Teach English in YuhuA Jingji KAifAqu - Nanjing Shi

History tells us that as many empires have risen in ancient times, they have been continuously conquering the large territories and lands of those of the other nations. As the part of a process, they had been introducing their language into those lands. For example, languages as Latin, Greek, Persian and so on, have greatly influenced the evolution of many languages and as the result, other new languages developed and/or emerged from them. Not so long ago, The English language has spread from the British Empire and reached all corners of the world mainly through colonization by missionaries, sailors, pilgrims, traders, and soldiers. By the time we realized, along with some of the most spoken languages such as Spanish, Chinese, Russian, Arabic, and French, English has already been present nearly everywhere around the globe. Not necessarily in that order, those languages are spoken in large number of countries and by a large number of people in every part of the world. This particular essay is about whether or not English language can be considered as a global language. So, first, let us define a term Global Language. According to David CRYSTAL’s book - English as a Global Language, a language achieves a genuinely global status when it develops a special role, that is, it is recognized in every country and this can be achieved in two ways. Firstly, a language can be made the official language of a country, to be used as a medium of communication in such domains as government, the law courts, the media, and the educational system. And secondly, a language can be made a priority in a country’s foreign-language teaching, even though this language has no official status. Although we have many examples in which one of the ways spoken above happened, like in Rwanda and Algeria, according to David CRYSTAL’s definition of a global language, we still cannot consider English as a global language. There is another way of thinking about what a global language is: a global language essentially refers to a language that is learned and spoken internationally, and is characterized not only by the number of its native and second language speakers, but also by its geographical distribution, and its usage in international organizations and diplomatic relations. A global language acts as a “lingua franca”, a common language that enables people from diverse backgrounds and ethnicities to communicate on a more or less equitable basis. Historically, the essential factor for the establishment of a global language is that it is spoken by those who wield power (https://www.thehistoryofenglish.com/issues_global.html). This second definition clearly establishes English as a global language. One can possibly find other elements as to how to define a global language in some other sources though. There are various insights and perceptions regarding the matter and it is understandable. We are totally against the fact that the essential factor for the establishment of a global language is that it is spoken by those who wield power but we cannot deny that a global language must act as a Lingua Franca. We all know that English speaking puritans were not the only Europeans to arrive to North America and Spanish, French, Dutch, and German languages were also widely spoken. When North Americans had to choose a common language, they did not choose English because the British Empire was powerful and they should retain the language. In fact, they were in a war against the British Empire, so instead there was no need to retain the language of the enemy, but in the process of designing a “United” States, founders of the USA knew the importance of establishing English language as one of the traits of a national identity. Although is it really difficult to choose between those two ideas, I want to conclude the essay referring to David CRYSTAL and state that, although English has become the most popular and widespread languages in the world, used as the basic language of communication in most of the international institutions, yet it cannot be considered as a global language.