Could anything stop a global language?

Written by-Cheena Magar

There were for the most part people who were pleased that the report had engaged the central issue of global community, but they took us to task for not going on – in as they thought in a logical way- to call for world language. They could not see how the global neighbourhood, the global community, which they acknowledge had come into being, could function  effectively without a world language. A neighbourhood that can only talk in the tongues of many was not a Neighbourhood that was likely to be cohesive or, even cooperative.. and they were right in one respect; but they were wrong in the sense that we have a world language.

Strong political statement of this kind immediately prompt the question ‘could anything stop a language, once it achieve a global status?’ The short answer must be ‘YES’. If language dominance is a matter of political and especially economic influence, then a revolution in the balance of global power could have consequences for the choice of global language. There is no shortage of books- chiefly within the genre of science fiction- which foresee a future in which, following some cataclysmic scenario, the universal language is Chinese, Arabic or even some Alien tongue. But end up with such a scenario, the revolution would indeed have to be cataclysmic, and it is difficult to speculate sensibly about what this might be. Smaller- scal revolution in the world order would be unlikely to have much effect, given that- as we shall see in later chapter- English is now so widely established that it can no longer be thought of as ‘owned’ by any single nation.

A rather more plausible scenario is that an alternative method of communication could emerge which would eliminate method of global language. This way people communicate using their own language with a computer translating. In 20-50 years the speed and accuracy of these machines will be improved, but it will take longer because they become globally widespread and economically accessible. During this period of time the position of English as a global language is going to become stronger and stronger.