SPOTLIGHT pages 26-27 An English-speaking world
A) The king of languages
1) Why is English not likely to die?
According to David Crystal, an expert on the English language, English is not likely to die
as Latin because it is a “language spoken genuinely globally by every country in the
world”, which was not the case for Latin. He adds that it is the first time it has happened
and that there are “no precedents to help us see what will happen”.
2) Who speaks English in the world?
In the New York Times article it is said that “about one-fourth of the world’s population
can communicate to some degree in English”, which means that a quarter of the world’s
population speaks English as a first, second or foreign language. The world’s population is
expected to reach 7 billion people by the end of 2011, so there are currently about 1.7
billion English speakers.
B) Why is English a global language? CD 1 track 21
What reasons does David give for the development of English as a global language?
The main reason is that English has always been the language of power:
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It has been the language of science since the 18th century (80% of English words are
scientific or technological words)
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It was the language of political and military power in the past (during the British Empire)
and of economic power in the 19th century.
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It has been the language of cultural power since the 20th century.
C) English language stats
1) Which language is spoken by the greatest number of native speakers? Mandarin Chinese
(845 million native speakers, see bar chart on the left)
2) What rank does English hold by number of native speakers? the third rank (328 million
native speakers, Spanish has 329 million native speakers)
3) What is the world rank of English if you add up first, second and foreign language
speakers? It is the first language spoken in the world with 1.453 billion English speakers
(in 2008)
4) True or false? Non-native English speakers outnumber native speakers by a ratio of 3 to 1
Not quite true: Non-native English speakers outnumber native speakers by a ratio of 3.43
to 1.
5) Where are the countries that use English? Why is English used there? Everywhere in the
world: North America, Africa, Oceania and India: because of the former British Empire,
now some countries are members of the Commonwealth with the Queen as its head and
English as the official language.
D) Globish and Englishes
1) What does “globish” mean? a portmanteau word derived by combining two words:
global+ English
2) Who speaks Globish? Non native speakers, businessmen, who need to communicate with
other non native speakers of English
3) What is the difference between Globish and Englishes? Englishes are dialects mixing
standard English and another language.
4) What are the various Englishes mentioned in the text?
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Spanglish= Spanish + English
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Singlish spoken in Singapore (Singaporean+ English)
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Taglish spoken in the Philippines (Tagalog+ English)
British English and American English, too
E) Is English the language killer? CD 1 Track 22
What does David Blur say?
In his opinion, English is not a language killer because people will always need to speak their
native language at home even if they use English for business or other intercultural
communication. He points out that the English language is a dominator but not a terminator.
WEBQUEST: World languages
a) False= Number of living languages: 6912 (vistawide.com)
b) True= 389 (or nearly 6%) of the world’s languages have at least 1 million speakers and
account for 94% of the world’s population (ethnologue.com)
c) true= Spanish and English are the two official languages in Puerto Rico (learnEnglishguide.com)
d) false= Greatest number of native speakers (vistawide.com + bar chart page 26)
e) true= Portuguese holds the 6th rank with 203 million native speakers (vistawide.com)
f) false= English is the language with the most words (about 250,000) (vistawide.com)
g) true= (vistawide.com)
h) true=(ethnologue.com)
i) false= 70 countries (learnEnglish-guide.com)
j) true= (britishcouncil.org)