Languages. Not the Queen's English

Not the Queen’s English

From Caracas to Karachi, parents are paying for lessons for their children at English language schools. China's enthusiasm for English even has its own Mandarin term, Yingwen re, and governments from Tunisia to Turkey recognize that along with information technology and travel, English is an engine of globalization. In the next decade, two billion people will learn English and about half the world, three billion people, will speak English, according to a recent report from the British Council.

Non-native speakers of English now outnumber native speakers 3 to 1, according to English-language expert David Crystal, "There's never before been a language that's been spoken by more people as a second than a first," he says. In Asia alone, the number of English-users has topped 350 million—and there are more Chinese children studying English than there are Britons. But the new English-speakers aren't just passively absorbing the language--they're shaping it. New Englishes are appearing all over the globe, ranging from "Englog," spoken in the Philippines, to "Hinglish," the mix of Hindi and English that now crops up everywhere from fast-food ads to South Asian college campuses. Indeed, English has become a common language. Whether you are a Korean executive on business in Shanghai, a German beurocrat making laws in Brussels or a Brazilian biochemist at a conference in Sweden, you're probably already speaking or are going to speak English. And as the world adopts an international brand of English, it's native speakers who will lose most. British graduates who insist on speaking the Queen’s English could be met with blank stares. British or American businessmen who do not understand how English is used by non-native speakers might lose out on business deals.

All languages are works in progress but the globalization of English is set to revolutionize the language in ways we can only begin to imagine. In the future, suggests Crystal, there could be a tri-English world, one in which you could speak a local English-based dialect at home, a national variety at work or school, and international standard English to talk to foreigners. With native speakers becoming a shrinking minority of the world's anglophones, there's a growing sense that students will stop trying to copy the Queen’s English and develop their own versions. Researchers are starting to study non-native speakers' "mistakes"--"She look very sad," for example--as structured grammars.

To achieve fluency, non-native speakers are taking up English at an ever younger age. Last year primary schools in major Chinese cities began offering English in the third grade, rather than middle school. A growing number of parents are enrolling their small children in a growing number of local pre-school English courses. Why such enthusiasm? In a word, jobs. More and more organizations are recognizing the importance of English in the workplace. At the Toyota and Peugeot plant in the Czech Republic, English is a working language of the Japannese, French and Czech staff. Says Jitka Prikylova, director of a Prague English Language school, ‘ The world is opening up for us and English is its language”. Governments begin to agree. From this year in Malaysia core school subjects such as maths and science are taught in English.

Technology also plays a huge role in English's global triumph. Eighty percent of the electronically stored information in the world is in English; 66 percent of the world's scientists read in it, according to the British Council. New technologies are helping people pick up the language, too: Chinese students can get English help on their mobile phones. English-language teachers point to the rise of Microsoft English, where computers help people to prepare letters. English and its teaching are becoming more complex. Ilan Stavans, an college professor, has finished a translation of Cervantes's "Don Quixote" into Spanglish, English-Spanish spoken in the United States and Mexico. In China Hu Xiaoqiong wants to see a revision of the English curriculum toward Chinese English Incorporating phrases as standard English in future. In countries like Germany, where most children begin English as early as the second grade, the market for English studies is already decreasing. German language schools no longer target English beginners but those pursuing interest in business English or English for presentations.