There are 6912 languages spoken in the world (Campbell, L. 2008) but the spread of English language has motivated the researchers to explore the historical and political background behind how English became a global language. Crystal (2003) has tried to answer major queries of general public regarding ‘English as global Language’. For instance, a global language is recognized in each part of the world and, it becomes global because of power and political influence. It is important to have a global language as there should be one common language in order to communicate with the people having different native languages. This common language is called ‘Lingua Franca’. He further has highlighted the risks of a global language such as people may stop learning their own languages and these languages may die with the passage of time. Moreover, there will be no harmony if there is only one language in whole world. In his other book ‘Language Death’, Crystal (2002) has given the data: there are 500 languages that have less than 100 speakers and around 1500 languages have less than 1000 speakers. It may be hard for such languages to survive. According to Crystal (2003), English became global language as British ruled in different regions of the world and through a sustainable political development they spread this language in each part of the world. Furthermore, they made the access to major knowledge and research possible in English. He further explores how English is widespread used though different modes of communication. Such as, we see English on international media no matter it is from non-English countries, advertisements and other important messages are disseminated in English. Popular music can be heard in English. In most of the countries, medium of instruction is in English language. There have been counter movements to stop English to become a global language as at lower-level ethnic groups considered it ‘The Language of Slaves’ and local communities protested to teach basic educational concepts in their native languages but still English has a great influence on the minds of policy makers and still English is used as medium of communication in several countries. One last question highlighted by Crystal (2003) is: will English remain global language in future, or some other language would take its role? I had asked a similar question to Dr. Martin a researcher from University of Leads, UK who visited University of the Punjab in 2017. His answer was, no other language will take the role of English as a huge amount has been spent to promote it. Secondly, it has become part of people’s behavior now therefore, it may take centuries to remove this language from all the areas where it is now. According to Crystal (2003), nobody knows what is going to happen in future. He says, English may remain global language until America and British dominant in the world in terms of money such as banking system, in terms of education whether it is Oxford or Cambridge syllabus or even for other political reasons. Concluding that we can predict some other languages may have to struggle hard in order to compete English language.
References
Campbell, L. (2008). Ethnologue: Languages of the world.
Crystal, D. (2003). English as a global language. Cambridge University Press.
Crystal, D. (2002). Language death. Cambridge University Press.