Each 23 April is celebrated as United Nations (UN) International English Language Day.
As the UN website notes,
English Language Day at the UN is celebrated on 23 April, the date traditionally observed as both the birthday and date of death of William Shakespeare. The Day is the result of a 2010 initiative by the Department of Global Communications, establishing language days for each of the Organization’s six official languages. The purpose of the UN’s language days is to celebrate multilingualism and cultural diversity as well as to promote equal use of all six official languages throughout the Organization.
The Thammasat University Library collection includes many books about all aspects of the English language as well as a generous choice of books by and about William Shakespeare.
The UN also stresses the theme of multilingualism:
An essential factor in harmonious communication among peoples, multilingualism is of particular importance to the United Nations. By promoting tolerance, multilingualism ensures effective and increased participation of all in the Organization’s work, as well as greater effectiveness, better outcomes and more involvement…
Anglophone Africa in numbers
There are about two dozen African countries where English is spoken as an official language or widely used in education, administration, law, business, the mass media and literature, the top five (by number of inhabitants) gathering nearly 500 million people.
On the African continent, in addition to being a working language of the UN Economic Commission for Africa, English is also one of the official languages of the African Union and of many of Africa’s subregional organizations.
As TU students know, English is spoken by about 1.5 billion people around the world, although for fewer than 400 million is it their native language.
The nation in the world with the most English speakers, including people learning to speak English, is China, which has an estimated 350 million people with some knowledge of English.
There are at least another 100 million people in India with some knowledge of English. English is one of the official languages of some of the world’s most populous countries, including Pakistan, India, Nigeria and the United States of America.
As one observer noted,
There are probably more people in China who speak English as a second language than there are Americans who speak it as their first. (A fifth of Americans speak a language other than English in their own homes.)
Some linguists are studying whether English’s status as the common language of Asia and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) community will be affected by new computer applications that allow people to communicate with direct translation into their own native language, without using English as a common form of speech.
Computer translation and voice-recognition technology may assist people in understanding what others are saying in foreign languages through machine translation.
However , as we know, computer translation programs such as Google Translate only give a rough and unidiomatic idea of a foreign language.
For now, all TU students who plan to do business internationally, or even play some video games or listen to pop music, it is necessary to understand some English.
In 2018, Zhenlin Fan submitted a thesis on Will Chinese replace English as the global language? in partial fulfillment for the degree of Master of Chinese Linguistics at Leiden University in the Netherlands. The thesis abstract follows:
This thesis discusses the properties of the current global language English, along with other three languages: Esperanto, Latin, and Classical Chinese who once were or close to be an international language. This paper attempts to figure out if Chinese will replace English as the next global language by listing the properties of a global language following a comparison of the list with properties of Modern Chinese. In order to find out the properties of a global language, this thesis analyzes the reasons why each language became a global or a regional lingua franca and why some of the languages failed to maintain the status of being an international language. The result shows that being a global language often relies on colonial expansion, strong influence in multiple fields throughout the world and the easiness of acquiring the language. Chinese being the only language written with characters and the principle of “Peaceful Rise” of China makes Chinese less likely to be the next global language.
Here is the conclusion of the thesis:
With China’s increasing engagement with the world and the heat of learning Chinese worldwide, topic about “whether Chinese will be a global language” has been frequently brought up. Currently, English is the most influential language in the world in general. For Chinese to be a global language, it has to overtake English first. Therefore, the research question of this thesis is: Will Chinese replace English as the global language? This thesis discussed five languages: English, Esperanto, Latin, Classical Chinese and Mandarin. For English, this thesis analyzed if English is a global language and the reason why it became and remained a global language. A list of properties of a global language was made after the discussion about English. Followed by an analysis of why Esperanto did not become a global language as it was created and expected to be, to see what global language properties Esperanto has missed. Then this thesis respectively analyzed why Latin and Classical Chinese used to be regional lingua franca but failed to stay that way, and compared Latin with Classical Chinese to see the differences between these two languages as lingua franca, as well as the reasons behind the differences. The global language properties list was updated after the analysis of Latin and Classical Chinese. At last, the current situation of Mandarin was stated. The properties of Chinese and the properties on the list were compared to see if Chinese have all the properties that a global language should have. From the missing properties of Mandarin to be a global language, a discussion was made about whether those properties of Mandarin can be changed. Through the discussion, the research question was answered. From the analysis of English, Esperanto, Latin and Classical Chinese, the list of determining properties of a global language were further developed and refined. First, the language needs to be an official language of one or more countries. Then the native-speaking country or countries 65 of the language must have high international status and strong influence in the world. Moreover, the language should be spread in the world through colonial expansion. The missing determining property of Mandarin is the colonial expansion criterion, and it is not likely to change in a short future. As for the consequential criteria and the influential criteria, Mandarin does have a worldwide reach even though the reach is not as wide as English has. Mandarin has a large number of overseas L2 speakers, even though the gap between English and Mandarin on both criteria is still large. Mandarin is the language of an influential religion – Chinese traditional religion, however the influence is limited in Chinese and ethnic Chinese communities. The two non-determining criteria Mandarin does not meet are that Chinese does not have strong influence in multiple fields like politics, economy, culture, internet, business, etc., and Mandarin is not relatively easy to learn. The former property is associated with the later property, and the later property is not likely to change any time soon. Overall, Chinese is not likely to replace English as the next global language in the short future.
TU students at the Center for Chinese Studies of the Institute of East Asian Studies, Thammasat University, have many reasons to learn about Chinese language and culture It is not necessary to believe that in the immediate future, Chinese will replace English as the shared language of Asia.
(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)