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THE IMPACT OF GLOBAL ENGLISH ON
LANGUAGE DIVERSITY
Yuka L .C.
1. Preliminaries
Every language encodes a unique identity and distinct self perception of its
speakers. Each language confers on its speakers the right to think
differently. Egbokhare (2003) notes that language is not only a tool of
communication, but a natural resource that can be deployed to improve the
human condition when appropriate policies are instituted. Once we fail to
develop our languages, our culture and world view gradually declines
towards extinction. We progressively become dependent and subservient to
alien cultures. The dispersal of language is therefore intricately intertwined
with cultural spread. The value system and economic status of each speech
community has a close affinity to the status of the language in use.
Globalization is generally turning our world into one massive community.
Language choice, language loyalty or language shifts are all subject to
multiple influences within this massive community. Language identity
within smaller groups is gradually coming under pressure from external
influences. This paper examines the impact of English as a global
communication tool on less privileged languages. The paper seeks to draw
attention to the need for the maintenance of language diversity, cultural
traditions and linguistic rights of minority communities. The thrust of the
paper is that there is value in knowing and being educated in one more
language. Bilingualism is beneficial when it is additive and rather than
subtractive.
2. National Interests and Language choice
The political, economic and social choices that nations make in their
pursuit of national interests invariably affect their image in the international
scene. History has revealed that both the small and the big nations are
constantly in need of each other. International relations between nations
mean that the choices of one nation tend to influence or affect the interests
of others. Nations are therefore constantly modifying their international
interactions within a world that is continuously evolving. Each country
seeks to promote a set of value systems for itself. Identity politics is centered
on this set of values. The official language of government business is part of
this set. Within a language is a profound psychological importance
associated with group identity and continuity. In the following paragraphs
we take a look at how the various choices opted for by nations have
contributed in influencing the language preferences of the citizenry.
The survival of any language today may have very little to do with the
sentimental attachments of its speakers to it. Of more importance is the
ability of such a language to fulfill the needs and aspirations of its speakers
in the global arena. The mid 20
th
century witnessed the spiral popularity of
375
the English language. This rapid spread has gradually turned English into a
world language. It is learnt for access to prestige, trade, power, information
etc. Young people in search of economic opportunities are abandoning their
villages and drifting into cosmopolitan city centers. On arrival, they find out
that their native languages inhibit communication among a population with
diverse origins and distinct languages. A language of wider communication
becomes a ready option in the need for a common language to understand
each other. English has become the lingua franca. More often than not, it is
the language of choice for speakers from diverse language backgrounds.
The defeat of Germany in the Second World War witnessed the
dismemberment of her colonies. At the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, the
League of Nations shared the hitherto German territories among the
victorious Allied Forces. The global geopolitical structure of Germany was
not only decentralized by Germany’s defeat and the drift of world politics
thereafter, it basically took the German language off the world stage. In
Africa, the English and the French took over most of the German territories.
This led to a rapid spread of their languages which today are among the
leading languages of wider communication in the Africa. Colonization has
two principal characters: the colonial master and the colonized people. The
colonial master tended to impose his values on the colonial territory. The
language of official communication in each of the colonies had to be that of
the master. All the territories colonized by the English became part of the
English Protectorate under the authority of the English monarch. Today all
these territories associate under the umbrella of the Commonwealth with
English as their medium of communication. This English-base international
association continues to maintain the historical links existing between
member countries. The commonwealth is overtly promoting the English
language as an international medium of communication
Despite Russian involvement in countries such as Angola, Cuba, Vietnam
etc, there exist a very weak record of her linguistic spread. Russia appeared
more interested in the spread of communism than in encouraging its allies
dependents to learn Russian and acquire its socio-cultural values.
Notwithstanding the firm grip on its people and the close control over the
affairs of her neighbours, Russia has not experienced an impressive
linguistic spread. Potential learners of the Russian language find it difficult
to separate the recent social, economic and political failures of the amalgam
of nations that employ the language as a communication tool from the
language itself. Petzold and Berns (2000) report that the rapid fall in the
demand for Russian language institutions was mirrored by an equally sharp
increase in the demand for English language institutions. The spread of
English has been aided by the prosperity of the economies of the United
States and the United Kingdom. Their world view and value system is
attractive to nations who look up to these countries with developed
economies. English has become part of this attraction as most sates have
adopted English as their official language.
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The interest exhibited by the Europeans and Americans on Eastern
European languages experienced a sharp decline since the end of the cold
war and the emergence of the United States of America as the sole super
power. During the Cold War the need to better understand the adversaries
was instrumental to the quest to be proficient in their languages. Today the
world is confronting a new adversary. The upsurge in international terrorist
activities has generally been attributed to the angst of individuals and
groups within the Arab States. This development has seen a growing interest
in institutions and persons competent in Arabic which has emerged as the
major language employed by terrorists. The interpretations of Osama Bin
Laden’s tapes and the Al Jazira releases, the Press conferences of Al-Zaqawi
need to be adequately analyzed. The international community is keeping a
close watch on countries seen to have sympathetic internal policies towards
the views of insurgents. Part of this close watch has been to maintain an
interest in their tools and means of communication.
Because of the changes taking place politically, economically and
technologically in the world arena, and their impact on the relationships
among languages, speakers of languages that are loosing pace with global
technological development find it difficult to access development. They suffer
from what Egbokhare (2002) calls ‘linguistic deficit’. Such languages are
falling behind human experience. Languages have the tendency to grow and
change. Accurate predictions about language languages are difficult to
make. The various decisions policy makers and language planners make are
largely influenced by extra linguistic factors prevalent at a point in time. The
impact of these decisions wide and varied. Section 4 of this write up
examines the consequences of some of these policy decisions.
3. The Emergence of English as a Global Language
In following paragraphs, we set out to examine the factors that have
favoured the emergence of English as the choice code for supranational
transactions. The ever increasing popularity of English in the sociopolitical
spectrum should interest language analysts. Language choice, language
shift and language loyalty has multiple determinants and implications. It is
therefore necessary not only to study the growing popularity of English but
to look at the impact of such preferences on the languages over which
English is being chosen.
Crystal (1997) has stated that English has repeatedly found itself in the
right places at the right times. No language of wider communication has
been employed by speakers so divergent in cultures, nationalities and
backgrounds as English is today. This wide range of usage is being
encouraged by the loose control which the language exercises over form and
usage in diverse sociolinguistic contexts. Bruthiaux (2003) defines global
English as a set of related varieties with an infinite adaptation to each local
setting. Chisanga and Kamwangamlu (1997) state that ownership of each of
these varieties resides with the speakers rather than with the originators. A
good number of countries employ English as a second language (Diamond
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1993); these include: Nigeria, India, Hong Kong, Cameroon, Ghana, Guyana,
Malta, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philipines, South Africa, Zambia etc. These
territories tend to have distinctive grammatical features that are peculiar to
the sub-variety of the standard. Global English facilitates interchanges
which at the same time permits diversity.
The discovery of the new world and the consequent mass movement of
immigrants from Europe to America created another strong base for the
English language. The emergence of the United Kingdom and the United
States of America saw the rise of two powerful nations sharing a common
language. Today, English has developed several power centers with different
sociolinguistic features. The spread of genetically modified plant varieties
under the control of multinational companies can only be compared with the
global spread of English (Bradley and Bradley 2002). This multi-polar
distribution and relative weakness in institutionalized standardization is a
major factor behind the growing fame of English on the world stage.
The disintegration of the Soviet Union and the surfacing of America as the
lone super power has revealed a new world largely dominated by America.
The Americans own the most powerful military might in the world today.
They run one of the most vibrant economies. More and more countries are
becoming economically dependent on America. Lambert (1987:10) describes
the English-speaking Americans as ‘devoutly monolingual’. Hymes (1997:84-
85) notes that one of the generally tacit assumptions about language in the
US is that almost everyone else the world over is learning English. With
American economy and military might, it is unnecessary to worry knowing
the language of a country which is an American dependent. The world is
gradually resembling the English-speaking Americans. Because of the
socioeconomic opportunities open to speakers of English, global
communication participants have less to gain if they turn to a language
other than English. English offers its speakers new opportunities for
advancement. It has a myriad of potential users with whom to interact.
English has become a powerful symbol of modernity and liberating
practices. The English language is gradually being associated with a certain
manner of doing things, a common set of values and practices. The
democratic system of governance adopted by countries leading the
promotion of English is being interpreted all over the world as the standard.
English conveys modernizing notions seen to be beneficial to individual
speakers as well as groups. It is being increasingly viewed as a language
that promotes the freedom to think, talk and act without being constrained
by necessity or force; a language that promotes the political, social and
economic rights of the citizens of the state. Whether English as a language
actually offers its speakers these opportunities is debatable but oppressed
people around the world who look forward to the developed nations for
liberation are associating these values to the language.
Towards the end of the twentieth century, the world witnessed a revolution
that has generally been tagged the ‘dot com revolution’. Americans more
than any other people have been at the vanguard of this revolution. English
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is the Microsoft language. It is therefore the default language of the
computer. Most of the world’s technology is coded in English. A good
number of the most industrialized nations in the world conduct their
business in English. Technology has given English a huge advantage over
other languages. Interlocutors in the international scene are more
comfortable when they articulate their views and listen to others’ views in a
common language. Information relayed through interpreters is sometimes
suspect in the business of diplomacy where participants are so sensitive to
choice of words.
The effective implementation of supranational decisions requires a shared
language. Democratic decision making requires communicative
participation. English has become the language of diplomacy. It is the
primary working language of the United Nations, the European Union, The
North Atlantic Treaty Organization and many other International
organizations.
4. The Impact of Global English on Language Diversification
The colonial and post-colonial phases of Africa provoked forces that have
become a continuous threat to linguistic diversity. One of these forces is
global English. English is becoming more and more triumphant in
demographic as well as in functional terms. The global spread of English is a
serious menace to the survival of indigenous languages. McArthur (1999)
has describes English as ‘omnivorous’; devouring all languages on its path.
This section of the paper focuses on the effects the popular preference for
English is having on national and minority languages. For a closer analysis
we choose to draw our examples principally from the African language
situation given the multiplicity of indigenous languages in contention and
the diversity of forces in operation.
Human beings are more articulate and extra productive when they engage
the world in a language with which they can handle the most abstract and
complex issues. It is a fact that most Africans employ English as their
second. These Africans possess native-speaker competence only in their
mother tongues. They reflect, receive information, exchange and create ideas
optimally in the language they are most competent in. This language is often
not English but their mother tongue. A nation that articulates its ideas and
thoughts in any language other than that in which it can perform optimally
is perpetually short-changing itself. The political elite in most African
countries are very reluctant to commit resources towards the development of
languages in which the citizenry possess native-speaker competence. This
psychology of linguistic neglect among policy makers is turning English and
other popular European languages into long-term threats to African
languages. When we allow our instrument of thought to die, part of our
intellectual abilities die with it (Mazrui 2003). Many countries in the world
today are promoting the English language at the expense of their national
languages; thus depriving the native speakers of the opportunity to be
optimally innovative.
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English is gradually becoming a mass language. The more speakers the
language attracts, the more the language is becoming diversified along
regional lines. It is spoken around the world with different varieties existing
and evolving across the globe. For most of these ‘new converts’, English is
either the second or third language which they speak with mother tongue
interference. Some of these varieties are so distinct that some linguists have
suggested that they be considered as separate, though related languages.
During the 2004 Tsunami disaster, the American cable network, CNN found
it necessary to subtitle responses from disaster victims despite the fact that
the two interlocutors employed English. The difference between the standard
and some of these varieties is beginning to impede intelligibility. Such
linguistic substratum is often evident not only in pronunciation but in
sentence structure as well as in the expression of ideas. More varieties are
emerging as the language continues to reflect local articulation. The
speakers of these varieties live in environments where multilingualism id the
norm. Even where English is the official language; the syntactic, lexical and
phonological systems of the indigenous languages is evident in the variety of
English spoken in such multilingual contexts.
Africans are becoming contemptuous of their languages. A good number
among the young people consider their languages as uneducated, primitive
and non-prestigious. Young people in search of economic opportunities are
leaving their villages into cities where they gradually speak less and less of
their languages and more of English. The cosmopolitan cities provide them
with an opportunity to intermarry. It often turns out that these mixed
couples have no common language apart from the language of wider
communication (like English, or Pidgin in Lagos - Nigeria or in Bamenda –
Cameroon). Most of the children of such mixed marriages grow up to speak
the majority language as their first and only language.
Gradually we are faced with a future generation that confronts the world
with a language of wider communication passed onto them by their parents
who themselves speak the language as either their second or third language.
Such children cannot therefore lay claim to native speaker competence since
their parents cannot pass onto them what they don’t have. What these
children do have is an approximation of the ideal. That is why the English
being learnt by children in the language situation just portrayed above is
that whose syntax, pronunciation, structures etc have been diluted with the
sound system and syntactic structures of the mother tongues of their
parents. This is why the increasing varieties of English are beginning to look
more and more like different languages of the same stock.
The fusion of lexical items from both the indigenous languages and English
has evolved a number of pidgins. The West African Pidgin, for instance
developed in the 18
th
Century through contact between West Africans and
English traders. Today this English-based Pidgin serves as a lingua franca
in various West African countries from Gambia to Cameroon. Like English, it
has varieties that reflect the structures, syntax and pronunciations of the
amalgam of languages from which it has drawn is vocabulary.
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English is being promoted by governments in countries where English is
nobody’s first language. A good number of these countries are constituted of
ethnic groups. These ethnic divisions often correspond to the linguistic
diversity of these countries. Underlying these language groups are political
pressure groups that seek recognition in their quest for the fair application
of developmental government policies. Rather than promote indigenous
languages, most governments are of the view that the fewer the languages,
the closer the country moves towards national integration and the easier the
task of governance.
The appreciation of linguistic diversity is therefore constantly being
restricted by the wide appreciation for monolingualism. A plethora of
languages impede communication, progress and promote strife. Language
can be a focus of dissent for minorities in quest of independence, political
identity, numerical strength etc. It can be the basis of antagonism towards a
neighbouring village or state (Yuka 2002). To these political leaders the
world will be more peaceful if we all spoke a single language. Government
thinking appears to be that the development of indigenous languages will
rekindle language loyalties of ethnic minorities which in turn promote strife
by encouraging people to view others as different.
Proponents of this view point to some of the civil wars that are fought along
linguistic lines. If the Kurds could simply speak Arabic or Turkish the Iraqis
won’t have experienced internal strife. If Sri Lanka’s Tamils would agree to
speak Sinhalese and the Armenians accept Azerbajani (Diamond 1993) or
vice versa, there would be peace in these countries. If none of these people
are ready to speak the others language, then a neutral language (like
English) in a multi-ethnic state can be harnessed as an additional language
for contact communication.
The above argument has its merits, but it may be worthy to note that the
numerous conflicts in various regions of the world today do not all emanate
from linguistic differences. Language differences aren’t even an important
cause of strife. Divisions of religion, ethnicity, and politics are evidence to
the fact that monolingualism is not a safe guard for peace. The incessant
religious violence in Northern Nigeria has very little to do with language. For
instance: the current reconciliation efforts in Rwanda aimed at dousing the
bad blood between the Hutus and the Tutsis ignited by the 1994 bloody
genocide which in turn was provoked by the death of Habyarimani, the
ongoing religious killings of Christian Southerners by the Suni Northern
Muslims in Sudan, the orthodox Serbs against the Catholic Croats and
Muslims Bosnians, all speaking Serbo-Croatian are cases in point.
If the argument is that minorities should forgo their languages for peace, it
should also be argued that they should as well surrender their political
views, ethnic affiliations, religions and all other values that mark each out
as a distinct group of people. Examples of countries that accommodate
people with different languages abound. In Switzerland, for example, we
have four languages: German, French, Italian, and Romansh. Yet there is
381
harmony. What multilingual countries need to do is to accommodate people
of with diverse languages is linguistic tolerance. Multilingualism enhances
creativity, divergent thinking and cognitive flexibility.
5. Conclusion
Economic rationalism is currently sweeping through the world. This
explains a reflection of widespread elite attitudes in favour of English as a
global language. English is one of the languages that have been integrated
into the industrialized economies at the expense of national languages.
Developing economies are taking a cue from the industrialized economies to
promote English in spite of their indigenous languages. Such language
policies are hurting language diversification. Linguistic seers have predicted
that up to 90% of the world’s languages may disappear during the 21
st
Century unless something is done to reverse the rapid language loss. The
task to be confronted is to raise the consciousness of both the majority and
minority speech communities to the unique and precious resource of human
language diversity. Language policies that marginalize minority languages
must be reversed in favour of policies that conserve and strengthen them.
When an individual acquires an additional language his/her communicative
competence is expanded. This expanded competence has no negative effects
on his/her first or second language. Bilingualism is beneficial when it is
additive. Linguistic diversity is compromised when bilingualism is
subtractive.
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