Englisch Themenpools
8a
Anna Kontriner und Vanessa Rebernig
Themenpool English Speaking World
Talking about a picture
Picture 1
This picture shows a map of all the English speaking countries in the world.
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1
Describe the distribution of the English language in the world
Why do you think is the English language so wide spread?
Would you like to visit one of the shown countries and if yes, which and why
Englisch Themenpools
8a
Anna Kontriner und Vanessa Rebernig
Picture 2:
This picture shows the stereotypical British and stereotypical American person.
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2
Which stereotypes can you detect?
Why do you think do these stereotypes exist?
How would you describe a typical Australian person?
Englisch Themenpools
8a
Anna Kontriner und Vanessa Rebernig
English as a Universal Language
by Carlos Carrion Torres - Vitoria ES - Brazil (omiglot.com)
English is without a doubt the actual universal language. It is the world's second largest native
language, the official language in 70 countries, and English-speaking countries are responsible
for about 40% of world's total GNP.
English can be at least understood almost everywhere among scholars and educated people, as it
is the world media language, and the language of cinema, TV, pop music and the computer world.
All over the planet people know many English words, their pronunciation and meaning.
The causes for this universality are very well known and understandable. English first began to
spread during the 16th century with British Empire and was strongly reinforced in 20th by USA
world domination in economic, political and military aspects and by the huge influence of
American movies.
The concept of a Universal Language is more significant only now, in the era of world mass
communication. Before this era Greek, Latin, French were to some extent universal languages,
though mainly in Europe.
By a lucky coincidence due to factors above, English, the Universal language, is one of the
simplest and easiest natural languages in the world. The only other simple and easy languages
are constructed ones.
Of course the concept of easiness is relative, and it depends on which language you know
already. However the concept of simplicity is undeniable: English in an easy language to learn,
understand and speak. A complex language such as Hungarian would be a very unlikely
candidate for a universal language.
First of all, English Language uses Latin alphabet, the most universal, simple and short one (only
the Greek alphabet is shorter and simpler). In addition, in English, the Latin Alphabet presents
its most "clean" form as a true alphabet with only 26 basic letters and no diacritics;
Verb conjugation is very simple and easy. Even for irregular verbs, there is almost no variation
in person (except 3rd singular in present tense).
Regular verbs have only four forms: Infinitive + Present, Past Tense + Past Participle, 3rd person
singular Present Indicative, Present Participle.
There are almost no Inflections. No number or gender inflection for adjectives, articles, adverbs.
For adjectives there is only comparative and superlative, almost only number for nouns. In
pronouns there are gender and number inflections and only three declension cases (Acc/Dat,
Nom, Gen).
English is one of the most analytical languages, with no significant synthetic, fusional or
agglutinative characteristics.
3
Englisch Themenpools
8a
Anna Kontriner und Vanessa Rebernig
Could be there any other alternative for Universal Language, instead of English?
There are other languages that are quite simple and synthetic, with almost no verb conjugation,
no declension, such as Asian languages like Thai and Chinese, but they are written with
complicated scripts and are tonal languages. However if Chinese were to be written with the
Latin alphabet, it could potentially become a universal language.
There are other strong languages that, due to population and economic power, could be
universal languages, but they have a number of disadvantages when compared with English.
Some examples:
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Japanese: has very regular verbs but also a very complicated script.
Chinese: no conjugations or declension, but a very complicated script and tones.
German has many more inflections than English.
The major Romance languages, such as French, Spanish and Portuguese, have fewer
inflections than most of languages, but their verb conjugation is very complicated.
Russian has both complex verb conjugations and numerous noun declensions.
In conclusion, it is lucky for us that our universal language is the simplest and easiest, even
though that simplicity and easiness weren't the reasons that lead English to that condition.
4
Englisch Themenpools
8a
Anna Kontriner und Vanessa Rebernig
Quotes:
The English language is the most universal language in history, way more than the Latin of Julius
Caesar. It's the most wonderful language because its vocabulary has a certain critical mass that
makes a lingo good for punning.
Richard Lederer
The English language is nobody's special property. It is the property of the imagination: it is the
property of the language itself.
Derek Walcott
Guiding Questions:
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Do you think that one day English will not be a global language anymore?
What could be the next global language?
What do you think about international auxiliary languages like Esperanto?
How often do you speak English in your personal life, do you often use English
loanwords and has your usage of the English language increased or decreased lately?
Word List Text:
distribution: Verteilung
loanwords: Lehnwörter
auxiliary (words): Hilfs-(wörter)
Lingo: Fachjargon
to pun: Wortspiel machen
tonal: klanglich
inflection: Beugung
reinforced: verstärkt
numerous: zahlreiche
analytic: analytisch
5
Englisch Themenpools
8a
Word List:
partial – teilweise
assumption – Annahme
to intrigue – faszinieren
to show – zeigen
to represent – repräsentieren
to associate with - assoziieren mit
to comprise – umfassen
to allocate – zuweisen
pride – Stolz
ambassador - Botschafter/in
civic - (staats-)bürgerlich
to grip - erfassen, ergreifen
critic - Kritiker/in
division - Trennung, Trennlinie
territorial issue - Streifrage um Land
controversy - Streit, Kontroverse
partition – Teilung
affiliation – Zugehörigkeit
inherently - von Natur aus
ingrained - tief verwurzelt
inevitable - unvermeidlich
ally - Verbündete/r
unavoidable - unvermeidlich
to be on good terms - gut miteinander auskommen
great divide between - große Kluft zwischen
to designate - bestimmen
tremendously – ungemein
explicit – deutlich
relevance - Relevanz, Wichtigkeit
extended - ausgedehnt, erweitert
6
Anna Kontriner und Vanessa Rebernig