The Globalization of English

Newsweek has an excellent feature article in the 7 March issue (this week) of its international edition on how the English language is evolving and changing the way we communicate. The article says "non-native English-speakers" worldwide now outnumber native ones 3 to 1. In Asia alone, Newsweek says, the number of English users has topped 350 million - roughly the combined populations of the United States, the UK and Canada. There are more Chinese children studying English - about 100 million - than there are Britons (that's nearly twice as many). What's especially interesting about Newsweek's article is that it analyses the different ways in which English as a means of communication is evolving, developing into literally separate languages, yet which are still understandable by those who speak any version of English. Choice excerpt: The new English-speakers aren't just passively absorbing the language-they're shaping it. New Englishes are mushrooming the globe over, ranging from "Englog," the Tagalog-infused English spoken in the Philippines, to "Japlish," the cryptic English poetry beloved of Japanese copywriters ("Your health and loveliness is our best wish," reads a candy wrapper. "Give us a chance to realize it"), to "Hinglish," the mix of Hindi and English that now crops up everywhere from fast-food ads to South Asian college campuses. "Hungry kya?" ("Are you hungry?"), queried a recent Indian ad for Domino's pizza. [...] All languages are works in progress. But English's globalization, unprecedented in the history of languages, will revolutionize it in ways we can only begin to imagine. In the future, suggests [English-language expert Anglophones, there's a growing sense that students should stop trying to emulate Brighton or Boston English, and embrace their own local versions. Researchers are starting to study non-native speakers' "mistakes" - "She look very sad," for example - as structured grammars. In a generation's time, teachers might no longer be correcting students for saying "a book who" or "a person which." Linguist King's College London, asks why some Asians, who have trouble pronouncing the "th" sound, should spend hours trying to say "thing" instead of "sing" or "ting." International pilots, she points out, already pronounce the word "three" as "tree" in radio dispatches, since "tree" is more widely comprehensible. [...] English has become the common linguistic denominator. Whether you're a Korean executive on business in Shanghai, a German Eurocrat hammering out laws in Brussels or a Brazilian biochemist at a conference in Sweden, you're probably speaking English. And as the world adopts an international brand of English, it's native speakers who have the most to lose. Cambridge dons who insist on speaking the Queen's English could be met with giggles - or blank stares. British or American business execs who jabber on in their own idiomatic patois, without understanding how English is used by non-natives, might lose out on deals. [...] Technology also plays a huge role in English's global triumph. Eighty percent of the electronically stored information in the world is in English; 66 percent of the world's scientists read in it, according to the NevilleHobson.com blog which focuses on business communication and technology.