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 Language Tips > 2004
Updated: 2004-03-24 01:00

Experts debate future of English language

英語的未來會怎樣? 專家眾說紛紜

English is fast becoming the language of science around the world, but what is its future among everyday speakers? One expert points out that the percentage of native English speakers is declining globally while the languages of other rapidly growing regions are being spoken by increasing numbers of people. But English will continue to remain widespread and important.

Just 10 years ago, native English speakers were second only to Chinese in number. But British language scholar David Graddol says English will probably drop in dominance by the middle of this century to rank, after Chinese, about equally with Arabic, Hindi, and Urdu, a south-Asian tongue closely related to Hindi.

He points out that the decline will not be in total numbers of English speakers, but in relative terms. "The number of people speaking English as a first language continues to rise, but it isn't rising nearly as fast as the numbers of many other languages around the world simply because the main population group has been largely in the lesser developed countries where languages other than English have been spoken," he says.

In a recent article in the journal Science, Mr. Graddol noted that three languages not now near the top of the list of the most widely spoken might be there soon. These are Bengali, Tamil, and Malay, spoken in south and southeast Asia.

But another expert on the English language says Mr. Graddol underestimates the future of its dominance. David Crystal of the University of Wales, the author of the Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, says about 1.5 billion of the world's six billion people speak it as a second tongue compared to the 400 million native speakers.

"Nobody quite knows what's going to happen because no language has been in this position before. But all the evidence suggests that the English language snowball is rolling down a hill and is getting faster and faster and faster and accreting new foreign language users unlike any language has ever done before," he said. "I don't myself see that process stopping in the immediate future. David Graddol thinks even that momentum will die in the near future, but personally I think there is no sign of this.

He also disagrees with the notion that English's growth as a second tongue means it will become the world language to the exclusion of all others. "We have grown up with the idea of dominance meaning that a language actually pushes out other languages and takes over the world. That's not actually what seems to be happening. Precisely because people are learning English as a second language, they are not actually giving up their first languages. They are becoming bilingual or multilingual. So the spread of English around the world is actually creating a greatly increased bilingualism and multilingualism," he says.

(Agencies)

英語正迅速成為世界性的科技用語,但是作為日常使用的口語,它的未來會是怎樣的呢?有專家指出:從全球范圍來看,以英語為母語的人數比例正在不斷下降,而越來越多的人在使用其他迅速發展地區的語言。但是,英語將會繼續普及并保持其重要地位。

也就是在十年前,以英語為母語的人數僅次于以漢語為母語的人數,位居第二。但是英國語言學家戴維·格雷德爾認為到本世紀中葉英語的主導地位很可能有所下降,位居漢語之后,與阿拉伯語、北印度語和烏爾都語(一種與北印度語十分相近的南亞語言)的地位相差不多。

他指出英語使用者的總數不會下降,但其它方面就很難說了。他說:“把英語作為母語的人數會繼續上升,但是其增長速度不如世界上許多其他語種快,那只是因為人口大都集中在以英語之外的其他語言為主的欠發達國家。”

格雷德爾先生在《科學》期刊最近發表的一篇文章中提到有三種語言目前并不是使用最廣泛的語言,但有可能會很快后來居上。這三種語言是南亞和東南亞的孟加拉語、泰米爾語和馬來語。

但是另一位英語語言專家認為格雷德爾低估了英語作為主導性語言的發展前景。英語劍橋百科全書的作者、威爾士大學的戴維·克里斯特爾認為世界上60億人中大約有15億人把英語作為第二語言,同時有4億人把英語作為母語。

他說:“沒有人能夠確切知道英語的未來會是什么樣?因為從來沒有任何一種語言和英語現在的狀況相同。但所有跡象都表明,和以前任何語言不同的是,英語就象從山上滾下來的雪球一樣越滾越快,而且不斷吸引新的母語非英語的使用者。我本人并沒有看出英語的發展在不久的將來會停滯不前。戴維·克里斯特爾認為連英語不斷發展的動力都會在不久的未來消失,但我個人認為還沒有此種跡象。”

他也不贊同這樣的說法:英語作為第二語言的發展意味著它將成為世界的唯一語言。他說:“我們習慣于認為如果一種語言占主導地位的話就意味著它排斥其他語言而席卷全球。事實上似乎并不會這樣發展。正是因為人們把英語作為第二語言來學習,所以他們并未完全放棄自己的母語。他們正逐漸成為會講兩種或多種語言的人。因此,英語在全世界的普及確實極大地使更多的人能講兩種或多種語言。”

exclusion: 除外
multilingual: 使用多種語言的

(中國日報網站譯)

 
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