英文： Experts debate future of English language

English is fast becoming the language of science around the world, but what is its future among everyday speakers? One expert points out that the percentage of native English speakers is declining globally while the languages of other rapidly growing regions are being spoken by increasing numbers of people. But English will continue to remain widespread and important.



Just 10 years ago, native English speakers were second only to Chinese in number. But British language scholar David Graddol says English will probably drop in dominance by the middle of this century to rank, after Chinese, about equally with Arabic, Hindi, and Urdu, a south-Asian tongue closely related to Hindi.



He points out that the decline will not be in total numbers of English speakers, but in relative terms. "The number of people speaking English as a first language continues to rise, but it isn't rising nearly as fast as the numbers of many other languages around the world simply because the main population group has been largely in the lesser developed countries where languages other than English have been spoken," he says.



In a recent article in the journal Science, Mr. Graddol noted that three languages not now near the top of the list of the most widely spoken might be there soon. These are Bengali, Tamil, and Malay, spoken in south and southeast Asia.



But another expert on the English language says Mr. Graddol underestimates the future of its dominance. David Crystal of the University of Wales, the author of the Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, says about 1.5 billion of the world's six billion people speak it as a second tongue compared to the 400 million native speakers.



"Nobody quite knows what's going to happen because no language has been in this position before. But all the evidence suggests that the English language snowball is rolling down a hill and is getting faster and faster and faster and accreting new foreign language users unlike any language has ever done before," he said. "I don't myself see that process stopping in the immediate future. David Graddol thinks even that momentum will die in the near future, but personally I think there is no sign of this.



He also disagrees with the notion that English's growth as a second tongue means it will become the world language to the exclusion of all others. "We have grown up with the idea of dominance meaning that a language actually pushes out other languages and takes over the world. That's not actually what seems to be happening. Precisely because people are learning English as a second language, they are not actually giving up their first languages. They are becoming bilingual or multilingual. So the spread of English around the world is actually creating a greatly increased bilingualism and multilingualism," he says.







　　　中文：英语的未来会怎样？ 专家众说纷纭

英语正迅速成为世界性的科技用语，但是作为日常使用的口语，它的未来会是怎样的呢？有专家指出：从全球范围来看，以英语为母语的人数比例正在不断下降，而越来越多的人在使用其他迅速发展地区的语言。但是，英语将会继续普及并保持其重要地位。



也就是在十年前，以英语为母语的人数仅次于以汉语为母语的人数，位居第二。但是英国语言学家戴维·格雷德尔认为到本世纪中叶英语的主导地位很可能有所下降，位居汉语之后，与阿拉伯语、北印度语和乌尔都语（一种与北印度语十分相近的南亚语言）的地位相差不多。



他指出英语使用者的总数不会下降，但其它方面就很难说了。他说："把英语作为母语的人数会继续上升，但是其增长速度不如世界上许多其他语种快，那只是因为人口大都集中在以英语之外的其他语言为主的欠发达国家。"



格雷德尔先生在《科学》期刊最近发表的一篇文章中提到有三种语言目前并不是使用最广泛的语言，但有可能会很快后来居上。这三种语言是南亚和东南亚的孟加拉语、泰米尔语和马来语。



但是另一位英语语言专家认为格雷德尔低估了英语作为主导性语言的发展前景。英语剑桥百科全书的作者、威尔士大学的戴维·克里斯特尔认为世界上60亿人中大约有15亿人把英语作为第二语言，同时有4亿人把英语作为母语。



他说："没有人能够确切知道英语的未来会是什么样？因为从来没有任何一种语言和英语现在的状况相同。但所有迹象都表明，和以前任何语言不同的是，英语就象从山上滚下来的雪球一样越滚越快，而且不断吸引新的母语非英语的使用者。我本人并没有看出英语的发展在不久的将来会停滞不前。戴维·克里斯特尔认为连英语不断发展的动力都会在不久的未来消失，但我个人认为还没有此种迹象。"



他也不赞同这样的说法：英语作为第二语言的发展意味着它将成为世界的唯一语言。他说："我们习惯于认为如果一种语言占主导地位的话就意味着它排斥其他语言而席卷全球。事实上似乎并不会这样发展。正是因为人们把英语作为第二语言来学习，所以他们并未完全放弃自己的母语。他们正逐渐成为会讲两种或多种语言的人。因此，英语在全世界的普及确实极大地使更多的人能讲两种或多种语言。"
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