English as a global language
English is spoken in most parts of the world, for instance in Great Britain, the USA,
Canada, Australia, New Zealand and in many more countries. Moreover in African states
English serves as main form of communication.
English is, after the Chinese one, the language most people speak and it is the most
popular second language and foreign language pupils learn in school.
The English language is often named as a killer language that wipes out smaller languages
and their cultures by exclusive use (f. e.: media, economy). English is not popular because
of its linguistic properties but there are conscious, co-ordinated promotion programmes.
But if there are so many speaking the same language there remains the question of humans
diversity * concerning biological, cultural and political matters.
We also have to take into consideration, that English as a global language is also linked to
social costs, because the teaching and accommodation of the languages for immigrant
minorities is rather irrational.
Language policy in the post-colonial situation:
There are a lot of colonial states with multilingual character because of the imperialist
powers in the 19th and 20th century. In Africa, for example, there are no attempts to use
any African language in high-status functions, they are not even taught in schools.
The period during colonialism changed a lot in the worlds history and following
development, and colonialism make us think about cheap rawmaterials and workers the
imperialist powers wanted to gain, but we often forget about something else, which an
African statesman expresses in his speech:
The real aim of colonialism was to control the peoples _wealth…(but) economic and
political control can never be complete or effective without mental control. To control a
peoples culture is to control their tools of self-definition in relationship to others. For
colonialism, this involved two aspects of the same process: the destruction or the
deliberate undervaluing of a peoples culture, their art, dances, religions, history,
geography, education, orature and literature, and the conscious elevation of the language of
the coloniser. The domination of a peoples language by the languages of the colonising
nations was crucial to the domination of the mental universe of the colonised. _
Ngugi wa Thiongo
(extract from his famous essay on “The language of African literature”)
But there are several arguments for the demand of the adoption of the ex-colonial
languages as official ones.
First, regarded politically, the choice of any indigenous language would destabilise African
states which are multilingual. A second argument would be, that the continue use of the
