English as a Global
Language
by Don L. F. Nilsen
and Alleen Pace Nilsen
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International Road Signs:
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But there are still problems!
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English, ESL or EFL is Spoken by about ½ of the
People in the World ( about 2 Billion People) (McCrum
24/50)
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English as a Global Language
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¾ of the World’s Mail
½ of the World’s technical & scientific journals
½ of all newspapers
80 % of the information in computers
All International Air Pilots
All International Sea Captains
Many movies, songs, and much business
½ of European business deals
7 of the Largest TV Broadcasters (CBS, NBC, ABC,
BBC, CBC, CNN, C-Span)
• TV Televangelism of Christianity (McCrum 10)
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Varieties of Global English, each
with its Own Peculiar Flavor
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Deutschlish
Franglish (la langue du Coca-Cola)
Indian English
Japlish (man-shon vs. mai-homu,
basaburo, aisu-kurimu, mai-com [my
computer])
• Russlish
• Spanglish (McNeal 10, 38-39)
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La Langue du Coca-Cola
• In France,
– hot money  capitaux fébariles
– Jumbo jet  gros porteur
– Fast food  prêt-à-manger
• In Canada, Loi 101 :
– English billboards, posters and storefronts
are banned. Many students are not
allowed to attend English-language
schools. (McCrum 39-40)
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Competing Global Languages
• Arabic
• Russian (before the breakup of the
Soviet Union in Eastern Europe)
• Mandarin
• Spanish
• French
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Education Act of 1870: RP
• Cockney (Cock’s Egg)
• RP (Received Pronunciation)
• Posh (Portside Out Starboard Home)
• (McCrum 13-21)
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World War II (McCrum 23)
• GI Bases in
England, Italy,
France, Germany
• GI Language was
vivid, profane &
abbreviated:
Black
Market
Blitz
Flak
Nylons
Pin-Up
R&R
Snafu
Yank
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Pin-Ups and Yank Magazine
• Every issue of Yank Magazine featured
a pin-up to remind soldiers of the girls
back home.
• A pin-up of Rita Hayworth is said to
have been taped to Fat Boy, the atomic
bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.
• Compare this with the movie Dr.
Strangelove: How I Learned to Stop
Worrying and Love the Bomb.
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Atomic-Bomb Words (McCrum
24)
Atomic Holocaust
Chain Reaction (cf.
Vonnegut’s “Ice Nine”)
Fallout
Fireball
Fission
Fusion
Mushroom Cloud
Test Site
(NOTE: The possibility
of nuclear proliferation
was one of the causes
of Postmodernism &
Deconstructionism)
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Coca-Colonialism (McCrum
24)
Budweiser
Coca Cola
Gillette
Kellogg’s Cornflakes
Kellogg’s Rice
Krispies
(“Snap Crackle and
Pop” has to be
translated into various
languages)
Kodak
Maxwell House Coffee
Schlitz
Lucky Strike
Marlboro
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Korean and Vietnam Wars (McCrum 2526)
Korean:
Brainwashing
Chopper
(Helicopter)
Vietnam:
Defoliate
Domino
Theory
Escalation
Firefight
Friendly Fire
Hawks &
Doves
Vietnam:
Moratorium
Napalm
Pacification
Search and
Destroy
The Silent
Majority (ct.
the Vocal
Minority)
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David Ofgor, Attaché to the US
Embassy in Phnom Penh:
• Talking to journalists:
• “You always write it’s bombing,
bombing, bombing. It’s not bombing.
It’s air support.” (McCrum 27)
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Regional Dialects (McCrum 2729)
• Franklin D. Roosevelt (Eastern Money)
• Harry Truman (Twangy Missouran)
• Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon & Gerald
Ford (American Midwest)
• Lyndon Johnson (Southern)
• Ronald Reagan & Dan Rather (Network
Standard)
• Kennedy Family (New England)
• George W. Bush (Texas)
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Valley-Girl/Surfer-Dude:
Bitchin
Dude
For sure
Goady
Rad
To the max
Totally
Tubular
Gay Speech:
Gay
Out of the closet
Queer
Queen
Women’s Speech:
Ms.
Letter carrier
JOKE: Mannheim Germany 
Personheim Gerpersony
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Silicon Valley Words (California) (McCrum 30)
Artificial Intelligence
CD (Compact Disk)
DVD (Digital Video
Disk)
Data Processing
Disk(ette)
Flash Drive
Hacker
Input
Interface
Jump Drive
Modem
On-Line
ROM (Read-Only
Memory)
Software, Hardware,
Wetware
Word Processor
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British vs. American Global
English
• bird, bobby, bonnet, boot, drawing pins, flat,
lift, lorry, mate, nappy, petrol, pram, sweets,
torch, trunk call
• girl, cop, hood, trunk, thumb tacks,
apartment, elevator, truck, buddy, diaper,
gas, stroller, candy, flashlight, long-distance
call
• colour/color, theater/theatre, tyre/tire
• advertisement, laboratory, secretary
• (McCrum 32)
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Disadvantages of English as a Global
Language
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/š/  shoe, sugar, issue, mansion, mission, nation, suspicion, ocean,
conscious, chaperon, schist, fuchsia, pshaw (spelled 13 ways).
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<sh> <ch> <ph> <th> <gh>
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Full, reduced, zero grades of consonants
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Long, Short, -r, schwa, and zero grades of vowels
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15 different vowel phonemes
<c> <g> <q> <s> (/s/ /š/ /z/ /ž/) <x>
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(McCrum 42)
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Advantages of English as a Global
Language
• Natural Gender, not Grammatical Gender
• Simplified Word Endings resulting in greater
flexibility (N  V, etc.)
• Teeming Vocabulary (80 % is not Anglo-Saxon) but
rather: Arabic, Celtic, Chinese, Dutch, French,
German, Hebrew, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Latin,
Scandinavian, Spanish, etc. (McCrum 43)
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*21 Accents by Amy Walker:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UgpfSp2t6k
*American Dialect Society:
http://americandialect.org/
*Global Engrish:
http://www.funnyordie.com/lists/71bd760bbe/31-brilliant-examples-of-engrish-fails
*Lost Baggage:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvo9-UA1HD8
*Yankee-Dixie Quiz:
http://www.angelfire.com/ak2/intelligencerreport/yankee_dixie_quiz.html
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