Across cultures, English is the word

The given passage is an extract from an article published in the world news division of the New York Times from the year 2007. It discusses how English is used globally and its dominance as an international language.

Across Cultures, English is the word

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. Yet, others see pitfalls, but the factors they cite only underscore the grip English has on the world: cataclysm 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.

British soldiers in India during the Second World War 1943

The 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."

John McWhorter, a linguist at the Manhattan Institute, a research group in New York, and the author of a history of language called 'The Power of Babel.' was more unequivocal. "English is dominant in a way that no language has ever been before," he said. "It is vastly unclear to me what actual mechanism could uproot English given conditions as they are." As a new millennium begins, scholars say that about one-fourth of the world's population can communicate to some degree in English. It is the common language in almost every endeavor.

It has consolidated its dominance as the language of the internet, where 80 percent of the world's electronically stored information is in English. It is the common language in almost every endeavor. There may be more native speakers in Chinese, Spanish or Hindi, but it is English they speak when they talk across cultures, and English they teach their children to help them become citizens of an increasingly intertwined world.

At telephone call centers around the world, the emblem of a globalized workplace, the language spoken is, naturally English. On the radio, pop music carries the sounds of English to almost every corner of the earth.

Extract sourced from 9093/42/M/J/15 Question 2 © UCLES 2015