Hey everyone and welcome back to the Easy English Podcast.
I'm Oliver and today we are going to be looking at a very interesting topic which I think is going to be useful and interesting for everyone listening.
And this is a slightly controversial question.
Controversial means that there might be some disagreement, and that is is English the language of the future.
So this question sounds quite unclear.
So let me say what I mean.
So at the minute, English is everywhere.
It's on the internet, in business, in science, in movies.
But do you think that will always be the case?
Will it always be like that?
Will English continue to dominate sort of global or international communication?
Or could another language take over?
Or perhaps with the rise of technology, will languages even matter in the same way in the future?
I think this is going to be a very interesting discussion.
So grab yourself a cup of tea or maybe a coffee and get comfortable and let's get started and learn about sort of the past, the present and the future of English together.
Okay, so before we talk about the future, let's go back in time a little bit, because English wasn't always the world's most widely spoken language.
In fact, for most of history, it wasn't even close.
And a few hundred years ago, Latin was the dominant language of science, philosophy and education in Europe.
And then, French became the international language of diplomacy.
And even before that, Greek was a common language of educators scholars philosophers, that type of thing.
So why did English then take over?
Well, there are a few reasons.
And history played a big role in all of them.
First we have, and not always the easiest topic, but the British Empire.
And at its height, the British Empire controlled around 25% of the world's land.
And that meant that English was introduced in many countries.
Not necessarily as the first language, but as a key language for government, business, and trade.
And even today some of the largest English-speaking countries have English as an official or secondary language because of that influence from the British Empire.
And then there's the Industrial Revolution.
The UK was leading the way at a time in technology industry and global trade.
And many discoveries and inventions were documented in English, which made it an important language for innovation.
So for inventing new things, for creating new things and really marketing them to the world within those industries.
And even today, most scientific research around the world is published in English, and that actually makes up around 80 of all academic journals.
That's a huge advantage in speaking and understanding English.
So all of these things at the beginning really shaped the base of why English was becoming very popular.
Lots of people spoke it.
It was considered a fairly easy language.
I know English is not an easy language, but comparatively to languages such as, let's say, Arabic or Chinese, English is a much simpler language or a much more simple language.
But probably the biggest reason English dominates today is because of the rise of the United States during the last century.
After the World War II, the USA became a really big economic, military and cultural superpower.
A superpower is just a country that is very, very powerful, very big and influential in the world.
And American movies, music, television and technology spread English all over the world.
Hollywood, pop music and even brands like Coca-Cola Apple, Google have really reinforced, so they've spread and really reinforced English as the global language.
And because the US has been very much at the front of politics, of diplomacy and all of those international organizations, English has naturally became the accepted norm, the accepted standard, we could say.
And even when we look at the internet, which has spread English even further, over 60 of all the content on the internet is in English.
So if you want to access so much knowledge, social media, business opportunities, English is often the key.
So has English become the default language of the modern world?
So the international communication language, but does that mean it will always stay that way?
What do you think?
Do you think it will always stay that way?
Let's discuss that topic.
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Okay, so back to the episode.
Now this is where things get interesting.
Will English continue to be the most important language in the future?
Let's think about some of the reasons it might stay on top.
So it may stay as the most important language for global communication.
And the first is something called network effects.
Now, this sounds a little bit complicated, but what this means is that the more people use something, the more valuable it becomes.
Network effects.
So think about social media, for example.
If all your friends are on Instagram, you probably want to use Instagram too.
And the same is true for language.
Right now, English is considered the bridge language, the connection language for people from different countries.
So if a Japanese business person needs to talk to a German business person, for example, they will probably use English.
And that makes it difficult for other languages to replace it.
Okay, the next point, which I think is very important, is the influence of technology.
And, within technology, English is the dominant language of computer programming, of artificial intelligence and social media.
Even the voice assistants like Siri and Alexa from these big English language based companies like Apple and Google work the best in English.
And if technology continues to shape the world in this way, English could become even more essential.
But at the same time, technology could also be the exact thing that makes English less important or necessary.
So we're going to see, let's flip the question.
What if English isn't the language of the future?
What if another language takes over?
Which languages do you think could challenge English in the next 50 or 100 years?
So the language which a lot of people think is the most likely to replace English or challenge English, at least internationally, is Mandarin, Chinese.
And perhaps this is the most obvious answer, purely because it's spoken by so many people.
Over 900 million people speak it.
And China's economy has been growing very fast and could potentially become the world's largest economy within a few decades.
And as well as this, more and more businesses are learning Mandarin to trade with China.
But there's a problem.
Mandarin is very hard to learn if you didn't grow up with it.
The writing system is extremely difficult.
The tones are not very natural for many Western speakers or speakers from Romance languages.
It's very, very different.
And it's not as easy to pick up as more international English.
The thing with English is that it has become a more simplified version of the native version of English.
So when we say that people communicate internationally in English, it doesn't mean that they all speak like a native British person or a native American.
They tend to speak with whatever English they have.
And usually it's enough to express what they have to say.
And English can be simplified a lot.
With the likes of Mandarin, some of the core key concepts, particularly around the tones and the pronunciation, can be very, very difficult for people to learn, particularly from certain languages.
Now don't get me wrong, I understand English can be very hard from a pronunciation perspective for many people, and particularly for people with certain native languages, but Mandarin, in my opinion, is on another level.
And for that reason I can't see Mandarin replacing English as the international communication language for a very long time.
Because, although there are so many Mandarin speakers in China, there are not so many Mandarin speakers around the rest of the world.
And I still think it will remain to be quite a niche language for learners internationally.
But it will grow.
It definitely will grow.
But it will be interesting to see if there will simply be more Chinese business people speaking English rather than the other way around.
The next contender or option, a lot of people say, is Spanish.
So there's over 500 million native Spanish speakers.
So it's already the second most spoken language in the world.
And it's widely spoken across North and South America.
And it's relatively easy to learn compared to Mandarin.
So could it take over?
I would say possibly, but it just doesn't have the same economic or technological influence that English has right now.
I guess Spanish speaking countries at the moment are just not in the position to push that influence into the international sphere.
Whereas the US is still very much at that almost peak point in terms of their influence over politics technology trade, all of that type of thing.
But this could change.
This could change over the coming years.
But there's an interesting idea when we talk about all of this with global languages.
And that is, what if in the future we don't really need a global language at all?
With AI and AI translation and all of this type of stuff, we might be able to speak our native languages and have instant, perfect translations in real time.
Imagine you're simply wearing earbuds or just something small in your ear that instantly translate any language for you.
And if that technology improves, English could lose its advantage.
But I would say we're still quite a while away from that technology being either possible to an extent where it's very functional or affordable and used widespread.
And even then, nothing can beat having that direct communication through speech, that natural direct communication.
I'm not too sure that this type of technology will ever replace learning a language.
I'm not convinced.
So what will English look like in 50 or 100 years?
Even if English stays the main global language for international communication, it will continue to change.
For example, did you know that English vocabulary is expanding every year with words from all around the world?
From the internet, from science and pop culture.
And because more people are using English, they're using it in different ways.
And, as a result, global English is becoming more common, because people use the language in different ways in different countries.
Some linguists also think that English will continue to become simpler over time to make it easier for non-native speakers.
So English probably won't disappear, but the way we're going to use it might definitely change.
This is an interesting thought for me, because when I think about English now, I think of very different types of English.
When I was in university, it was very academic, very complicated, lots of difficult words.
When I read English literature, it's so rich, so deep, so much vocabulary.
When I see international English, it's much more simple, much more direct even than regular English.
And each type of English is so different.
British people use English very different from Americans, for example.
And I can see the language is changing in so many different ways.
So it doesn't surprise me to imagine a future where English has become even more simple and it's become, in its global form, its international form, almost a different language from what native speakers actually speak, speak like in the UK or the US, for example.
So it is interesting.
It's interesting to see the changes and I'm very interested to see what the changes will be like in the future.
So what do you think?
Do you think that English will continue to be the world's sort of main language with international communication?
Do you think that technology will make language learning less important?
Or do you think another language may also take over, may become the number one?
I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Let me know in the comments.
And, as always, if you enjoyed this podcast, if you enjoy these episodes, make sure that you rate the podcast as well.
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Thank you so much for listening and I will see you in the next episode.
Goodbye.
