English in an international context
Today, a greater variety of languages may be spoken in the United States than ever before. The impact, particularly in cities where immigrants settle in large numbers, is very evident. The Los Angeles Times (2/10/88) reported that lhe 160,000 students enrolled in the Los Angeles Unified School District spoke a staggering eighty-one different languages! Predictably, some Americans oppose the costs of providing multilingual services, and many more feel threatened by such linguistic and cultural diversity. Some have even organized attempts, which have been successful in some stales, to pass laws making English the official language. According to the New York Times (2/8/90), by the end of 1988, sixteen stales had adopted laws or constitutional amendments making English their official language. Thus far, these laws are mostly symbolic expressing citizens' fears for the primacy of English but having little or no effect on the day-to-day operations of stale governments and not impinging on
?????isly enacted measures like those mandating multilingual ballots or court iterpreters for non-English-speaking defendants in criminal trials. But a , federal judge nonetheless nullified an Arizona constitutional amendment making English the language "of all government functions and actions." ruling that. in violated federally protected free speech rights.
Does the United States need laws 10 protect and promote English? We don't think so. For one thing, cultural uniformity can't be achieved by force of law and threat of penalty. But equally important, the English language is under no threat. Today, English is a world language, a native language to more than 16.000.000 people and a second language to 1,336,000,000 more. In addition, English serves as a lingua franca, an agreed upon vehicle of communication for specific purposes among speakers who may not share any other language, for countless others ranging from airline pilots to computer scientist. Globally, American English is only one of a number of major national dialects with their own unique features. Some of the larger communities of speakers of distinctive dialects of English as a first language include those who speak British English (56.000.000 speakers); South Asian English, including the people of India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Bhutan (estimated a 27,000,000)
Canadian English (17,000,000), Australian English (14,000,000); Irish English (3,300,000); New Zealand English 3,000,000), South African English (2,000,000);
and Jamaican English (2,300,000). But there are many other "world Englishes," as figure indicates.
Worldwide, British and American English have been most influential on learners of English as a foreign language through the major involvement by speakers of those dialects in leaching English as a foreign language (EFL). But none of the varieties, including British and American, can claim preeminence on linguistic grounds as the standard for the others. Each is a legitimate version of English. Just as that abstract entity American English is in the broadest sense the sum of its regional and social dialects, so Global English must be defined as the sum of various national and local varieties.
Within the United Slates. English also exists in an international context as one language amid many.
