English as basic skill

This piece was published on our Facebook group from our blog n February 14th 2010.

I had an interesting conversation with someone about the languages on the rise like Mandarin or Hindu … It is true that there are more people speaking Mandarin due to the economic growth of China, but English speaking is rising much faster since English has become the global language … Statistics show that 1.5 billion people speak English, another billion can speak English to a certain level of competence and it is prospected that a peak of 2 billion people would be learning English simultaneously worldwide in 2010, this figure would be steadily between 500 to 600 millions after the wave has passed and only children in primary school would be the only new ones learning the basics of the language !

English, independently from the English speaking countries has become the language of work of scientists, higher education, business and technology in all the countries around the world … There are more and more international media as newspapers and TV news stations in English from multiple sources and from all major countries in the world : US, UK, China, France, Russia, Germany, Japan … Statistics show that more and more Europeans speak English. Many countries are bilingual in English like Finland or the Netherlands, others like Colombia, Mongolia and Chile aspire to become bilingual in English in the coming years, a majority of Taiwanese, in 2006, did want English to be their 2nd official language. The British council talks about a new language “global English” which has replaced the native speakers’ English and became the language of the world.

The main reason that English has become the global language is its multiplicity, the diversity of the people who speak it and its geographic spread, now English is even more the language of the world as more and more countries including all major countries produce and communicate in English. No one country alone, how powerful it may become, could offer a more diverse, politically neutral language that offers as much connectivity with other countries and as much resources, possibilities, perspectives and choices of cooperation. English has become a global basic skill, which is an opportunity for all humankind. The only ones cut out from it are mainly in Africa, which is the point of our initiative !