America to be the World’s Center as English Enters an Outbreak Era

Recently, the performance of America on the world stage has been disappointing. Wall Street was humiliated by the financial crisis. Leaders of countries called for a multipolar world at the G20 summit meeting in London. Even a committee in America concluded from their 2005 world trend report that America will gradually lose its right of dominion over the world, Diplomatic Policy of America reported on June 8th.

But as the influence of English gradually strengthens, it is likely that America will become the world’s center once again.

America will become the world’s center again by relying on English

For those who have proclaimed that the world has entered a post-America era, they are still facing a big problem: English is taking over human hearts and thoughts faster than politics. According to recent statistics, the English vocabulary has reached one million words, which is twice the number of Cantonese, four times the number of Spanish, and 10 times the number of French. Half of the world’s population will speak English by the year 2015. Analysts have said in the past that once English officially became the paralanguage of the world, then America would return to the center of the world stage. Now, America is the biggest English-speaking country in the world and the number of English speakers counts 20 percent of the world’s population.

In the middle of 2007, the International Herald Tribune reported that the number of people in non-English speaking countries who use some kind of English is three times the population of English–speaking countries. Today, nearly 400 million people use English as their mother language, and 300 to 500 million people use English as their second language. 750 million people use English as their first foreign language. The number of people who speak English around the world has exceeded one billion. Each influential newspaper around the world has its own English edition. Over 90 percent of periodicals and magazines are printed in English. And every year, profit made from English training and services reaches 50 billion dollars.

Self-motivation promoted the outbreak of English

Why could English enter an era of outbreak? That is the result of self-motivation. In China, where the public thinks they will possibly replace the status of America, learning English is regarded as the ‘open sesame’ to the middle class, and 300 million people can speak English. In India, 350 million people can speak English. According to the latest report from Global Prudential in Chicago, 96 to 100 percent of people in China, India, Japan, South Korea and Vietnam think that children should learn English. 90 percent of primary schools in Japan have set up English classes and Chinese students begin to learn English when they are in third grade. In addition, there are almost 50,000 English training schools. Chris Gibson, a southern India director in England, predicts that all people in southern India in the future will be able to speak English because English is becoming a generally used language.

Asia is not the only area that worships English. Since 1998, students in Argentina have had two hour English classes each week, after third grade. In the same year, state schools in Chile began to provide students with English training. In many African countries, English is an optional language. Even European countries emphasize the importance of learning English. Mr. Laurent, dean of the Higher College of Business and Economics of France, says that many schools use English to teach classes, since English has become an international language. “Our education enables students from every corner of the world to contribute to every corner of the world after graduation,” said Laurent.

Well, as a matter of fact, there are also a great number of people speaking Chinese, Spanish and Hindi, but they speak English when they communicate with each other inter-culturally. As parents, they also teach their children English so that their children can be world citizens as interaction between countries increases. A majority of scholars think that English can be passed from generation to generation in an international and simplified form. This international and simplified form is called “Global English” or “World Standard English.”

English is becoming a world language

This kind of trend hints that the influence of English will successively increase in the coming decades. McKinsey Global Institute has predicted that by the year 2100, the number of languages will decrease from 7000 to 200, and English will become the main communication medium for many countries. English will also become the second language for countries such as China, Japan, South Korea and most countries in Africa and Latin America.

English has played an important role in the process of human evolution. With language, children can learn, authors can write, consumers can shop, companies can make products, leaders can negotiate, people can travel … anything you can imagine is related to language.

Hence, when the unipolar world comes to an end, the gradually increasing influence of English will undoubtedly guarantee the status of America on the world stage, rather than make it follow the fate of “the empire on which the sun never sets.”