that is being learned. In this sense English will seem easier to a native speaker of Dutch than to a native speaker of Korean.
Linguists are far from certain how to measure complexity of a language. In an influential modern theory of language the determination of the difficulty of specific linguistic structures falls within the study of “markedness” which in turn is an important part of “universal grammar», the abstract linguistic principles that are innate for all humans. By this view, the grammar of language consists of a core the general principles of the grammar, and a “periphery”, the more marked structures that result from historical development, borrowing, and other processes that produce “parameters” with different values in different languages [Vivian j. Cook, “Chomsky’s Universal Grammar and Second Language Learning”, // Applied Linguistics, 6(1985) 2-18 &her Second Language Learning and Language Teaching (2nd ed., London, 1996].
One may think that the loss of many inflexions in English simplifies the language and makes it easier for the learner. But it is a disputable point.
The international status of English was determined by the ethnographic, political, economic, technological, scientific and cultural forces. It would be the same even if the language (English) had had a much smaller lexicon and several cases for nouns. E.g. the inflexions of Latin did nothing to slow its spread when the Roman legions made it the world language that it was for several centuries.
One of the most obvious characteristics of present-day English is the size and mixed character of its vocabulary. English is classified as a Germanic Language, together with German, Dutch, Flemish, Danish, Swedish and Norwegen. It shares with these languages similar grammatical structure and many common words. On the other hand, half of its vocabulary is derived from Latin. Some of these borrowings have been direct, a great many came through French, some through other Romance languages. As a result, English also shares a great number of words with those languages of Europe that are derived from Latin, notably French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese. All of this means that English presents a somewhat familiar appearance to anyone who speaks either a Germanic or a Romance language. Instead of making new words chiefly by the combination of existing elements, as German does, English has shown a marked tendency to go outside its own linguistic resources and borrow from other languages. And in the course of centuries of this practice English has built up an unusual capacity for assimilating outside elements. We do not feel that there is anything “foreign” about the wordschipmunk, hominy, moose, raccoon, skunkwhich were borrowed from the Native American. We are not conscious that the words brandy, landscape, measles, uproarare from Dutch. And so with many others in daily use. From Italian come balcony , duet, opera, piano, umbrella, volcano; from Spanish – alligator, cargo, contraband, cork, hammock, mosquito, sherry, tornado; from Greek, directly or indirectly, acme, acrobat, anthology, catarrh, catastrophe, elastic, magic, tactics, tantalizeand a host of others; from Russian - steppe, vodka, ruble, trojka, glasnost, perestroika; from Indian – caravan, dervish, divan, khaki, shawl, sherbet and from Persian – jasmine, paradise, check, chess, lemon, lilac, turban, spinach. A good etymological dictionary will show that English has borrowed from Hebrew and Arabic, Hungarian, Hindi, Chinese and others. Its vocabulary is truly cosmopolitan and it has assimilated these heterogeneous elements so successfully that only the professional is aware of their origin. The cosmopolitan vocabulary of English with its cognates in many languages is an undoubted asset for language learner. English has inflexional simplicity which is also an asset.
English differs from all other major European Languages in having adopted natural (rather than grammatical) gender. In studying other European Languages the student must learn both the meaning of every noun and also its gender. In the English Language all this was stripped away during the Middle English period and today the gender of every noun in the dictionary is known instantly, as it is determined by meaning. All nouns naming living creatures are masculine or feminine according to the sex of the individual and all other nouns are neuter.
Besides the assets foreign students encounter difficulties in learning English. One of them is the result of that very simplification of inflexions which we have named among the assets.
Then the foreigners find difficulty in expressing themselves idiomatically. An idiom is a form of expression peculiar to the language, and English is not alone in possessing such individual forms of expression. All languages have their special way of saying things: e.g. the distinction between My husband is not up yet and My husband is not down yet seems to the foreigner to be without reasonable justification.
A more serious criticism of English by those attempting to master it is the chaotic character of its spelling and the frequent lack of correlation between spelling and pronunciation. Theoretically the most adequate system of spelling is that which best combines simplicity with consistency. English is very far from that. One cannot tell how to spell an English word by its pronunciation or how to pronounce it by its spelling. English-speaking children undoubtedly waste much valuable time during the early years of their education in learning to spell their own language and to the foreigner English spelling is appallingly difficult.
The improvement of English spelling is desirable which is evident from the number of occasions on which attempts at reform have been made, but they were not sufficient to overcome human conservatism or indifference or force of habit. It remains to be seen whether the extension of English in the future will some day compel the scholars to consider the reform of English spelling from international point of view.
