Today, English is used in some form by at least one person in three (Fishman, 1998). As Fishman (1998) notices, colonization is one of the main reasons for being English as a lingua franca. He continued that, from 1940 to 1990 more than half of countries which success to achieve independence, was before British colonies. Nowadays knowing a common language as a means of communication and transferring knowledge, is even more demanded than before especially among the literates. Global language is now some detachable part of many fields such as education, trade, international politics, and even social activities. However, the main threat of it is the danger of disappearing some languages. Every language needs to be protected not only as a national treasure but also as a precious source of information. This essay aims to declare firstly, the most important advantages of global language, then focuses on the consequences of predominant language, and finally suggests some solutions, and evaluates about that in which way they are useful or not.
As Walker (2009) argued, one of the main reasons which English is popular, is providing better chances for its learners in many areas such as education and job. Fishman (1998) also mentioned that nearly four-fifths academic references are written by it; therefore, learning it is highly recommended for updating knowledge. Moreover, it also has an effective role in improving international interactions between governments and closing the nations together. Fishman (1998) points that although the UK is not part of European Monetary Union, it is obligated to converse English in European Central Bank by its employees who are from different countries, and this is precisely what Walker (2009) expressed that they can now join to a greater community than before. Additionally, it can be used to tackle international issues such as politic (Walker, 2009). For instance, Gerhard Schroeder, the German chancellor, and Jacques Chirac, French president spoke English with each other in September of 1998, in their politic session (Fishman, 1998).
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However, Wilford (2007) believes that the biggest threat of that is the possibility of disappearing small languages. He referred that there is a danger of vanishing approximately 50% of the world’s languages. Holman (2015) argues that losing a language equals by losing its precious information and background. Following this notion, Grimes (2012) mentions that every language engages with the culture of its people and there are numbers of valuable information in it like animal and plants’ names. Furthermore, some vocabularies or phrases lost their exact meaning by translating (Caplan & Douglas, 2011). Another problem with this phenomenon is that learning lingua franca is a heavy burden on children in some countries like China (Walker, 2009), and sometimes parents force their children to learn it by giving up speaking the native language because of the wrong idea that they cannot learn two languages together (Grimes, 2012).
Some solutions suggested preventing of extinction of languages. Caplan and Douglas (2011) conclude that avoiding the disappearance of a language by law could be an effective way for Maori in New Zealand to make it again as an official language in the late 1980s. Grimes (2012) believes that learning the mother tongue by parents and educational plans could be one of the best choices, for instance in Hawaii which their mother tongue has rescued from extinction recently; parents teach their children Hawaiian and in the University of Hawaii there is a program that teaches Hawaiian. Evidence shows that the studying on ancient script could help to revive some languages like Hebrew (Woodbury, n.d.), and according to Grimes (2012), around five million people in Israel now use it as their mother tongue. Multilingualism could help some nations to have both global language and their mother tongue, for example, India, Puerto Rico and Mexico which English is used there as a second language (Fishman, 1998).
Even though a global language potentially could be as a bridge for achieving a better life (Walker,2009), it can be a cause of disappearing some languages. Some solutions have presented by researchers such as establishing some laws by governments, teaching mother tongue by parents, educational plans and multilingualism. However, in some under developing countries because of having other more important prioriteis, such as food, drinkable water, and medicine, it is not reasonable to put such a budget on maintaining languages. Additionally, multilingualism could be a heavy burden on the government as they need to translate official documents in all of them for example in Canada it should be in both English and French; therefore, at least twice money need to spend for it. In conclusion the trend of global language because of its significant benefits is unstoppable; however, solving the following problems such as preventing of vanishing other languages needs to more research by experts as it is a complicated concern.
References
- Caplan, N. & Douglas, S.R. (2011). History of the Maori Language, In Q: Skill for success 5, Reading & Writing, Oxford University Press, (pp. 6-8)
- Caplan, N. & Douglas, S.R. (2011) What happens when a language disappears?, In Q: Skills for success 5, reading and writing, Oxford University Press, (p. 17)
- Fishman, J.A. (2009). The New Linguistic Order, In English for academic study: Reading & Writing, University of Reading, (pp. 207,211,212)
- Grimes, B.F. (2012). Global language viability: causes, symptoms and cures for endangered languages, (pp. 1,2,8,14-17) Retrieved from http://www.sil.org/sociolx/ndg-lg-grimes.html
- Holman, B. (2015, January 27). What does the world lose when a language dies? [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lNjnE_-Log
- Walker, J. (2009, February). The World’s English Mania [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/jay_walker_on_the_world_s_english_mania
- Wilford J.N. (2007, September 17). World’s Language Dying Off Rapidly. Retrieved January 19, 2019, from https://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/18/world/18cnd-language.html
- Woodbury A.C. (n.d.). What is an endangered language? In B. Betty (Ed.), Retrieved from https://www.linguisticsociety.org/sites/default/files/Endangered_Languages.pdf
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