One World...One Language

The thought of globalization scares many people. This process is of course happening as I type away. With the expansion of the Western cultures into Eastern cultures, it brings along certain baggage with it. One of the main issues that people have with this is that the English language is being more and more recognized as the official language in business and commerce. People around the world are learning English because in this day in age, it is a must know. But because of people having to learn English, there are other languages that are dying out.

There are 6,912 living languages today according to http://www.ethnologue.com/. With the “advance of English: one world language is lost every two weeks when the last speaking member of that particular linguistic group dies” (127) according to Rob Burton in his book “Artists of the Floating World”. Those are staggering numbers when you actually think about it. People across the globe do not want to see this happen. Just like saving endangered species, people want to protect the languages around the world so they will not go instinct. We are supposed to embrace different cultures and individuality, and by allowing English to become the official “world language” cultures would lose out on their heritage.

So what if people stop speaking their native languages for thousands of years? People for the movement of globalization and a dominant world language would argue that the Western civilizations are predominate in many aspects in business and will continue to be. Communication would be a lot easier between countries and business with there only being one language. Languages are like people; only the strong survive. Languages have been around for thousands of years. Some have died off, and some have stood the test of time. As of 2008, the front-runner with a commanding lead is the English language.

I’m not sure if it would be a good idea if English became a must know language in the world. I would definitely not mind because I already speak it. Going overseas or out of the country would be a lot easier if most, or all, spoke English. Of course I would not want any other language to be a dominant language. I would sure not want to have to learn Mandarin just because, by far, the most people on Earth speak it. I see the arugement for both sides. But either way I lean towards, it will not be an easy one.