Sintesi David Crystal | Sintesi del corso di Inglese Giuridico

DAVID CRYSTAL

Asking about the future of language is that way madness lies. Who would have predicted a

thousand years ago that Latin would no longer be used in a thousand years time?

Obviously Latin is still used in certain

circumstances but it would not be the normal education to be fluent in Latin! So, in a

thousand years time, will English still be a global language? We could all be speaking

Martian by then, if they land and take over. Who knows what's going to happen. To ask

about the future of Languages is to ask about the future of society, and futurologists are

just as unclear about what will happen eventually as I am about language. Because

language is global for one reason only and that is the power of the people who speak it.

Power always drives language. There is no other reason to speak somebody else's

language, other than you want to improve your quality of life or you want to influence

them in some way or whatever it might be.

Of course English became global for a variety of reasons, first of all the power of the British

empire, later the power of American imperialism, in the same , in 17th century the power

of the Industrial Revolution which meant that the language of science and technology

became English predominantly.

In the 19th century the power of money, ‘’money talks’’ and the two most productive

nations of the world were Britain and America both using English, so the language of

international banking became the pound and the dollar, English once again. In the 20th

century cultural power as you all know. Because every aspect of culture you’ve

encountered has some sort of history in the English language (like pops songs, for example,

international advertising, air traffic control , the development of radio and television , the

development of internet. Internet is a 100% of an english-language medium when it

started) .

Today only a fraction of the internet is English , internet has become multilingual . So,

what’s going to happens next? English will stay a global language as long as certain things

happen, first of all that the nations that are recognized as the most powerful nations in the

world continue to use English and all the other nations want to be like them or want to

interact with them or want to sell things to them.

At the moment , for example, there’s no sign of China wanting Chinese to be a global

language because they're all learning English in China for the most part. Or you can

imagine a scenario in Spanish? The most of the Spanish is the fastest-growing language in

the world at the moment population wise because of South America and Central America

and increasingly in North America Spanish is becoming very widely used, you can imagine a

scenario where one day we might all end up speaking Spanish? The reasons why is

impossible that are perfectly obvious to anybody: there’s no sign of a diminution in the

prestige of English, the desire to learn English, the figures are going up and up and up

every year.

At the moment over 2 billion people speak English. There’s never been so many people

speaking one language before and there's no sign of any slackening off in that progress so

the long term-future : no idea , the short-term future : no change. What will English be

that will continue to be used as a global language ? what English will it be indeed ,there are

so many answers to this question. If you look at what's happening at the moment , then

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DAVID CRYSTAL

Asking about the future of language is that way madness lies. Who would have predicted a thousand years ago that Latin would no longer be used in a thousand years time? Obviously Latin is still used in certain circumstances but it would not be the normal education to be fluent in Latin! So, in a thousand years time, will English still be a global language? We could all be speaking Martian by then, if they land and take over. Who knows what's going to happen. To ask about the future of Languages is to ask about the future of society, and futurologists are just as unclear about what will happen eventually as I am about language. Because language is global for one reason only and that is the power of the people who speak it. Power always drives language. There is no other reason to speak somebody else's language, other than you want to improve your quality of life or you want to influence them in some way or whatever it might be. Of course English became global for a variety of reasons, first of all the power of the British empire, later the power of American imperialism, in the same , in 17th century the power of the Industrial Revolution which meant that the language of science and technology became English predominantly. In the 19th century the power of money, ‘’money talks’’ and the two most productive nations of the world were Britain and America both using English, so the language of international banking became the pound and the dollar, English once again. In the 20th century cultural power as you all know. Because every aspect of culture you’ve encountered has some sort of history in the English language (like pops songs, for example, international advertising, air traffic control , the development of radio and television , the development of internet. Internet is a 100% of an english-language medium when it started). Today only a fraction of the internet is English , internet has become multilingual. So, what’s going to happens next? English will stay a global language as long as certain things happen, first of all that the nations that are recognized as the most powerful nations in the world continue to use English and all the other nations want to be like them or want to interact with them or want to sell things to them. At the moment , for example, there’s no sign of China wanting Chinese to be a global language because they're all learning English in China for the most part. Or you can imagine a scenario in Spanish? The most of the Spanish is the fastest-growing language in the world at the moment population wise because of South America and Central America and increasingly in North America Spanish is becoming very widely used, you can imagine a scenario where one day we might all end up speaking Spanish? The reasons why is impossible that are perfectly obvious to anybody: there’s no sign of a diminution in the prestige of English, the desire to learn English, the figures are going up and up and up every year. At the moment over 2 billion people speak English. There’s never been so many people speaking one language before and there's no sign of any slackening off in that progress so the long term-future : no idea , the short-term future : no change. What will English be that will continue to be used as a global language? what English will it be indeed ,there are so many answers to this question. If you look at what's happening at the moment , then

you see certain trends. Remember that this whole business of global English is very recent, nobody was talking about global English thirty years ago, I only started giving lectures on global English in the 1980s. So we’re talking about a very recent trend, here the world needs a global language because countries want to talk to each other, so they have to be institutions to enable that to happen, and the obvious institution is the United Nations (In 1940s in the UN were 50 or so nations, now there are nearly 200). The countries of the world are talking to each other. What kind of English will it be? If you ‘’join the club’’ as it were, The English-speaking club you will, as it joining any Club ,you will look to the senior members as it were the most established members and you look at the statistics , you will speak the English that you most often encounter in the world and that is American English and so that is one scenario that American English will ultimately dominate all other varieties of English. You see the impact of American English in all sorts of ways on spelling: for example, once upon a time, they'd spell the word ‘’encyclopedia’’ with an AE in the middle in a traditional British way (the American Way is to spell it with an ‘'e’’ in the middle) and now in Britain virtually everybody spells it with an E in the middle, and so you see American English coming in, in pronunciation. American English grammar influencing British English grammar a lot. American vocabulary coming into British English as well, only a little bit in the other direction. Is a different scenario and it is this why is there American English in the first place, Because the Americans wanted to identify themselves as American and not as British. What happened in America then is now happening globally, so all over the english- speaking world people are saying well, you can be British if you like, you could be American if you like, but we want to be Indian or we want to be Nigerian and in the English that we use will reflect that cultural identity. In India nobody knows exactly how many, but there must be at least 400 million people speaking English, Indian English not British English or American English. An example of a typical Indian use of the present tense would be with verbs that I don't use in the continuous form:I know something, I think about it, I remember this. But in Indian English you will hear:I am knowing, I am thinking about it, I am remembering. This is not a traditional British or American usage but its dominant in India and not just India but also Sri Lanka and the other countries around. There is so much movement around the globe now, and there are so many people of ethnically South Asian origin in Britain now, that you can the use of the present continuous where once upon a time you would have had the present simple. The best example is McDonald's slogan, I'm loving it. 20 years ago you'd have said ‘’I love it’’, but now people are saying I'm loving it. McDonald's is fostering that kind of thing so the Indian usage is coinciding with this general trend a some sort of amalgam of all sorts of English from around the world. Everybody can put something into the melting pot of English, so when people meet from a whole variety of nations as you get so often in business meetings and international conferences, English is being used that a lingua franca. That's the term that's often used these days which is cultural be not identifiable with any one place because it's a mixture of everything could that be the norm and I think probably that's the way it's going to go.

Sintesi David Crystal, Sintesi del corso di Inglese Giuridico

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DAVID CRYSTAL