English as a lingua franca

I am going to tell you something about English as a lingua franca. I will be talking about 3 different subjects concerning English as a lingua franca and a lingua franca in common. First of all I will tell you something about the purpose of a lingua franca, or in other words; What is a lingua franca. Secondly I will give some reasons why a lingua franca should be or might be introduced. Then last but not least I will mention some of the problem which might occur when you’re trying to introduce a lingua franca. What is a lingua franca? A lingua franca is a language which would be used as a second language by all people. Maybe some of you have ever heard about Esperanto. It was created in 1859 by dr. Ludwik Zamenhof. Dr. Zamenhof was born in the former Russian part of Poland. His official profession was doctor. The city where he was born, Bialystok, it was common that the people where speaking Russian, Polish, Latvian, Ukrainian, Lithuanian and German. At the end of the 19th century Dr. Zamenhof wrote a book for which he was using the pseudonym “Dr. Esperanto”. This name was based on his hope for a new language. This language supposed to become a language which would be used and learned by everyone, so everybody would be able to understand each other and therefore the people might appreciate each other a bit more than when they are not able to understand each other. Dr. Zamenhof died in Warsaw in 1917. He never saw his ideal to have one common language become reality just partly. Since this time people became more and more interested in one common language, but so far nobody succeeded. English is one of the most mentioned languages when people are talking about a lingua franca, that’s one of the reasons why I chose English as a lingua franca as the subject of my presentation. Now I will tell you something about the reasons why we should have English as a lingua franca. First of all English is already used a lot all over the world. Especially in the business world, English is one of the most common languages for doing business with companies in foreign countries. Now I will give you an example you probably all know. The internet. If you will surf to a non-English website which is having the possibility to change the language, it is the most common that you will find an translation into English. Have a look on a Chinese, Dutch, German, French, Czech or any other webpage, you will see that English is used a lot. Those were 2 reasons which show and maybe even prove that in case a lingua franca is introduced it should be the English language. I will now tell you why we should have a lingua franca in common. First of all it would take away all problem with language barriers. One common language would provide us the possibility to understand people from all over the world. I think this would be a huge improvement and advantage. It would give us the possibility to communicate with everybody we want. It would open a new world for everyone. With one common language it would be more easy for people to understand the culture and habits of different countries, because they could be explained in the lingua franca. It would give us a new view on foreign cultures and it would definitely help us to understand and accept the way of thinking in those cultures. This understanding would lead to respect and interest in those cultures. Another reason why a lingua franca would be very useful is that in case you or your parents would move to a different country, it should be way less problematic than it is nowadays. You would be able to continue your education without having the obligation to learn the native language first. It would be also more easy to integrate into the culture of this country, because the people would be able to help you when you would really do something wrong. This is only possible in case we have a lingua franca. It would be also more easy for students to talk with other students in other countries about their own study. This might give a alternative view on some things and it would definitely prepare the youth for the future in the world. I would say those reasons I just gave already prove that a lingua franca would improve our world and increase our knowledge. Finally I will tell you something about problems which might occur in case you would introduce a lingua franca. First of all I will talk about possible problems which could come into being in case English would become a lingua franca. Some countries wouldn’t accept English as their first language. A reason for this is that several countries have had bad experiences with the people from native English speaking countries. Russia for example, was having several problems with the USA, and they would not accept an, for them, enemy language as their primary language. Even today the USA and Russia cannot be called friends, they accept each other, but that’s it. This is only one example, but like this there are many countries. For those countries the problem might be wars which took place in the past, and also because of the cruelties which were often no exception in those wars. In some cases there is still a feeling of hatred against the English. Another reason why people might refuse English as a lingua franca is the way the USA is behaving sometimes. They often see themselves like the most powerful country in the world. They think they are the controllers of the world, especially at the area of economics. This might be a reason for refusing English as a lingua franca because they think that the USA would feel even more prestigious, because their language will be spoken everywhere, their language would be the best. The last reason why English would bring some problems when it would become a lingua franca is that there are quite a lot of different kinds of English. We have Oxford English, American English, Scottish English, etc. It would be difficult to decide which one should become the lingua franca because if you pick one the others would feel discriminated. Now I will mention some problems in common when you are trying to introduce a lingua franca. First of all there are a lot of people who are afraid for one language because they think they would lose their own native language. For many countries their language is something which is giving an own identity to their country. Losing this language would therefore mean losing this identity. This would mean that there would be nothing left except for a piece of ground, for those people their language gives them the feeling to be a part of their country. Another quite important problem is that in case everybody is speaking one language a lot of jobs would become completely unnecessary. Interpreters, teachers and translators would be without a job, and especially in the first years after the introduction of a lingua franca there would be an increase of the unemployment. Last but not least I would like to mention that with one common language it might happen that people are losing their interest in foreign countries. This is rather a result which would occur after some time passed. This lack of interest might lead to nationalism. My conclusion is that English is having really a lot of advantages and therefore I think it would be a good idea to give it a try as a lingua franca. Most of the disadvantages are based on political and cultural differences. Nevertheless I think that those disadvantages are much weaker than the mentioned advantages. Up till now the disadvantages I have mentioned are based on opinions and expectations, while most of the advantages are containing facts, from which some are already visible nowadays. One of those visible things is the usage of English translations on the internet. If you will have a look at universities nowadays you will see that the lectures are more and more taught in English. This is mainly done to prepare the young students for their future and for the role English will play in this future. My opinion is that it would be a good idea to introduce English as a lingua franca, it would make a lot of things more easy for many people. And if it might turn out to be impossible to use it all over the world, then I would be still a big fan for English as a primary language in the EU.