English as a Global Language

According to a recent article in New Scientist, (March 29th, 2008), sixty percent of English speakers speak another language as their native tongue. This means that there is an increasing likelihood that the English language will evolve in ways that will eventually make it unintelligible to native speakers. Either many separate dialects of English will evolve or it will become a type of "Globish" that is understand by many people but has it's own unique grammar and syntax structure as distinct from the English of today.

English evolved from distinct, regional varieties of Latin 1600 years ago that became the basis for the Romance languages including French, Italian, Spanish. Similarly today's English could evolve to become separate languages. Although these changes happen slowly, they are irreversible. And because of current trends in population growth and electronic communications, future changes to English may be accelerated compared to the English of a few hundred years ago. Thus, while we can understand most of Shakespeare's language of 300 hundred years ago, it is unlikely we will be able to understand English in the year 2300.

The net result is that people learning English as a second language will learn an English that is substantively different from today's spoken and written English. This type of linguistic fragmentation will displace the English spoken by native speakers as the numbers of non-native speakers increases, each with their distinct dialects. And a simplified form of English, that some call Globish, with a stripped, basic set of vocabulary, could be a another popular style of the language, that native speakers will have difficultly understanding. By the year 2020, non-native speakers will vastly outnumber native English speakers by as much as 6 to 1. The net result is that the English language is evolving on it's own, and no one quite knows where it's going.

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