- Hardcover: 352 pages
- Publisher: Allen Lane (4 Nov 2010)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1846142156
- ISBN-13: 978-1846142154
- Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 15.2 x 3.4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 331,904 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
The Last Lingua Franca: English Until the Return of Babel
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Product Description
Review
“A bracing history of lingua francas and their dynamic variation, with a focus on the perfect wave that International English is riding—toward a wipeout…His aim is not pedantic but to pique general readers’ code-cracking interest. Ostler does not assume specialist knowledge, but he does assume that his readers share his gargantuan and voluptuary appetite for words, languages and history.”
"—Kirkus Reviews"
Product Description
In this provocative and persuasive new book, Nicholas Ostler challenges our assumption that English will continue to dominate as the global lingua franca. Drawing on his encyclopaedic knowledge of world languages and their history, Ostler reveals that just as past great languages like Latin and Sanskrit have died out, so English will follow.
The influence of English now is hard to exaggerate – it is the world’s preferred medium for business, science and entertainment, and is claimed to be a basic educational tool like mathematics or computing. So is it here to stay? For the last four centuries, the dominant world power has been English-speaking, but the global balance of power is shifting. And in countries like Brazil, Russia and China, English plays no part in the national tradition.
Although globalization has helped the rise of English, trade, migration, economic development and technological innovation are now changing the way we access and use language. Ostler shows how we are headed towards a much more multilingual and diverse future. And as English retreats, no single language will take its place.
We can embrace this future but first we need to accept it: the last competitive advantage of native English-speakers will soon be consigned to history.
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Format:Hardcover
(Readers may wish to note that the paperback edition is under a separate listing here.)
"The decline of English, when it begins, will not seem of great moment". Thus with huge understatement, Nicholas Ostler begins his tour of lingua-francas culminating with his forecast for the future of English in that role.
Beginning with an overview of the current status of English around the world, Ostler then turns to the past. There is a lengthy case study of Persian, over two chapters successively considering the earlier use of the language followed by its rise as a lingua-franca amongst the predominantly Turkic speaking Islamic realms stretching from Anatolia through Central Asia to India.
Mechanisms for the spread of lingua-francas are surveyed, firstly by means of trade and then as a vehicle of religion - Pali amongst Buddhism, Latin in Western Europe, and Aramaic in the Middle East. Pathways of subsequent decline are analysed, characterised as "ruin" - economic decline, "relegation" - conscious political acts (such as the attack on Persian by the English in India, the Russians in Central Asia and nationalist Turks post WW1), and "resignation" - social changes (for example the decline of Latin, and later French and German as European lingua-francas).
In turning back to the future, Ostler casts his eye over the other major lingua-francas around the world today, and concludes that no one of them poses any threat to displace English. So what lies ahead? Will English consolidate and deepen its position as a genuine Worldspeak? Will it continue more or less as now, or perhaps even fragment into dialects? Or will it "resign" - retreat once again back to primarily a mother tongue losing its lingua-franca role?
Here Ostler sees a new hitherto unknown mechanism coming into play - technology and the internet. Before long the need to spend years learning a lingua-franca will be obviated by such tools at our disposal. The loss of lingua-francas will not be a return to Babel, rather "everyone will speak and write in whatever language they choose, and the world will understand".
"The decline of English, when it begins, will not seem of great moment". Thus with huge understatement, Nicholas Ostler begins his tour of lingua-francas culminating with his forecast for the future of English in that role.
Beginning with an overview of the current status of English around the world, Ostler then turns to the past. There is a lengthy case study of Persian, over two chapters successively considering the earlier use of the language followed by its rise as a lingua-franca amongst the predominantly Turkic speaking Islamic realms stretching from Anatolia through Central Asia to India.
Mechanisms for the spread of lingua-francas are surveyed, firstly by means of trade and then as a vehicle of religion - Pali amongst Buddhism, Latin in Western Europe, and Aramaic in the Middle East. Pathways of subsequent decline are analysed, characterised as "ruin" - economic decline, "relegation" - conscious political acts (such as the attack on Persian by the English in India, the Russians in Central Asia and nationalist Turks post WW1), and "resignation" - social changes (for example the decline of Latin, and later French and German as European lingua-francas).
In turning back to the future, Ostler casts his eye over the other major lingua-francas around the world today, and concludes that no one of them poses any threat to displace English. So what lies ahead? Will English consolidate and deepen its position as a genuine Worldspeak? Will it continue more or less as now, or perhaps even fragment into dialects? Or will it "resign" - retreat once again back to primarily a mother tongue losing its lingua-franca role?
Here Ostler sees a new hitherto unknown mechanism coming into play - technology and the internet. Before long the need to spend years learning a lingua-franca will be obviated by such tools at our disposal. The loss of lingua-francas will not be a return to Babel, rather "everyone will speak and write in whatever language they choose, and the world will understand".
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