by Sarah Murray

Created on: April 14, 2008

In Crystal's chapter entitled "The English Language Today" the range of English speakers is explored. According to Crystal the amount of English speakers whose English is their mother-tongue has increased from around 6 million at around 1558, to around 300 million as it stands today. The estimate of people who use English as a foreign language is around 400 million. Why has there been such an increase of people using and speaking English? Again according to Crystal, it's due to America, there are so many of them that the exact number is almost impossible to estimate. The question is however, what will happen to other countries if they do not use English as their mother tongue?

There are two types of the language learning process; the first is where the second language, as it is known, forms the basis that education, the media and the Government builds on. This second language is usually learnt in schools from a very early age. We can estimate the amount of second language users at around 300 million.

The second part of English language development is where people live in a country where English has no official status; therefore English is learned as a foreign language. The language is more than often learnt through the aid of self-help' materials. There are no actual figures to show the number of foreign language speakers but pure guesswork puts it at about 100 million.

English has become the world's dominant language in the way of advertising for example. Also English is used in most airports and international businesses. The Chinese hold the record for the sheer number of mother-tongue speakers. This just shows that it is not the number of mother-tongue speakers that make a dominant language, but it is the importance of how a language is used outside of a country where English is not a mother-tongue language.

There are consequences to English becoming a world dominant language. There are people who are becoming increasingly concerned about the use of their mother-tongue language. Some people can see the destruction and deterioration of their language as it spreads throughout the world. English mother-tongue speakers take pride in their language and some are finding it quite difficult to find that their language has become a minority language.

There are huge questions that surround the future of the English language. Some people are asking what will happen to it after the end of the twentieth century. Or what will happen when it starts to form new varieties? There are speakers and writers already who are finding it difficult to express their own individual identities.

Crystal says there have been many predictions made that in the future both English and American English may become unintelligible but this is yet to happen. According to the history of language this could actually be possible, it also shows us that it can develop.

There seems to be an urgent need for a world level communication and English seems to be the way. The language learning process is complicated and can only really be analysed if one can understand just how important the English language is.

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