English as a Neutral Language Tool

English as a neutral tool
My earlier paper highlights how English is acting as a killer language for native languages. As globalisation has created a global village, the people of different languages need a lingua franca to communicate with one another. At present, English is a true lingua franca and a global language. Crystal opines “a language achieves a genuinely global status when it develops a special role that is recognised in every country.” (Crystal 3) English is spoken in different parts of the world as first, second or foreign language. Crystal calculates that nearly 85% of international organizations and 99% of European organizations are using English as official language. Crystal discovers link between language dominance and economic, technological and cultural power. Language with strong power base propagates as international language. He opines a language achieves its role as international language due to its political and military power. This is very true in case of English. During Roman Empire, Latin was used as an international language. In nineteenth century, English language grows with the growth of Britain. Britain became world power and its imperial policies led to the spread of English around the globe. No doubt, colonialism led to the global use of English. It grows rapidly by coming in touch with local languages, which makes English a hybrid language changing and growing to meet communicative needs. In nineteenth century, it becomes a global language, “a language on which the sun never sets.” (Graddol, future 6) Graddol estimates that approximately 1.5 billion people in the world are using English as a first or second language. It becomes the international currency of science and technology. It occupies a d...

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