What's the Language of the Future"?"

 What's the Language of the Future"?" It is an essay extracted from the book "The Language Wars: A History of Proper English written by Henry Hitchings and published in the year 2011. This book encapsulates the lucid accounts of the debates those shaped the English language. It offers an insight into the state of the language today and its likely future. This extract demarcates the factors of flourishment of English in the past and the reasons for the English Fever" in the present.

No language has expanded as widely as English, and it continues to expand its tentacles There is no doubt that the desire to learn English has been developing in the past few years among the non- English speakers. The second half of the twentieth century witnessed the advancements in the field of science and technology, telecommunications and the Industrial Revolution played an instrumental role for spreading of English language. The English has spread rapidly via popular culture, mass media and social media. The English has become the language of employability and it has transformed into the lingua franca of business, The resultant effect of globalization opened the doors for International Trade and commerce, diplomacy, computing, medicine, and education. A these fields have no alternate language except English. The language has become an international medium. This phenomenon directly or indirectly created an impact on the lives of the people. Most of the world's rural areas transformed into urban and semi-urban habitat and it helped to increase the volume of middle class all over the world. Most of the Non-English speaking people concluded that, "Linguistic capital equals economic capital". The embrace of English in the world's two populous countries, India and China means the language is changing/localizing. Some native speakers are discontented and feel that The Englishness of the English' is being diluted and the Americans also felt the same. The center of gravity of English language is moving towards the Non-English speakers. It has become a point of discomfit and rout for the native speakers.

A recent study revealed that in the United Arab Emirates, students perceive that their mother tongue Arabic is associated with culture, home, religion, tradition, school, arts and social sciences The same students (Arabians) consider the English language as the symbol of modernity, work, higher education, economics, commerce, science and technology. All the mentioned subjects can be studied only in English because many number of books are available in English. That is the only reason why English has become the world's auxiliary language. According to Hitchings, there are challenges ahead to the position of English in 21st century. The main challengers are Spain (Spanish) and Mandarin Chinese. Most of the Spanish people live in America but the Chinese are more in number, but it seems they are living in solitude. However, in China, a young entrepreneur named Li Yang has developed "Crazy English". It is an unorthodox method. He has coined a slogan as "Conquer English to Make China Strong" to encourage the youth to learn the English language as it is a mission to prove their patriotism.

Henry Hitchings has concluded his speech with a quote," English for business is business for English by Robert Phillipson. After that, he was stating about a survey which shows the spread of English all over the Europe. The report has been done by the British Council in the year 2006. The British council was founded in the year 1934 and now presently changed as "International cultural relations body". According to the survey, there are 500 million people who speak English as their second language all over the world. Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden people claim that 80% of the population can speak in English: Finland 60%, Germany 50%, France and Italy 30%, Spain and Turkey 20%. The Director General of the organization. Sir Richard Francis says that," Britain's real black gold is not North Sea oil, but the English Language". Hitchings felt that due to the wide spread of the English language it can be diluted with the impact of their native tongues. So, we can see many dialects of English and the many languages, going to diminish from the world in the nearest future.