A World Language

The Cambridge Encyclopedia of The English Language

Summary
English, which is used as the dominant or official language over 75 countries or areas, is now the world language. The world status has been caused by the two factors; the expansion of British colonial power and the emergence of American economic power. However, English has produced problems about sociolinguistic generalization especially in countries where English is used as both a first and second language (e.g. Canada) or where a history of language contact has brought about a language conflict (e.g. India).

New Words
-The Antipodes refers to Australia and New Zealand.
-English is the dominant language on the Net.
-Japan was the preeminent economic power in the world.
-I had to eat unpalatable dish.
-The underpinning of communication among people who have different cultures is a spirit of tolerance.
-Simultaneous celebrations are held across the country on national holidays.

My Idea
I cannot imagine that people in a country speak more than two languages. In Japan, only one language is spoken and we can communicate in Japanese anywhere. We know the importance of English and it is studied as a foreign language. Even though we study English for a long time, we have a problem with speaking English because we usually don’t have opportunities to speak English. We start studying English in the age of 13, however, due to the changing of the national curriculum we will start in the age of 10 in a few years to improve our English. I’m interested in national language policy in the world. I didn’t know that Canada and India has linguistic problems. I’d like to know that in detail.