English as the modern world’s lingua franca

A lingua franca is a language used for international and interethnic communication.  If a city has 2 or more ethnic groups living in it, communication usually takes place in just one language.  If a city has 5 different language groups, it makes the most sense for everyone to learn just one language.  Otherwise, everyone would have to learn 4 languages, which is time-consuming and impractical.

English is the modern world’s lingua franca, but this hasn’t always been the case.  In ancient Mesopotamia, it was Akkadian language that had this role.  In the Roman Empire, it was Greek and Latin, while in the Soviet Union it was Russian.  These languages were certainly influential, but at some point they lost their pre-eminence, but there was always one that would replace them.

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Why English?

The prestige and widespread use of English in today’s world is almost certainly a result of economic, cultural, and political trends.  It isn’t even necessary to point out the cultural influence of the United States and the English language in general.

To understand this, one has merely to make an internet search on nearly any topic, which will reveal that there are more web pages in English than in any other language.

A visitor to a movie theatre in Brazil will find that half the films are American.

One could also attribute the rise of English to USA’s status as an economic power; Americans have goods to sell and themselves buy a great many of products from foreign countries.  In order for this business to be carried out, people have to be able to communicate.  Since the USA is generally the more dominant partner in any such business, its language tends to be the one used in carrying it out.  It is unlikely that English will lose this status anytime soon.

Although other lingua francas have declined and fallen out of use, English is unique in that it has infected the entire globe, so it would be much more difficult to reverse the process.

Working and doing business around the world

Anyone who wants to work in a foreign country needs to learn English.

To understand the importance of English, consider the city of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.  People from all over the world work there.  If you go to a restaurant, the server will likely be from India or the Philippines, and both will certainly speak English, not Arabic.  Even local Emirati nationals have to speak English to order a meal in their own country!

An American moving to Dubai will likely have an easier time communicating than someone from Morocco, despite the fact that the latter speaks Arabic.

In addition to international cities such as Dubai, anyone moving to the United States or an English-speaking country has to learn English.  While it is possible to get jobs in the United States without speaking English, such positions are few.

Dubai and the United States are quite obvious examples of the importance of English, but it can even be discerned in notoriously monolingual countries such as Japan; if a Spaniard meets a Frenchman in the streets of Tokyo, the two will probably communicate in English rather than Japanese, even if they have both lived in Japan for 10 years.

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