English is the language of the world. Indian writer, Gurcharan Das, wrote, “English has become the global language at a time when technological breakthrough has shrunk the world.” Mr. Das observed that his grandfather treasured his knowledge of the English language as his greatest possession for English united the Indians intelligentsia and civil servants. (The present Indian Constitution recognizes 14 languages as official languages so English is a unifying language in a nation with various sectional dialects.) Mr. Das said the English language, “ introduced Indian minds to liberal ideas and the ideals of French Revolution, while the British Empire was practicing the opposite through colonial rule. Schools and colleges taught liberty and equality while the rulers practiced subjugation and inequality.”
English became India’s portal to Western thoughts and Mahatma Gandhi used the British rule of law against the English in his quest to liberate India. The English taught the Indians the language of Liberty, and Indians demanded what was rightly theirs- in English. And within a couple of generation, English may be the dominant language of India and by the end of this decade. India will be world’s largest English speaking nation. The English language contains nearly half-million words, which is nearly fivefold more than French and it is constantly changing and growing as its reach expands beyond England and North America.
Scholar Brad DeLong speculates that the Internet will expand international trade and many of these jobs created will be white-collar jobs. Those who speak English will be major benefactor of this movement and this will encourage English to stay as the world major language of communication. Economist Arnold Kling in a recent piece wrote, “In the era of the English dominated Internet, to speak another language is to impose a barrier on the fastest-growing component of international trade.” In Israel, there was a debate on whether to teach high-level technical courses in English or in Hebrew nearly 50 years ago. It was decided to teach these courses in Hebrew but today many Israelis maintain their web presence in English to reach a wider audience beyond Israel.
Some disagree with the thesis that English will continue to the dominant language. Nicholas Negroponte of MIT Media Lab believes that Chinese will the dominant language within a decade and “English speakers will find themselves on the wrong end of the digital divide.” Negroponte added, “We’re going to see again, a real rise in multilingual systems and of course multilingual, in my opinion.”
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