Language Today In the modern day, language has seen a shift in global patterns as the world becomes more and more connected through globalization and the internet. In the present day, lingua francas form on a much larger scale, with languages such as English and Chinese becoming the lingua franca of large regions over vast populations. This matters, as it reduces diversity in these larger regions as the larger languages are able to overtake more and more of the small ones. This has led the modern day to see a rise in massive language powers such as English. While English will not be discussed in detail due to its use of already discussed tactics and colonialism to spread its language, it is important to look at the state of English in the world today, and its future.
Worries for English There is little evidence to support that English will remain in power indefinitely, and there are three reasons that say it probably will not. Firstly, most of the world is still bilingual, using English as a useful lingua franca, while still using their native tongue day to day. This means that should another useful lingua franca come to an area, that area will most likely quickly abandon English. Second is that English is often actively pushed against by some policy makers who are attempting to stop the spread of Western culture to their world. Thirdly, there is no guarantee that English will not fragment just like Latin did thousands of years ago. In fact, dialects can already be seen in areas such as Jamaica and Singapore, dialects that come from bilingual areas and which are nearly incomprehensible to other English speakers. There is no reason to believe that English will remain in power forever.
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English Today English currently holds the title as the world's global lingua franca, holding a large portion of the world's media, from the internet to the television. English currently remains dominate for three reasons: population, position and prestige. First is that English has as many speakers as any other language, as even countries which speak Chinese, namely China itself, are forced to learn English in school, meaning English is ingrained in many different societies.The next, position, is led by the fact that English speakers are still predominant in leading the world in technology and science, and it remains the norm in English speaking countries for even those who go through higher education to be monolingual in English, as there is no reason to learn another language for many of them, leading the position as leader in technology and science to remain firmly in the hands of the English speakers. Finally, English is consciously held in very high regard as a language of those with wealth and knowledge in many areas of the world. Since it is the language of some of the richest countries in the world, it holds a very special position in the minds of many.
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Language Extinction & Preservation
The modern day has seen an interesting twist in how languages survive and die, as it has aided in both. In the modern day, many languages have gone extinct as they are overtaken by larger, more global languages. This has led to many languages being wiped out, be it from the death of Native American languages in North America to the loss of languages in Siberia. These languages are being lost at a surprising rate as less and less effort is being put in to teaching them to children, due to the fact that they are less and less useful in day to day activities. It is also because they are not actively taught in schools, leading to them not being reinforced into children by the state. All of this makes it difficult for many languages to survive. On the other hand, many languages have found refuge through their recording on the internet, making it so that even if the language loses all native speakers, samples and evidence of the language can still survive. This has led many linguists to attempt to record as many endangered languages as possible for posterity. This dualism has led to a strange world where more languages are recorded but less are spoken natively. This recording of languages is not perfect, however, as much knowledge is still lost whenever a language dies out, as the vast knowledge it has gained over the centuries of its life cannot be recorded in their entirety, especially those languages which do not have writing. Globalization has aided in both the preservation and the destruction of many different languages.