The ‘Expanding Circle’ continues in several other countries, including China, Russia and many more. These countries have realised the importance of learning English as a foreign language, even though they do not have a history of colonisation. These countries have shown that English is a priority in terms of a foreign language although it is not the official language.
During the nineteenth century, the English language became an international language influencing other countries, such as China. In the 20th century English took on a global position. The reason for the expansion and supremacy of English are due to Britain’s colonisation of a number of countries in the 18th and 19th century and the appearance of America’s economic power of the 20th century. The British colonisation of India led English to become part of the country’s chief institutions, therefore ‘the governing body (e.g. parliament), the government agencies, the civil service (at least at senior levels), the law courts, national religious bodies, the schools, and higher educational institutions, along with their related publications’ were carried out in English (Crystal, 1995:106-7) (Brutt-griffler, 2002:107).
English speakers have been divided into three groups, firstly to people who speaks the English language as an official language, secondly to people who speak English as a second language who uses English professional, socially or in some areas it is used educationally and thirdly to people who speak English as a foreign language who uses English so they can seek job opportunities. There are also countries like Tanzania that have replaced their language policy (English) which was colonized by the British back to their own official language after their independence (Crystal, 1995:107).
The English language in the educational system is taught in much of Europe as a second language to children at a young age. Not only is English is taught as a second language in Europe but also in another 25 countries outside it such as South Africa and Malaysia. English is a popular language and it is taught to 60% of all the students at secondary schools in Russia, 25% of German secondary students learn English as a foreign language and 15% of French. The number of people who are studying English is very high compared to the other European languages. Research indicates that it is less likely for English to be challenge by another language, such as Spanish and Arabic or Chinese. (Graddol, 1997:44).
Spanish and Arabic are both an international languages, but nowhere near equal to English. Chinese could also be the next dominant language as there are a large number of people who speak Chinese in the Far East and of course due to its higher population. Many communications with the Far East will continue to be in English but whether or not a foreign language, such as Spanish, Arabic or Chinese become the next world lingua franca is unpredictable, the probability of their language dominating over English is small as English shows its development not only through Britain’s colonization and Americas economic power but also through the development of technology (McCrum, 2002:10), (Graddal, 1997:58-59).
Many inventions and technology have been achieved by the English speakers, such as radio, television, computers, internet and telephone; these greatest inventions still continue to be an inspiration for all. A high percentage of people use English to communicate with others. All these developments have been sent over by the first world countries to other parts of the world. People who communication through text and/or email use English as the main language, which is still continuing to have a major change to the English language, where easier, quicker and shorter ways to write English have increased. This is done by cutting down words, using abbreviations and numerals (Crystal, 1995:392), (Pope, 2002:348).
Internet is another major influence for the spread of English; it is used all over the world. It has been reported that 80% of the information which are stored in the computer are in English. The percentage of people using the computer and internet is rising highly. It is used by a large majority of countries. Many internet users prefer English as the world’s lingua franca because it is the main language used for internet. If other foreign countries would want to research through the internet then the English language must be used because 84.3% of home pages are in English. Many people rely on the computer as a means of communication, business, research, entertainment and shopping. A new development has also been introduction which is called ‘broadband’ where movies and trailers can be watched through the computer, these movies or programmes can be saved into a disk where they can watch it on their computer or DVD player. (Graddol, 1997:50-1).
American television and films have remained important to the way English is recognised and perceived by the wider world, because, for example, of the national publicity of Hollywood films around the world English has been seen as a language of prestige. During the 1950s, American English had a strong influence on British English and Europe. During this period and many lexical terms in the US films have become an active use for British speakers and British English has become an active use for American speakers. After World War 2, American television spread too many other countries and a vast number of Non-English speakers learnt English through phrases adopted through television (Crystal, 1995:306) (McCrum, 2002:25).
Within Europe, virtually half of all business deals are spoken in English Many worldly events are also spoken in English, such as the World Council of Churches, the Olympics, the Miss Universe competition and the largest broadcasting companies (CBS, NBC, ABC, BBC and CBC). (McCrum, 2002:10).
English also gives much economic prosperity to Britain. This is because many businesses exchanges are conducted in English and if all the businesses were to speak in English then the native speakers will benefit the most in terms or economic growth as many business will be dealt with the Americans and the British people. Britain also attracts many third world business companies. This linguistic advantage has given English-speaking countries a higher chance in global market. There are also many British and American industries in many parts of the world. Products that are used in the dominant countries are forwarded to other countries. The relationship between the East and the West is increasing and more trading will occur (Graddol, 1997:57).
The world is getting richer, and English is the cause of high economy. The ‘economic, technological, and demographic evidence’ show that it will change the societies and remodel the traditional relations between the West and the East.
Today English is democratic, allowing people to express their opinion to ‘the voice of freedom’, therefore giving people the desire to give their voice across to the third world countries. This opening path allows English to be used in the future as a global language. English is also the main link between two different languages: when an international political meeting is held, the English language is use for communication. English also helps to unite different non-English countries. When English is spoken in worldly political meetings, it is still understood, although there are many varieties of English, it is not as diverse as Arabic (Crystal, 1995:106,378) (McCrum, 2002:44).
Spoken English differs from region to region, such as United States, Canada, and Australia and within the British Isle all differ from each other. In Britain there are many varieties, for example the Queens English, BBC English, Estuary English and ‘Cockney’. Cockney, which is a southern accent, is spoken mostly in the East End of London. It is associated with low status, wry humour and often poverty, while the West End of London is considered as ‘received pronunciation’. The more one moves further away from London the more varieties of English can be noticed all over the world (McCrum, 2002:12), (Honey, 1997:89).
The new millennium shows the increase of multilingual and multicultural societies, although there is an increase of English language speakers. The colonization of Africa and India in the political and social system has caused the emergence of new varieties, thus making the English of the African and Indian nations ‘New Englishes’. There are also many other countries that have formed new varieties, some of these are for example Greek English, Japanese English and others that have developed through creolization. English Creole was used by the Black English Vernacular in America spoken especially in the Caribbean (Griffler, 2002:12-3).
California is often seen to be the state where the future occurs first. It is well populated and has 25 million inhabitants. There are lots of people coming from different backgrounds who live in California. The influence on English comes from the ‘social and economic muscle’ of California. An American has mad e one of the most famous invention (computers) called Apple and Hewlett-Packard (McCrum, 2002:29-30).
English has the richest vocabulary list in the world; it is considered to have more than 500,000 words and a half of a million more of technical and scientific terms. The increase of vocabulary is because of the influence of technological and scientific achievements (McCrum, 2002:10). Eighty Percent of the English language is borrowed from other languages such as Latin, French, Spanish, Germanic, Celtic, Yiddish, Dutch, Flemish, Danish, Swedish, French, Italian, and Portuguese. Other vocabulary from languages of the third world countries such include Hindi-Urdu, Hebrew and Arabic, Bengali, Chinese and etc (McCrum, 2002:43). H.L. Mencken, a writer on English described English as:
‘A living language is like a man suffering incessantly from small haemorrhages, and what it needs above all else is constant transactions of new blood from other tongues. The day the gates go up, that day it begins to die.’ (McCrum, 2002:43)
The English language is not as simple a language to learn than French or Russian. It is not as lyrical, beautiful, sweet-toned, or as well expressed as other languages. It is however a highly fluent language. There are some words that foreigners find hard to understand or pronounce, such as the ‘th’ phoneme. There are many words that are pronounced differently to the way the words are written, there are letters which have more than thirteen ways of being spelled ‘sh’, e.g. shoe, sugar and etc. Children at present are still finding it difficult with the spelling system which has been a problem since the time of William Caxton (McCrum, 2002:42-3).
In other ways English does have its beneficial side, it is more easier to learn and there are no masculine or feminine nouns, such as in French where for example a feminine article will be used with the feminine noun, for example ‘the moon’ would be pronounced as la lune and ‘the sun’ would have the masculine article because the noun is masculine and is pronounced as der Mond. In English however the article is same for both masculine and in feminine. The second quality of learning English is that is has a simple and flexible grammar, such as nouns being used like verbs which can not be done in other languages, therefore phrases like ‘We can dog someone’s footsteps’ could be said (McCrum, 2002:43).
To help us determine whether or not English will be the next dominant language in the future, it is necessary to estimate the population of the world, where will they live? And their age? The reason for this is because if the population of China was to increase and becoming the most popular language amongst foreign people, it will clearly shows Chinese will be the next dominate language. A definite answer as to whether or not English will still be the next dominate language is unpredictable, but judging from the figures, Britain’s colonial history, power, development and technology, it clearly shows that English will likely continue to remain the world’s lingua franca. Many people will continue to learn English, although there are many varieties and many uses.
REFERENCES
Albert, A.C. and T, Cable (2002) (Fifth Edition) A History of the English Language. Pearson Education Ltd. London.
Brutt-Griffler, J. (2002) World English: A Study of its Development. Great Britain. Cromwell Press Ltd.
Crystal, D. (1995) Encyclopedia of the English Language. UK. Cambridge University Press.
Graddol, D. (1997) The Future of English? Great Britain. British Council.
Honey, J. (1997) Language is Power The Story of Standard English and its Enemies. London. Faber and Faber Limited.
McCrum, R., R. MacNeil. and W. Cran. (2002) (Third Edition) The Story of English. London. Faber and Faber Limited.
Pope, R. (2002) (Second Edition) The English Studies Book: An Introduction to Language, Literature and Culture. Rouledge. London
Quirk, R. (1968) (Second Edition) The Use of English. Longman Group Ltd.