[etni] Across cultures, English is the word
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- Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2007 10:48:05 +0200
Across cultures, English is the word
Herald Tribune - April 9, 2007
Riding the crest of globalization and technology, English dominates the
world as no language ever has, and some linguists are now saying it may
never be dethroned as the king of languages.
Others see pitfalls, but the factors they cite only underscore the grip
English has on the world: cataclysms like nuclear war or climate change or
the eventual perfection of a translation machine that would make a common
language unnecessary.
Some insist that linguistic evolution will continue to take its course over
the centuries and that English could eventually die as a common language as
Latin did, or Phoenician or Sanskrit or Sogdian before it.
"If you stay in the mind-set of 15th-century Europe, the future of Latin is
extremely bright," said Nicholas Ostler, the author of a language history
called "Empires of the Word" who is writing a history of Latin. "If you stay
in the mind-set of the 20th-century world, the future of English is
extremely bright."
That skepticism seems to be a minority view. Experts on the English language
like David Crystal, author of "English as a Global Language," say the world
has changed so drastically that history is no longer a guide.
"This is the first time we actually have a language spoken genuinely
globally by every country in the world," he said. "There are no precedents
to help us see what will happen."
(To read the whole article, go to -
http://www.etni.org/news/across_cultures.htm )
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