The English language
is everywhere. The language of most of the Internet sites around the world is
English. We are using this language to write our articles on this site, even
though I am positive that English is not the first language of everybody using
this website. It is not my first language, I come from Finland. I learned
English at school. It is the most widely studied language in the world.
It is the language of
media, medicine and business. Computing uses English as does the international
airtraffic control. But is the spread of this language a good thing or a bad
one, is the spread of one such a powerful language a disadvantage or an advantage?
This is a difficult
question to answer. Academics in the field of linguistics have tried to find
the best solution for this puzzle for decades now. One disadvantage which is
often mentioned in this context is the fact that many languages have died
because of the spread of English. Many still have lost a large number of
speakers and are bound to be doomed in the near future. These are the
disadvantages, and while they certainly seem gloomy, there are many advantages
of having a global language.
Doctors, for instance,
from around the world can communicate with each other while using one language.
As a consequence of numerous people knowing this language there are less
misunderstandings which of course in medicine could be fatal. People from all corners
of the world can communicate easier because they share a common language. Media
can more easily tell us the most recent news from all over the world. People
can use the Internet as a tool for research, which means more people are being
educated about different issues.
I am happy that my son
will speak this wonderful language as his first language, I am sure that I will
learn a lot from him when he enters school in the UK. However, I wish that my
son would also be able to speak Finnish as this is my mother tongue. It is
important for a person's identity to remember their roots, and language is a
very integral part of one's identity. Are people whose languages are being lost
because of the dominance of the English language losing their identities then?
As you can see, the question is a difficult one to answer, and in my opinion
there is no right or wrong answer.
Font hellium
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