11/4/2023 0 Comments Emoji to english google translate![]() An estimated 60-70 “Englishes” exist around the world today with Singlish (Singaporean English) and Spanglish (Spanish mixed with English) firmly established in the daily lives of millions of people. It also successfully blended in with local culture and local languages. In the process it accumulated an immense vocabulary – estimated at 750,000 – and one that is impressively multicultural. The development of English, indeed its uniqueness and unique attractiveness as a language, was largely based on its ability to borrow from other languages, adapt to local contexts and remain flexible in the face of change.Īs it spread across the globe, English absorbed new words – first from German, French and the Vikings – and later from cultures it came into contact with throughout the colonial and post-war period. A unique recipe for successīut the roots of its power don’t lie in history alone. In Nigeria, where more than 500 languages are spoken, English connected a nation and retained its position by being “equally hated by everyone”. Driven by colonial conquests during the imperial era – by the early 20th century the British Empire controlled a quarter of the globe and much of world trade – and the avalanche of American business, political power and popular culture in the century since, English provided a shared language for a world that was becoming more connected at breakneck speed.Įven within countries, particularly countries with complex ethnic and linguistic landscapes, English became a neutral, if not always well liked, means of communication. Linguist David Crystal once noted that “a language’s development is a direct reflection of the power of those who speak it”. To take part in our globalized world in the 21st century is to speak at least some English.īut will the future look like the past? Will English become even more dominant, drowning out other languages? Or will we all retreat back to our native tongues and simply use machine translators to communicate, leaving English to die off as a global lingua franca (a common language adopted by speakers of different languages)? Or – in perhaps the most dystopian scenario for those of us that cherish the written word – will the future be all emoji? The roots of power Even in our era of political uncertainty, English continues to dominate our shared global spaces: business, culture, diplomacy and to a significant degree, the internet. Throughout the last 400 years, its spread around the world has been steady alongside the spread of global business, politics and culture. An estimated 1.5 billion people speak it – 375 million as their native tongue – and it is spoken in more than 100 countries. In linguistic terms, English rules the world.
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