1
As China becomes a global power, Chinese language will assume a greater global significance. That significance will extend over business, trade, culture and other areas. But, will Chinese have the influence of English now has? Will Chinese ever become the global language?
After the year 1600, the British Empire began to spread English around the world. The process around a huge boost in the 20th century through the business, technology and postwar reconstruction. Beyond this, there were a number of quite extraordinary trends in culture, science and the arts that reinforces these developments. Either way, English now stands unchallenged as the world's international language.
English remains relevant today in every sphere of human life and activity. Though China's economy is strong enough to significantly boost the cause of the Chinese. It seems unlikely that Chinese is going to displace English as the global language eventually. If that were to happen. It would arouse an entire linguistic and Cultural Revolution which does not seem feasible or practical. Interestingly, there is not much effort even from Chinese to promote their language on an international stage. They are happy to be able to speak their own language. But when it comes to international business .It is they who choose, the way the world does - in English.
However it cannot be denied that till now Chinese is the most widely - spoken language in the world. But that is because of the huge China's population, within and outside China. It seems quite improbably and far-fetched that the most widely-spoken language in the world will also become the most popular.
2
It is widely accepted that English,
is the lingua franca* of the
world—the language of business
in a globalized economy. It is
also the language of the Internet,
the most important technology
contributing to the rise of
globalization and the resulting
dominance of American English as the international language. The
ascension* of English as the international language began with the
rise to a global power of the British Empire in the 19th and early
20th century and was affi rmed and extended by the United States’
taking the baton of world economic and military power from Great
Britain at the close of the Second World War. The consolidation
of U.S. power, in particular with the end of the Cold War at the
close of the 20th century, meant that American English would be
the language of international communication for the foreseeable
future.
However, recently, with the rise of China as a global economic player
on the world scene, there has been talk of China’s challenging the
United States’ economic dominance and therefore the concomitant*
rise of the Chinese language (specifically, Mandarin) as a rival to
American English as the world’s common language. Based on
the widely publicized fi gure of a 10% growth grate of the Chinese
economy in the last decade, predictions have been made that,
as China catches and surpasses the U.S. as the dominant global
economic power, Chinese will overtake English as the international
language of business, technology and politics sometime in this
century, perhaps even in the next fi fty years.
Nevertheless, as with many propositions
that, when repeated enough times by a
lot of people are then taken for “facts,” the
coming economic challenge of China to
the U.S. and of Chinese to English as the
international language is unlikely to happen
any time soon. Lester Thurow, the noted
MIT economist of globalization, recently
published his analysis of the 10% growth-rate
claim of the Chinese economy, and, using
the Chinese government’s own statistics, he
showed convincingly that this fi gure is simply
not possible. In fact, the growth rate of the
Chinese economy for the last decade has
been more like 4% per annum, a fi gure not
much above the U.S. growth rate of 3.5%
during the same period. Using these more
realistic statistics, and assuming a constant
average growth rate of about 4-5% annually,
Thurow projects a Chinese contest of U.S.
global economic dominance, if it happens at
all, to arrive no sooner than the 22nd century,
not the twenty-fi rst
3
When I started considering this question a few years ago, it seemed like a complex question. The eventual outcome would be determined by a tangled stew of global sociological dynamics, trade and investment flows, migration patterns, economic growth rates, popular culture development and marketing, thought and opinion leadership, technology development, etc.
I since have come to believe the answer is fairly simple: No, because Chinese is too difficult to learn and master as a second language.
Certainly Chinese is an important language today, if for no other reason than because more than 1 billion people use it. And, it will remain important for many decades and probably centuries into the future.
But, will large numbers of non-native speakers someday use it as a neutral, common language in order to converse with each other? Will corporate executives from France and Germany shift to Chinese when they meet to discuss business? How about students from Ghana and Thailand studying together in Canada? Or, government ministers from India and Australia discussing trade issues?
I don’t believe so. And, those are the attributes that define a “global language”.
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