The Sun Never Sets on the English Language

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English has evolved in the last hundred years from being a fragment of the old Latin world to being widely spoken around the new world. Despite living in America, we see international meetings where leaders of many countries all speak English to communicate with each other. Is it possible that English has become the lingua franca and will continue into the future to be the global language? There are many sources that indicate that future can only hold English as its selected language. In the future we will have a variety of “Englishes” that will dominate global communication, and this will occur because the dominance of English is believed to be ‘inevitable’, practical to foreign nations, and finally it appeals to a multicultural perspective for a cosmopolitan society.

Everywhere you look around the world you can find the English language. In The Mother Tongue: English & How it got that Way, Bill Bryson explains, “In Yugoslavia they speak five languages. In not one of them does the word stop exist, yet every stop sign in the country says just that” (Bryson 179). Around the world we see examples of countries that don’t natively speak English but use English as a marketing scheme. Further Bryson mentions, “…On the bottom of the eraser is a further message: ‘We are ecologically minded. This package will self-destruct in Mother Earth’. It is a product that was made in Japan solely for Japanese consumers, yet there is not a word of Japanese on it” (Bryson 180). We can see the rise in world distributors producing ‘English’ products as the world looking for a common language; it’s seen as trendy, and obviously something that the people want. With the history of English starting at relatively the same time as the romance languages, it’s ...

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... at Essex Conference." Essex Chronicle [Chelmsford] 15 Mar. 2012, News sec.: 34. Proquest. Web. 20 Mar. 2012. http://search.proquest.com.accarcproxy.mnpals.net/docview/928036123/1359728E7DD36B71E65/5?accountid=48834

Liston, Enjoli. "Say Hello to a New Language." The Independent [London] 18 Jan. 2012: 40. Proquest. Web. 20 Mar. 2012. http://search.proquest.com.accarcproxy.mnpals.net/docview/916426138/13597240297686A7755/5?accountid=48834

Zhang, Xiaohong, and Margaret Zeegers. "Redefining The Role Of English As A Foreign Language In The Curriculum In The Global Context." Changing English: Studies In Culture & Education 17.2 (2010): 177-187. Academic Search Premier. Web. 20 Mar. 2012.

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