Description

English may be the world's lingua franca-the absolute most commonly spoken language in history. And yet, as historian and linguist Nicholas Ostler persuasively argues, English won't just be displaced whilst the world's vocabulary in the not-distant future, it'll function as the final lingua franca, not changed by another.Empire, business, and religion have been the main raisons d'etre for lingua francas--Greek, Latin, Arabic have all kept the positioning--and Ostler examines each through the contact of cultures spanning the planet and background, from China and India to Russia and Europe. Three developments arise that advise the best drop of Language and additional lingua francas. Actions around the world towards equality in culture will limit the position of elites--and the dialect will progressively escape to its native-speaking areas, because elites would be the primary customers of non-native English.