English
is an official language in many countries, and about 1,3 billion people speak
English. Of the 1,3 billion people, only 350 million people has English as
their mother tongue. The English language was spread an adopted by people from
all over the world, because the British travelled to every continent building
their empire and established colonies, colonization. This made English to the
official language in 52 countries, and that English has become the world's most
important lingua franca, who gave it dominant position in trade, politics and
culture.
Checkpoints
- what is a lingua franca?
- We call it lingua franca when a language is used for communication by two people who are not native speakers.
- We say that English is the world's most important lingua franca. Why is this?
- Because a big part of the world speaks it
- Who started to build the British Empire?
- Queen Elizabeth I started to build the British Empire. During the reign of queen Victoria, in the nineteenth century, the British Empire experienced its golden age.
- What were the reasons for its decline?
- causes was the great losses in the two world wars. Africa and the Indian sub- continent, meant that Britain lost its position as the world's leading power, but an another English-speaking nation, the USA, became a superpower. That ensured the continuing international importance of the English language.
- What is happening to the language today?
- English has become important not only for native speakers, but for millions of other people too. Today the language is in constant change and everyone who speaks it participates in this development.
Viewpoints
- I don't think the English language directly threatens the position of national languages in small countries. I think the English language comes in addition to the national language. It depends on stuff like internet and traveling.
- I don't think there are any other languages witch can threaten the position of English as a world language, because it is already so many people who speak English.
Global
English
- How many years have passed since the Romans left Britain? What significance did their withdrawal from Britain have for the development of the English language?
- 1500 years have passed since the Roman left Britain. The result of the withdrawal from Britain, was that the English language was spread into the world.
- Which capabilities did the English language have since it managed to conquer the world?
- The English language has capability to absorb, involve, invade and spread all over the world.
- How many languages has English adopted words from?
- English has adopted words from over 350 languages.
- What is the total number of English speakers?
- About 1.3 billion peoples speak English, and that is the total number of English speakers.
- How many speak it as their mother tongue?
- About 25% of the total number of English- speakers has English as their mother tongue.
- How many speak it as a second language?
- It is also 25% who has English as a second language.
- What problems does English present for a learner?
- The main problem that does English to a challenging language to learn, is the spelling and the pronunciation.
- In which context is Singlish, Hinglish and Chinglish mentioned? Where do you find these accents and why is it necessary to give these accents individual names?
- Singlish which is Singaporean English, Hinglish witch is Hindi English and Chinglish witch is Chinese English.
- Why do you think the lecturer suggests that if somebody should think up a new word for English, “it should be in Chinese”?
- Because the language have so little to do with England this days.
