Which country has the largest number of English speaking people in the world? Or in which country do people learn English the most?
Try to guess!
This country is China.
According to a study published by Cambridge University Press, 350 million people in China have some knowledge of English. And there are 100 million more people in India.
It is probably the second language of many Chinese people in the United States, the first language (mother tongue) of the people. (One-fifth of people in the United States speak a language other than English in their home).
As a world economic forum, 1.5 billion people in the world now speak English. But it is the mother tongue of less than 400 million of them.
It is true that there are many different English languages in the world. Not all people in England themselves speak the same type of English. For example, in the historic port city of Portsmouth in England, the regional language 'Pompeii' is still in use. It still survives the challenge of a new type of English language created online or American English. Suppose a man from China meets a man from France. One cannot speak French. Another can't speak Chinese. Which language will the two of them speak then? The chances are very high that they will choose English. That would have been the case five years ago.
But now the situation has changed. With the advent of computer translation technology and the 'voice recognition technology', both of them can now speak their own language. Is there any need to learn English when the machine or technology as well as the translation computer is making your translation work so much easier?
If you do business internationally, or play the latest video games, or want to listen to the latest popular pop music, you risk not knowing English. In each case, they have seized it, despite obstacles we can scarcely imagine. "
But the situation is changing quite fast.
Onkum Lee, a South Korean computer scientist, is conducting a study at Stanford University in California, USA. His goal is to create a voice recognition and translation technology that, when people talk to a customer service helpline about this technology, they will never know whether it is a human or a computer! Many Hispanic Americans in the United States want to preserve their Central and South American traditions. They combined English and the language of their parents or an immigrant ancestor of a previous generation to create a new language, Spanish. But now with the rise of China as a new economic superpower, English dominance is now being challenged.
In which country in sub-Saharan Africa would a job-seeking unemployed youth be more interested in learning English or Mandarin Chinese? From a career point of view, it is more interesting for him to go to China to learn Mandarin than to go to the United States or Britain to find a job. So is the future of English in jeopardy? No, in my opinion, its dominance around the world may continue to decline in the coming decades. But like all other languages, English will continue to change and adapt to the new situation.
Let's give an example. Even to this day, in English, 'text' and 'friend' were simple nouns, or nouns. But now we are using both the words as 'verbs' or verbs. For example, 'I will text you' or 'Why don't you friend me'? Although what I now call English is very different from the English of their time.