Killer Languages: English in the Age of Globalisation
Experts estimate that over half of the world’s languages have become extinct in the past 500 years. This phenomenon known as language death has only accelerated in recent years, and of the 7,000 remaining languages, approximately 90% are expected to die out by the end of this century. The conclusion is undeniable: languages are dying at an unprecedented rate all around the world. Many linguists attribute this to the expansion of English, which has emerged as a lingua franca due to a history of colonisation and globalisation. English’s prevalence in education, business, and media has positioned it as a vehicle for social and economic mobility. This development embodies the hegemonizing processes that tend to render the use of English as preferable, marginalising other languages in the process and contributing to the trend of language death.
English is everywhere. Approximately 380 million people around the world speak it as their first language and 1.5 billion are currently learning it as their second. Linguists predict that by 2050, around half the world will be proficient in English. It is undeniably the language of globalisation, heavily represented in international business, politics, and academia. Renowned linguist, David Crystal, suggests that “a language becomes a global language because of the power of the people who speak it.” English initially came to occupy this role through the long history of British colonialism that was triggered by the colonisation of America in the 17th century. While the “power” of English was initially based on political and military factors — most notably the expansion of the British Empire — scientific, industrial, financial, and economic revolutions further increased its influence. Another contributing factor to English’s rapid expansion was the invention of new communication technologies such as computers, telegraphs, and the Internet. These technologies opened a path for the language of the economic superpower, the United States, to spread worldwide.
As a result of the increased global interactions over the past century, demand for more efficient communication across borders has been rising. Businesses looking to expand internationally had to find ways to communicate across such differences in cost-effective ways. While there is no direct correlation between the use of English with corporate interests, many firms have changed their corporate languages to English in efforts to streamline communication. In response to this situation, over a billion individuals worldwide are learning the language in pursuit of upward mobility and in hopes that it will grant them more opportunities than their native languages. States, too, have come to the understanding that developing an English-speaking workforce can aid the integration of economies and help them become more competitive on the world market. In increasing numbers, we see states investing substantial resources into government-funded English education programs starting from kindergarten onwards. For instance, Programa Nacional de Inglés (PRONI) is a federally-funded program for English instruction in Mexico that started in 1974. However, with these lingual shifts and motivations towards adopting English comes the risk of language death.
The most common type of language death, and the one that will be discussed here in relation to English, is “the gradual shift to the dominant language in a contact situation.” A communal language shift often occurs slowly, as not all speakers are engaged in the process simultaneously. Rather, it is the cumulation of similar behaviours, which ultimately results in the atrophy of the native language. The primary contributor to linguistic shifts is not the adults, who become bilingual in both their native language and the emergent lingua franca, but the children who take on the latter as their dominant or exclusive vernacular. This process happens subconsciously, as situations that people are in constrain their choices in regards to the language that they use. Frequently, the advantageous language is prioritised in schools and acts as the primary medium of instruction, whereas native languages are largely sidelined by governments and regarded as unfit for administrative and educational institutions. The promotion of a non-native language in schooling results in the restriction of native languages to familial and social interactions, further contributing to the decline of the language as successive generations of speakers gradually lose proficiency. As a result, the continuum of language proficiency among generations of speakers is disrupted, with younger speakers exhibiting less proficiency in more restricted contexts than the older cohorts.
The emergence of a lingua franca has always been dependent on social or political factors, not the intrinsic properties of the language. Latin served as a lingua franca during the ancient times not because of any structural qualities, but because it was the touted language of the Empire and Roman Catholic Church. For English, the reason behind its spread is even more evident. If the language of international communication was by linguistic criteria, English’s phonology, orthography, and lexicon would be deemed too complex to be efficiently adopted by a global population. Instead, English was pushed to the forefront because people want to share the prestige of the language due to its attachment to political, corporate, and economic power. As a result, we see an increasing number of people studying the language in hopes of finding better employment or reaching a wider academic audience. Governments often promote the teaching of English with the intention of producing citizens that are able to engage in world trade and handle diplomatic matters in the dominant language of the domains that involve them. What ensued was that English language education became a commodity in many non-Anglophone countries.
How the commodification of English poses a threat to local languages is best exemplified by the case of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). CUHK has historically been the only Hong Kong university that used Mandarin Chinese as the primary medium of instruction. However, in 2005, the CUHK administration proposed a shift towards using English as the primary language of conduct, a move that would have directly contradicted the university’s founding principle of teaching in Chinese. The proposal resulted in substantial backlash from the student population, which served as the catalyst for condemnation from several public figures and academics. Ultimately, the administration compromised, implementing a tiered language system that hierarchised the two languages and reinforced the English hegemony. While CUHK ultimately did not witness a transition to solely English, the case epitomises how a native language may struggle to maintain its speaking population and witness a gradual decline. The fall of a language is set in motion when non-native speakers adopt the mindset that their own language may not be as conducive to success as English. Because of this devaluation of native languages, English may begin to replace native languages in business or educational settings. A cycle commences, where the more palpable the trend becomes, the more people and higher education systems make the shift to English, and what was once a national language may be reduced to nothing more than a local language.
At the core of English’s rapid expansion is the simple fact that knowledge is most economically pursued when everyone speaks a single, universal language. A common argument supporting English as a lingua franca is that the global community can benefit from using English as a shared language, and that rather than trying to stop its growth, education should be used as an impediment to combat language death. English, they argue, could be instituted in such a way where it does not replace local languages or relegate them to a lesser role. This can be accomplished through a system in which both the local language and the lingua franca are taught. Bilingualism is on the rise, and it stands to argue that it may be a potential compromise to preserve linguistic diversity with immersion schools serving as a viable option. Language shifts primarily start with children, so if children are taught to speak and write in the endangered language, they are more likely to retain it in the future. This therefore creates an environment where it is encouraged to speak the language, providing them with a space to practise and be surrounded by it. New Zealand, for instance, has seen success with the implementation of Māori immersion schools. In the early 1900s, 95% of Māori children spoke the language, with that number dropping to a mere 5% by the 1970s. Now, roughly 13,000 middle school students are enrolled in the program, playing an active role in preserving the language and culture.
While bilingualism may appear to be the solution to global language decline, it should be noted that adult bilinguals are rarely balanced in their languages. While children learn the foundation for language at home, school is the primary source of development, particularly in vocabulary and literacy. Thus, the language that children are educated in usually is the dominant language in adulthood. Furthermore, studies have shown that those who learn a second language as adults rarely develop native proficiency. As the dominance of English grows, more scholars around the world will adopt English as the medium for academic and professional writing. The downfall of language begins when bilinguals begin to consult English writings over their native ones. For example, they turn to English-language media for their news, or when they neglect the literature of their native languages in favour of English texts. In fact, English classics have slowly evolved into world literature, with works by Shakespeare, Mary Shelley, and Charles Dickens working its way into curriculums all across the globe. As this trend gains in force, it creates a feedback loop, as more non-English writers feel as though producing content in their own language is a hindrance that prevents them from reaching the readers that they’re aiming for. Through the process of negative selection, more scholars will pursue an English education, and the literature of the native language will suffer. In a society where English is the dominant language in education, business, and media, many bilinguals end up showing a preference for English; as the number of scholars using their native language decreases, the number and quality of the work produced in said language begins to deteriorate. If language death is the outcome of individuals’ conscious choices to participate in a global community and be heard by as many people as possible, this will be a difficult dynamic to reverse. The Māori language immersion programs in New Zealand are promising in their results, but it would have to be scaled very aggressively to reverse this trend.
English may be the primary mode of communication for the international stage and thus also the language of choice for those who aspire for social or economic mobility, but languages are not merely tools for communication. They are also the carriers of entire worldviews, representing culture and identity. Due to colonisation and globalisation, English has evolved into a global lingua franca whose rapid expansion has contributed to language death. In an age where globalisation is intent on making everything uniform for the sake of efficiency in a capitalist society, the preservation of languages is all the more important. A diversity of written language is essential in enriching not just literature but humanity as a whole, as the exchange of commodities, services, and ideas has always been the cornerstone of human development.
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