Lingua inglese (global language)

The 1993 Constitution names 11 languages as official, including English and Afrikaans.

- South Asia

The first contact with the subcontinent came in 1600 with the formation of the British East India Company

that grew so much.

In India , the bitter conflict between the supporter of English, Hindi and regional languages, led in 1960s

to a “3 language formula”, in which English was introduced as the chief alternative to the local state

language. It now has the status of an “associate” official language, with Hindi as the official language.

- Former colonial Africa

He English began to visit West Africa from the end of the 15 century. By the beginning of the 19 century

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the increase in commerce and anti-slave-trade activities had brought English to the West African coast.

- South-east Asia and the South Pacific

The territories in and to west of the South Pacific display a mixture of American and British English. The

US invasion of Japanese-held Pacific islands was followed after World War II . the Philippines became

independent in 1946, but the influence of American English remains strong.

English rapidly became the language of power in the British territories of South-east Asia.

The introduction of a British educational system exposed learners to a standard British English model.

- A world view

The present-day world status of English is the result of 2 factors:

1. The expansion of British colonial power

2. The emergence of the United States as the leading economic power.

The US linguistic Braj Kachru has suggested that we think of the spread of English around the world as 3

concentric circles, representing different ways in which the language has been acquired:

1. THE INNER CIRCLE where English is the primary language

2. THE OUTER/EXTENDER CIRCLE that involves the earlier phases of the spread of English in

non-native countries, where the language plays an important “second language” role in a

multilingual setting

3. THE EXPANDING/ETENDING CIRCLE that involves those nations which recognize the

importance of English as an international language, though they do not have history of

colonization by members of the inner circle.

- Why English? The cultural foundation

Richard Mulcaster had been one of the strongest supporters of the English language in 1582: “I love

Rome, but London better; I favour Italy, but England more; I honour the Latin, but I worship English”.

He felt he had to defend the language against those who believed that English should not usurp the Latin.

English is destined to be in the next and succeeding centuries more generally the language of the world

than Latin was in the last. The reason is because the increasing population in America force their

language into general use.

- Access to knowledge

By the beginning of the 19th century, Britain had become the world's leading industrial and trading

nation.

Most of the innovations of the Industrial Revolution were of British origin: the harnessing of coal, water

and steam to drive machinery, the development of new materials.

The new terminology of technological and scientific advance had an immediate impact on the language,

adding 1000 of words to the English lexicon. but more important, the fact that these innovations were

pouting out of an English-speaking country meant that those from abroad who wished to learn about them

would need to learn English.

Increasingly methods of trasportion trasformed the availability of the products of the Industrial Revolution.

new methods of mass production demanded new means of mass trasportion. in particular, as far as the

language was concerned the distribution of daily newspapers on a large scale would not have been

possible without a railway system and roads capable to carrying heavy vehicles.

- Why English? the cultural legacy

- International relations

The League of Nations was the first of many modern international alliances to allocate a special place to

English.

English was one of the 2 official languages (the other was French), and all documets were written in both

languages. the League was created as part of the Treaty of Versailles in 1920. the League was replaced in

1945 by the United Nations, in which English is one of the official languages.

Several international sporting organizations work only in English, and when these organizations hold

international competitions, the language automatically becomes the lingua franca of the gathering.

- The media

- The press

The English language has been an important medium of the press for nearly 40 years.

The 19th century was the period of the greatest progress thanks to the introduction of new printing

technology and new methods of massa production and transportation.

- Advertising

English in advertising began very early, when the newspapers began to carry items about books,

medicines, tea and other domestic products.

As international markets grew, the “outdoor media” began to travel the world. the English advertisements

are not always more numerous, in coutries where English has no special status, but they are the most

noticeable.

In all of this, it is the English of American products which rules.

- Broadcasting

English was the first language to be transmitted by radio.

- Cinema

When sound was added to the technology, it was the English language which suddenly came to dominate

the movie world.

English-language movies still dominate the medium, with Hollywood productions.

It is unusual to find a blockbuster movie produced in a language other than English.

- Popular music

The cinema was one of the 2 new entertainment technologies which emerged at the end of the 19th

century: the other one was the recording industry. here too, English language was early in evidence. when

in 1877 Thomas Edison devides the phonograph, the first machine that could both record and reproduce

sound, the first words to be recorded were «what God hath wrought», followed by the words «Mary has a

little lamb».

These days, the sound of English language, though the songs, is heard wherever there is a radio set.

- International travel

The reasons for travelling abroad are many and various: from business trips to sports competitions, from

leisure trips to religious ones, each journey has immediate linguistic consequences.

In the tourist spots of the world, the signs are most commonly in English. restaurant menus tend to have

a parallel version in English. the more we know about the language of the country we are exploring, the

more we shall be rewarded with a visit that is insightful and comfortable.

The domains of transportation and accomodation are mediated through the use of English as an auxiliary

language. safety information on international flights and sailings are in English; directions to the major

locations are now in English alongside local languages.

- International safety

English has long been recognized the international language of the sea and air.

Shipping routes continually alter and present problems of traffic flow. Radio and satellite systems have

extended a ship's communicative range.

The use of English as the language of the international aircraft control emerge after the Second World

War.

- Education

When we investigate nations made English an official language or chose it as their chief foreign language

in schools, one of the reasons is educational.

Biology, physics, chemistry and mathematics fields present a significant increase in their use of world in

English.

The English language teaching (ELT)business has become one of the major growth industries around the

world.

ARPANET was conceived as a decentralized national network to link important American academic and

government institutions in a way which would survive local damage in the event of major war. Its

language was English; and whn people in other countries began to form links with this network, it proved

essential for them to use English. the dominance of this language was reinforced when the service was

opened up in the 1980s to private and commercial organizations.

In 1996 The New York Times carried an article by Specter heades «World Wide Web: 3 English Words» in

which the role of English was highlighted:

«to study genetics, all you need to get into the Harvard University Library is a phone line and a computer.

And a solid command of the English language. The Internet and World Wide Web work as a great unifiers

if you speak English».

Specter concludes: «if you want to take full advantage of the Internet there is only one way to do it: learn

English».

Does the Net have the power to divide people into 2 classes of citizen, internet literates and illiterates? is

the «intellectual ghetto» a real prospect?

Anatoly Voronov comments that «it's far easier for a Russian language speaker with a computer to

download the works of Dostoyevsky translated into English to read than it is for him to get the original in

his own language». this is a pity. But the speed with which the Net is growing and adapting is so great.

someone will find it worthwhile to put Dostoyevsky in Russian on the Net. it may well be happening

already. As the demand for material in other languages grows, so will the supply. None of this will remove

the dominance of English on the Net, but it will reduce the risk of international intellectual ghettoes.

Computer illitteracy is more the result of lack of money than lack of English.

- The right place at the right time

In the 17 and 18 century English was the language of the leading colonial nation, Britain.

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In the 18 and 9 centuries it was the language of the leader of the industrial revolution, also Britain.

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In the late 19 century it was the language of the leading economic power, the USA.

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As a result, when new technologies thought new linguistic opportunities, English has emerged as a first

language in industries which affected all aspects of society (the press, communication, transport).

During the 20 century English became a leading language of international political, academic and

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community meetings.

2 important events have together transformed English as a global language:

1. The movement towards political independence, out of which English emerged as a language with

special status in many countries; the role of English had come to be so fundamental that no other

language could compete.

2. The electronic revolution, where here too English was in the right place at the right time.

- The future of global English

There are several kinds of development that could impede the future growth of English, for example

political, economic, technological or cultural.

- The rejection of English

People have a natural wish to use their own mother-tongue, to see it survive and grow, and they do not

take kindly when the language of another culture is imposed on them.

Many writers of the outer circle write in English, so their works will have the chance of reaching a

worldwide audience; but writing in English