English as a global language

The relationship between the global spread of English and its impact on other languages attracted increasing debate during the 1990s. The fact that it is possible to show a correlation between the rate of English adoption and the demise of minority languages has led some observers to reassert the conclusion that there is a simple causal link between the two phenomena, ignoring the fact that there has been a similar loss of linguistic diversity in parts of the world where English has not had a history of significant presence, such as Latin America, Russia and China. A more deep-rooted process of globalization seems to be at work today, transcending individual language situations. Anachronistic views of linguistic imperialism, which see as important only the power asymmetry between the former colonial nations and the nations of the 'third world', are hopelessly inadequate as an explanation of linguistic realities. They especially ignore the fact that 'first world' countries with strong languages seem to be under just as much pressure to adopt English, and that some of the harshest attacks on English have come from countries which have no such colonial legacy. When dominant languages feel they are being dominated, something much bigger than a simplistic conception of power relations must be involved.

These other factors, which include the recognition of global interdependence, the desire to have a voice in world affairs, and the value of multilingualism in attracting trade markets, all support the adoption of a functionalist account of English, where the language is seen as a valuable instrument enabling people to achieve particular goals. Local languages continue to perform an important set of functions (chiefly, the expression of local identity) and English is seen as the primary means of achieving a global presence. The approach recognizes the legacy of colonialism, as a matter of historical fact, but the emphasis is now on discontinu-ities, away from power and towards functional specialization. It is a model which sees English playing a central role in empow-ering the subjugated and marginalized, and eroding the division between the 'haves' and the 'have nots'. Those who argue for this position have been dismissed as displaying 'naive liberal idealism' and adopting a 'liberal laissez-faire attitude'. Rather, it is the linguistic imperialism position which is naive, disregarding the complex realities of a world in which a historical conception of power relations has to be seen alongside an emerging set of empowering relationships in which English has a new functional role, no longer associated with the political authority it once held.

If working towards the above goal is idealism, then I am happy to be an idealist; however, it is by no means laissez-faire, given the amount of time, energy and money which have been devoted in recent years to language revitalization and related matters. Ad-mittedly, the progress which has been made is tiny compared with the disastrous effects of globalization on global diversity. But to place all the blame on English, and to ignore the more funda-mental economic issues that are involved, is, as two recent com-mentators have put it, 'to attack the wrong target, to indulge in linguistic luddism'. Solutions are more likely to come from the domain of economic policy, not language policy. As Lysandrou and Lysandrou conclude:

If English can facilitate the process of universal dispossession and loss, so can it be turned round and made to facilitate the contrary process of universal empowerment and gain.

1.5 Could anything stop a global language?

Any discussion of an emerging global language has to be seen in the political context of global governance as a whole. In January 1995, the Commission on Global Governance published its re¬port, Our global neighbourhood. A year later, the Commission's co-chairman, Sridath Ramphal, commented (in the paper referred to on p. 19):

There were, for the most part, people who were pleased that the Report had engaged the central issue of a global community, but they took us to task for not going on - in as they thought in a logical way - to call for a world language. They could not see how the global neighbourhood, the global community, which they acknowledged had come into being, could function effectively without a world language. A neighbourhood that can only talk in the tongues of many was not a neighbourhood that was likely to be cohesive or, perhaps, even cooperative .. .And they were right in one respect; but they were wrong in the sense that we have a world language. It is not the language of imperialism; it is the language we have seen that has evolved out of a history of which we need not always be proud, but whose legacies we must use to good effect.

And at another place, he comments: 'there is no retreat from English as the world language; no retreat from an English- speaking world'.

Strong political statements of this kind immediately prompt the question, 'Could anything stop a language, once it achieves a global status?' The short answer must be 'yes'. If language dom-inance is a matter of political and especially economic influence, then a revolution in the balance ofglobal power could have conse-quences for the choice of global language. There is no shortage of books - chiefly within the genre of science fiction - which fore¬see a future in which, following some cataclysmic scenario, the universal language is Chinese, Arabic or even some Alien tongue. But to end up with such a scenario, the revolution would indeed have to be cataclysmic, and it is difficult to speculate sensibly about what this might be. Smaller-scale revolutions in the world order would be unlikely to have much effect, given that - as we shall see in later chapters - English is now so widely established that it can no longer be thought of as 'owned' by any single nation.

A rather more plausible scenario is that an alternative method of communication could emerge which would eliminate the need for a global language. The chief candidate here is automatic transla¬tion ('machine translation'). If progress in this domain continues to be as rapid as it has been in the past decade, there is a dis¬tinct possibility that, within a generation or two, it will be routine for people to communicate with each other directly, using their first languages, with a computer 'taking the strain' between them.

This state of affairs can already be seen, to a limited extent, on the Internet, where some firms are now offering a basic translation service between certain language pairs. A sender types in a mes-sage in language X, and a version of it appears on the receiver's screen in language Y. The need for post-editing is still consider-able, however, as translation software is currently very limited in its ability to handle idiomatic, stylistic, and several other linguistic features; the machines are nowhere near replacing their human counterparts. Similarly, notwithstanding the remarkable progress in speech recognition and synthesis which has taken place in recent years, the state of the art in real-time speech-to-speech automatic translation is still primitive. The 'Babel fish', inserted into the ear, thus making all spoken languages (in the galaxy) intelligible, is no more than an intriguing concept.

The accuracy and speed of real-time automatic translation is undoubtedly going to improve dramatically in the next twenty- five to fifty years, but it is going to take much longer before this medium becomes so globally widespread, and so economically ac¬cessible to all, that is poses a threat to the current availability and appeal of a global language. And during this time frame, all the evi¬dence suggests that the position of English as a global language is going to become stronger. By the time automatic translation matures as a popular communicative medium, that position will very likely have become impregnable. It will be very interesting to see what happens then - whether the presence of a global lan¬guage will eliminate the demand for world translation services, or whether the economics of automatic translation will so undercut the cost of global language learning that the latter will become otiose. It will be an interesting battle 100 years from now.

1.6 A critical era

It is impossible to make confident predictions about the emer-gence of a global language. There are no precedents for this kind of linguistic growth, other than on a much smaller scale. And the speed with which a global language scenario has arisen is truly remarkable. Within little more than a generation, we have moved from a situation where a world language was a theoretical possi-bility to one where it is an evident reality.

No government has yet found it possible to plan confidently, in such circumstances. Languages of identity need to be maintained. Access to the emerging global language - widely perceived as a language of opportunity and empowerment - needs to be guar-anteed. Both principles demand massive resources. The irony is that the issue is approaching a climax at a time when the world financial climate can least afford it.

Fundamental decisions about priorities have to be made. Those making the decisions need to bear in mind that we may well be approaching a critical moment in human linguistic history. It is possible that a global language will emerge only once. Certainly, as we have seen, after such a language comes to be established it would take a revolution of world-shattering proportions to replace it. And in due course, the last quarter of the twentieth century will be seen as a critical time in the emergence ofthis global language.

For the reasons presented in the next three chapters, all the signs suggest that this global language will be English. But there is still some way to go before a global lingua franca becomes a universal reality. Despite the remarkable growth in the use of English, at least two-thirds of the world population do not yet use it. In certain parts of the world (most of the states of the former Soviet Union, for example), English has still a very limited presence. And in some countries, increased resources are being devoted to maintaining the role of other languages (such as the use of French in several countries of Africa). Notwithstanding the general world trend, there are many linguistic confrontations still to be resolved.

Governments who wish to play their part in influencing the world's linguistic future should therefore ponder carefully, as they make political decisions and allocate resources for language plan¬ning. Now, more than at any time in linguistic history, they need to adopt long-term views, and to plan ahead - whether their in¬terests are to promote English or to develop the use of other languages in their community (or, of course, both). If they miss this linguistic boat, there may be no other.

2. Why English? The historical context

'Why is English the global language, and not some other?' There are two answers to the question: one is geographical-historical; the other is socio-cultural. The geo-historical answer shows how English reached a position of pre-eminence, and this is presented below. The socio-cultural answer explains why it remains so, and this is presented in chapters 3 and 4. The combination of these two strands has brought into existence a language which consists of many varieties, each distinctive in its use of sounds, grammar, and vocabulary, and the implications of this are presented in chapter 5.

The historical account traces the movement of English around the world, beginning with the pioneering voyages to the Americas, Asia, and the Antipodes. It was an expansion which continued with the nineteenth-century colonial developments in Africa and the South Pacific, and which took a significant further step when it was adopted in the mid twentieth century as an official or semi-official language by many newly independent states. English is now represented in every continent, and in islands of the three major oceans - Atlantic (St Helena), Indian (Seychelles) and Pacific (in many islands, such as Fiji and Hawaii). It is this spread of representation which makes the application of the label 'global language' a reality.

The socio-cultural explanation looks at the way people all over the world, in many walks of life, have come to depend on English for their economic and social well-being. The language has pen-etrated deeply into the international domains of political life, business, safety, communication, entertainment, the media and education. The convenience of having a lingua franca available to serve global human relations and needs has come to be appreci-ated by millions. Several domains, as we shall see, have come to be totally dependent on it - the computer software industry being a prime example.

2.1. 

2.1 Origins

How far back do we have to go in order to find the origins of global English? In a sense, the language has always been on the move. As soon as it arrived in England from northern Europe, in the fifth century, it began to spread around the British Isles. It entered parts of Wales, Cornwall, Cumbria and southern Scotland, traditionally the strongholds of the Celtic languages. After the Norman invasion of 1066, many nobles from England fled north to Scotland, where they were made welcome, and eventually the language (in a distinctive Scots variety) spread throughout the Scottish lowlands. From the twelfth century, Anglo-Norman knights were sent across the Irish Sea, and Ireland gradually fell under English rule.

But, compared with later events, these were movements on a very local scale - within the British Isles. The first significant step in the progress of English towards its status as a global language did not take place for another 300 years, towards the end of the sixteenth century. At that time, the number of mother-tongue English speakers in the world is thought to have been between 5 and 7 million, almost all of them living in the British Isles. Between the end of the reign of Elizabeth I (1603) and the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth II (1952), this figure increased almost fiftyfold, to some 250 million, the vast majority living outside the British

Isles. Most of these people were, and continue to be, Americans, and it is in sixteenth-century North America that we first find a fresh dimension being added to the history of the language.

2.2 America

The first expedition from England to the New World was com-missioned by Walter Raleigh in 1584, and proved to be a failure. A group of explorers landed near Roanoke Island, in what is now North Carolina, and established a small settlement. Conflict with the native people followed, and it proved necessary for a ship to return to England for help and supplies. By the time these arrived, in 1590, none of the original group of settlers could be found. The mystery of their disappearance has never been solved.

The first permanent English settlement dates from 1607, when an expedition arrived in Chesapeake Bay. The colonists called their settlement Jamestown (after James I) and the area Virginia (after the 'Virgin Queen', Elizabeth). Further settlements quickly followed along the coast, and also on the nearby islands, such as Bermuda. Then, in November 1620, the first group of Puritans, thirty-five members of the English Separatist Church, arrived on the Mayflower in the company of sixty-seven other settlers. Pre-vented by storms from reaching Virginia, they landed at Cape Cod Bay, and established a settlement at what is now Plymouth, Massachusetts.

The group was extremely mixed, ranging in age from young children to people in their 50s, and with diverse regional, social, and occupational backgrounds. What the 'Pilgrim Fathers' (as they were later called) had in common was their search for a land where they could found a new religious kingdom, free from per-secution and 'purified' from the church practices they had expe-rienced in England. It was a successful settlement, and by 1640 about 25,000 immigrants had come to the area.

The two settlements - one in Virginia, to the south, the other to the north, in present-day New England - had different lin¬guistic backgrounds. Although the southern colony brought set¬tlers from several parts of England, many of them came from England's 'West Country' - such counties as Somerset and

Early English-speaking settlement areas in America

Gloucestershire - and brought with them its characteristic ac¬cent, with its 'Zummerzet' voicing of s sounds, and the r strongly pronounced after vowels. Echoes of this accent can still be heard in the speech of communities living in some of the isolated val-leys and islands in the area, such as Tangier Island in Chesapeake Bay. These 'Tidewater' accents, as they are called, have changed somewhat over the past 300 years, but not as rapidly (because of the relative isolation of the speakers) as elsewhere in the country.

By contrast, many of the Plymouth colonists came from coun-ties in the east of England - in particular, Lincolnshire, Notting-hamshire, Essex, Kent and London, with some from the Midlands, and a few from further afield. These eastern accents were rather different - notably, lacking an r after vowels - and they proved to be the dominant influence in this area. The tendency 'not to pronounce the r' is still a feature of the speech of people from New England.

The later population movements across America largely pre-served the dialect distinctions which arose out of these early pat-terns of settlement. The New England people moved west into the region of the Great Lakes; the southerners moved along the Gulf Coast and into Texas; and the midlanders spread throughout the whole of the vast, mid-western area, across the Mississippi and ultimately into California.2 The dialect picture was never a neat one, because of widespread north-south movements within the country, and the continuing inflow of immigrants from different parts of the world. There are many mixed dialect areas, and pock-ets of unexpected dialect forms. But the main divisions of north, midland, and south are still found throughout America today.

During the seventeenth century, new shiploads of immigrants brought an increasing variety of linguistic backgrounds into the country. Pennsylvania, for example, came to be settled mainly by Quakers whose origins were mostly in the Midlands and the north ofEngland. People speaking very different kinds ofEnglish thus found themselves living alongside each other, as the 'middle' Atlantic areas (New York, in particular) became the focus of set-tlement. As a result, the sharp divisions between regional dialects gradually began to blur.

Then, in the eighteenth century, there was a vast wave ofimmi- gration from northern Ireland. The Irish had been migrating to America from around 1600, but the main movements took place during the 1720s, when around 50,000 Irish and Scots-Irish im-migrants arrived. By the time independence was declared (1776), it is thought that one in seven of the colonial population was Scots-Irish. Many stayed along the coast, especially in the area of Philadelphia, but most moved inland through the mountains in search of land. They were seen as frontier people, with an accent which at the time was described as 'broad'. The opening up of the south and west was largely due to the pioneering spirit of this group of settlers.

2 For US dialects see Williamson and Burke (1971). The displacement of the Amerindian populations, and the tragic consequences for them of European immigration, are described in Crystal (2000: 72).

Major dialect areas in the USA: Northern, Midland, Southern

By the time of the first census, in 1790, the population of the country was around 4 million, most of whom lived along the Atlantic coast. A century later, after the opening up of the west, the population numbered over 50 million, spread throughout the continent. The accent which emerged can now be heard all over the so-called Sunbelt (from Virginia to southern California), and is the accent most commonly associated with present-day American speech.

It was not only England which influenced the directions that the English language was to take in America, and later the USA. The Spanish had occupied large parts of the west and south-west. The French were present in the northern territories, around the St Lawrence River, and throughout the middle regions (French Louisiana) as far as the Gulf of Mexico. The Dutch were in New York (originally New Amsterdam) and the surrounding area. Large numbers ofGermans began to arrive at the end ofthe seven¬teenth century, settling mainly in Pennsylvania and its hinterland. In addition, there were increasing numbers of Africans entering the south, as a result of the slave trade, and this dramatically in¬creased in the eighteenth century: a population of little more than 2,500 black slaves in 1700 had become about 100,000 by 1775, far out-numbering the southern whites.

The nineteenth century saw a massive increase in American immigration, as people fled the results ofrevolution, poverty, and famine in Europe. Large numbers of Irish came following the potato famine in Ireland in the 1840s. Germans and Italians came, escaping the consequences of the failed 1848 revolutions. And, as the century wore on, there were increasing numbers of Central European Jews, especially fleeing from the pogroms of the 1880s. In the first two decades of the twentieth century, immigrants were entering the USA at an average of three-quarters of a million a year. In 1900, the population was just over 75 million. This total had doubled by 1950.

Within one or two generations of arrival, most of these im¬migrant families had come to speak English, through a natural process of assimilation. Grandparents and grandchildren found themselves living in very different linguistic worlds. The re¬sult was a massive growth in mother-tongue use of English.

According to the 1990 census, the number of people (over five years of age) who spoke only English at home had grown to over 198 million - 86 per cent of the population. This figure increased to 215 million in the 2000 census (though representing a fall to 82 per cent of the population). This is almost four times as many mother-tongue speakers as any other nation.

Some commentators have suggested that the English language was a major factor in maintaining American unity throughout this period of remarkable cultural diversification - a 'glue' which brought people together and a medium which gave them common access to opportunity. At the same time, some minority groups began to be concerned about the preservation oftheir cultural and linguistic heritage, within a society which was becoming increas¬ingly monolingual. The seeds of a conflict between the need for intelligibility and the need for identity were beginning to grow - a conflict which, by the later decades of the twentieth century, had fuelled the movement in support of English as the official language of the USA (see chapter 5).

2.3 Canada

Meanwhile, the English language was making progress further north. The first English-language contact with Canada was as early as 1497, when John Cabot is thought to have reached New¬foundland; but English migration along the Atlantic coast did not develop until a century later, when the farming, fishing, and fur- trading industries attracted English-speaking settlers. There was ongoing conflict with the French, whose presence dated from the explorations of Jacques Cartier in the 1520s; but this came to an end when the French claims were gradually surrendered during the eighteenth century, following their defeat in Queen Anne's War (1702-13) and the French and Indian War (1754-63). During the 1750s thousands of French settlers were deported from Acadia (modern Nova Scotia), and were replaced by settlers from New England. The numbers were then further increased by many coming directly from England, Ireland, and Scotland

The movement of English into Canada

The next major development followed the US Declaration of Independence in 1776. Loyalist supporters of Britain (the 'United Empire Loyalists') found themselves unable to stay in the new United States, and most left for Canada, settling first in what is now Nova Scotia, then moving to New Brunswick and further in-land. They were soon followed by many thousands (the so-called 'late Loyalists') who were attracted by the cheapness of land, es-pecially in the area known as Upper Canada (above Montreal and north of the Great Lakes). Within fifty years, the population of this province had reached 100,000. Over 31 million were esti-mated in 2001, with two-thirds claiming English as a native or home language.

Because of its origins, Canadian English has a great deal in common with the rest of the English spoken in North America, and those who live outside Canada often find it difficult to hear the difference. Many British people identify a Canadian accent as American; many Americans identify it as British. Canadians themselves insist on not being identified with either group, and certainly the variety does display a number of unique features. In addition, the presence of French as a co-official language, chiefly spoken in Quebec, produces a sociolinguistic situation not found in other English-speaking countries.

2.4 The Caribbean

During the early years of American settlement, the English lan-guage was also spreading in the south. A highly distinctive kind of speech was emerging in the islands of the West Indies and the southern part of the mainland, spoken by the incoming black population. This was a consequence of the importation of African slaves to work on the sugar plantations, a practice started by the Spanish as early as 1517.

From the early seventeenth century, ships from Europe trav-elled to the West African coast, where they exchanged cheap goods for black slaves. The slaves were shipped in barbarous conditions to the Caribbean islands and the American coast, where they were in turn exchanged for such commodities as sugar, rum, and molasses. The ships then returned to England, completing an 'Atlantic triangle' of journeys, and the process began again. The first twenty African slaves arrived in Virginia on a Dutch ship in 1619. By the time of the American Revolution (1776) their numbers had grown to half a million, and there were over 4 million by the time slavery was abolished, at the end of the US Civil War (1865).

The policy of the slave-traders was to bring people of different language backgrounds together in the ships, to make it difficult for groups to plot rebellion. The result was the growth of sev¬eral pidgin forms of communication, and in particular a pidgin between the slaves and the sailors, many of whom spoke English.

Once arrived in the Caribbean, this pidgin English continued to act as a means of communication between the black population and the new landowners, and among the blacks themselves. Then, when their children were born, the pidgin gradually began to be used as a mother tongue, producing the first black creole speech in the region.

It is this creole English which rapidly came to be used through-out the southern plantations, and in many of the coastal towns and islands. At the same time, standard British English was becoming a prestige variety throughout the area, because of the emerging political influence of Britain. Creole forms of French, Spanish and Portuguese were also developing in and around the Caribbean, and some ofthese interacted with both the creole and the standard varieties of English. The Caribbean islands, and parts of the adja¬cent Central and South American mainland, thus came to develop a remarkably diverse range of varieties of English, reflecting their individual political and cultural histories. Moreover, West Indian speech did not stay within the Caribbean islands, but moved well outside, with large communities eventually found in Canada, the USA and Britain.

2.5Australia and New Zealand

Towards the end of the eighteenth century, the continuing pro-cess of British world exploration established the English language in the southern hemisphere. The numbers of speakers have never been very large, by comparison with those in the northern hemi¬sphere, but the varieties of English which have emerged are just as distinctive.

Australia was visited by James Cook in 1770, and within twenty years Britain had established its first penal colony at Sydney, thus relieving the pressure on the overcrowded prisons in England. About 130,000 prisoners were transported during the fifty years after the arrival of the 'first fleet' in 1788. 'Free' settlers, as they were called, also began to enter the country from the very be¬ginning, but they did not achieve substantial numbers until the mid-nineteenth century. From then on, immigration rapidly in-creased. By 1850, the population of Australia was about 400,000, and by 1900 nearly 4 million. In 2002, it was nearly 19 million.

The British Isles provided the main source of settlers, and thus the main influence on the language. Many of the convicts came from London and Ireland (especially following the 1798 Irish rebellion), and features of the Cockney accent of London and the brogue of Irish English can be traced in the speech patterns heard in Australia today. On the other hand, the variety contains many expressions which have originated in Australia (including a number from Aboriginal languages), and in recent years the influ¬ence of American English and of a growing number of immigrant groups has been noticeable, so that the country now has a very mixed linguistic character.

In New Zealand (whose Maori name is Aotearoa), the story of English started later and moved more slowly. Captain Cook charted the islands in 1769-70, and European whalers and traders began to settle there in the 1790s, expanding the developments already taking place in Australia. Christian missionary work began among the Maori from about 1814. However, the official colony was not established until 1840, following the Treaty ofWaitangi between Maori chiefs and the British Crown. There was then a rapid increase in European immigration - from around 2,000 in 1840 to 25,000 by 1850, and to three-quarters of a million by 1900. As early as the turn of the century visitors to the coun¬try were making comments on the emergence of a New Zealand accent. The total population in 2002 was over 3.8 million.

Three strands of New Zealand's social history in the present century have had especial linguistic consequences. Firstly, in com¬parison with Australia, there has been a stronger sense of the his¬torical relationship with Britain, and a greater sympathy for British values and institutions. Many people speak with an accent which displays clear British influence. Secondly, there has been a growing sense of national identity, and in particular an emphasis on the differences between New Zealand and Australia. This has drawn attention to differences in the accents of the two countries, and motivated the use of distinctive New Zealand vocabulary. Thirdly, there has been a fresh concern to take account of the rights and needs of the Maori people, who now form over 10 per cent of the population. This has resulted in an increased use of Maori words in New Zealand English.

2.6 South Africa

Although Dutch colonists arrived in the Cape as early as 1652, British involvement in the region dates only from 1795, during the Napoleonic Wars, when an expeditionary force in¬vaded. British control was established in 1806, and a policy of settlement began in earnest in 1820, when some 5,000 British were given land in the eastern Cape. English was made the official language of the region in 1822, and there was an attempt to an¬glicize the large Afrikaans-speaking population. English became the language of law, education, and most other aspects of public life. Further British settlements followed in the 1840s and 1850s, especially in Natal, and there was a massive influx of Europeans following the development of the gold and diamond areas in the Witwatersrand in the 1870s. Nearly half a million immigrants, many of them English-speaking, arrived in the country during the last quarter of the nineteenth century.

The English language history of the region thus has many strands. There was initially a certain amount of regional dialect variation among the different groups of British settlers, with the speech of the London area prominent in the Cape, and Midlands and northern British speech strongly represented in Natal; but in due course a more homogeneous accent emerged - an accent that shares many similarities with the accents of Australia, which was also being settled during this period.

At the same time, English was being used as a second lan-guage by the Afrikaans speakers, and many of the Dutch colonists took this variety with them on the Great Trek of 1836, as they moved north to escape British rule.

South Africa, and adjacent countries

An African variety of En¬glish also developed, spoken by the black population, who had learned the language mainly in mission schools, and which was influenced in different ways by the various language backgrounds of the speakers. In addition, English came to be used, along with Afrikaans and often other languages, by those with an ethnically mixed background ('coloureds'); and it was also adopted by the many immigrants from India, who were brought to the country from around 1860.

English has always been a minority language in South Africa, and is currently spoken as a first language only by about 3.7 mil-lion in a 2002 population of over 43.5 million. Afrikaans, which was given official status in 1925, was the first language of the ma-jority of whites, including most of those in power, and acted as an important symbol of identity for those of Afrikaner background. It was also the first language of most of the coloured population. English was used by the remaining whites (of British background) and by increasing numbers of the (70 per cent majority) black population. There is thus a linguistic side to the political divisions which marked South African apartheid society: Afrikaans came to be perceived by the black majority as the language of authority and repression; English was perceived by the Afrikaner government as the language of protest and self-determination. Many blacks saw English as a means ofachieving an international voice, and uniting themselves with other black communities.

On the other hand, the contemporary situation regarding the use of English is more complex than any simple opposition sug-gests. For the white authorities, too, English is important as a means of international communication, and 'upwardly mobile' Afrikaners have become increasingly bilingual, with fluent com-mand of an English that often resembles the British-based variety. The public statements by Afrikaner politicians in recent years, seen on world television, illustrate this ability. As a result, a continuum of accents exists, ranging from those which are strongly influenced by Afrikaans to those which are very close to British Received Pro¬nunciation. Such complexity is inevitable in a country where the overriding issue is social and political status, and where people have striven to maintain their deeply held feelings of national and ethnic identity in the face of opposition.

The 1993 Constitution names eleven languages as official, in-cluding English and Afrikaans, in an effort to enhance the status of the country's indigenous languages. The consequences of such an ambitious multilingual policy remain to be seen, but the diffi-culties of administering an eleven-language formula are immense (p. 89), and it is likely that English will continue to be an im-portant lingua franca. Enthusiasm for the language continues to grow among the black population: in 1993, for example, a series of government surveys among black parents demonstrated an overwhelming choice of English as the preferred language in which children should receive their education. And in the South African Parliament in 1994 the language continued to dominate the proceedings, with 87 per cent of all speeches being made in English.7

2.7 South Asia

In terms of numbers of English speakers, the Indian subcontinent has a very special position, probably outranking the combined to-tals of speakers in the USA and UK. This is largely due to the special position which the language has come to hold in India itself, where estimates have been undergoing radical revision in recent years. The traditional view was that somewhere between 3 and 5 per cent of the people made regular use of English, which would have yielded a total of some 30-50 million around the year 1999, when the population of India passed a billion. Since then, the estimates have crept up - nearly 20 per cent, for example, in one encyclopedia summary. But some surveys have suggested much larger totals, if a flexible notion of fluency is permitted (see p. 68), with one influential review estimating that perhaps a third of the people of India are now capable of holding a conversation in English. In real terms these estimates represent a range of 30 million to over 330 million (for comprehension, with a some¬what lower figure, 200 million, for speech production - which is the figure I use in Table 1 below). And we must not forget that there are also considerable numbers of English speakers elsewhere in the region, which comprises five other countries (Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan). South Asia holds about a fifth of the world's population. Several varieties of English have emerged throughout the subcontinent, and they are sometimes collectively referred to as South Asian English. These varieties are less than 200 years old, but they are already among the most distinctive varieties in the English-speaking world.

The origins of South Asian English lie in Britain. The first reg-ular British contact with the subcontinent came in 1600 with the formation of the British East India Company - a group of London merchants who were granted a trading monopoly in the area by Queen Elizabeth I. The Company established its first trading station at Surat in 1612, and by the end of the century others were in existence at Madras, Bombay and Calcutta. During the eigh-teenth century, it overcame competition from other European nations, especially France. As the power of the Mughal emper¬ors declined, the Company's influence grew, and in 1765 it took over the revenue management of Bengal. Following a period of financial indiscipline among Company servants, the 1784 India Act established a Board of Control responsible to the British Par-liament, and in 1858, after the Indian Mutiny, the Company was abolished and its powers handed over to the Crown.

During the period of British sovereignty (the Raj), from 1765 until independence in 1947, English gradually became the medium of administration and education throughout the subcon-tinent. The language question attracted special attention during the early nineteenth century, when colonial administrators de-bated the kind of educational policy which should be introduced. A recognized turning-point was Lord William Bentinck's accep-tance of a Minute written by Thomas Macaulay in 1835, which proposed the introduction of an English educational system in

The countries where South Asian English is spoken

India. When the universities of Bombay, Calcutta and Madras were established in 1857, English became the primary medium of instruction, thereby guaranteeing its status and steady growth during the next century.

In India, the bitter conflict between the supporters of English, Hindi, and regional languages led in the 1960s to a 'three lan-guage formula', in which English was introduced as the chief al-ternative to the local state language (typically Hindi in the north and a regional language in the south). It now has the status of an 'associate' official language, with Hindi the official language. It is also recognized as the official language of four states (Manipur, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Tripura) and eight Union territories.

English has, as a consequence, retained its standing within Indian society, continuing to be used within the legal system, government administration, secondary and higher education, the armed forces, the media, business, and tourism. It is a strong unifying force. In the Dravidian-speaking areas of the south, it is widely preferred to Hindi as a lingua franca. In the north, its fortunes vary from state to state, in relation to Hindi, depending on the policies of those in power. In Pakistan, it is an associated official language. It has no official status in the other countries of South Asia, but throughout the region it is universally used as the medium of international communication. Increasingly it is being perceived by young South Asians as the language of cultural modernity.

2.8 Former colonial Africa

Despite several centuries of European trade with African nations, by the end of the eighteenth century only the Dutch at the Cape had established a permanent settlement. However, by 1914 colo-nial ambitions on the part of Britain, France, Germany, Portugal, Italy and Belgium had resulted in the whole continent (apart from Liberia and Ethiopia) being divided into colonial territories. After the two World Wars there was a repartitioning of the region, with the confiscation of German and Italian territories. Most of the countries created by this partition achieved independence in or after the 1960s, and the Organization of African Unity pledged itself to maintain existing boundaries.

The English began to visit West Africa from the end of the fifteenth century, and soon after we find sporadic references to the use of the language as a lingua franca in some coastal settle¬ments. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, the increase in commerce and anti-slave-trade activities had brought English to the whole West African coast. With hundreds of local languages to contend with, a particular feature of the region was the rise of several English-based pidgins and creoles, used alongside the standard varieties of colonial officials, missionaries, soldiers, and traders.

British varieties developed especially in five countries, each of which now gives English official status. There was also one American influence in the region.

* Sierra Leone In the 1780s, philanthropists in Britain bought land to establish a settlement for freed slaves, the first groups ar¬riving from England, Nova Scotia and Jamaica. The settlement became a Crown Colony in 1808, and was then used as a base for anti-slave-trading squadrons, whose operations eventually brought some 60,000 'recaptives' to the country. The chief form of communication was an English-based creole, Krio, and this rapidly spread along the West African coast. The hinterland was declared a British protectorate in 1896; and the country re¬ceived its independence in 1961. Its population had grown to over 5.4 million by 2002, most of whom can use Krio.

* Ghana (formerly Gold Coast) Following a successful British expedition against the Ashanti to protect trading interests, the southern Gold Coast was declared a Crown Colony in 1874. The modern state was created in 1957 by the union of this colony and the adjacent British Togoland trust territory, which had been mandated to Britain after World War I. Ghana achieved independence in 1957. Its population was nearly 19 million in 2002, about 1.5 million of whom use English as a second language.

* Gambia English trading along the Gambia River dates from the early seventeenth century. A period of conflict with France was followed in 1816 by the establishment of Bathurst (modern Banjul) as a British base for anti-slaver activities. The capital became a Crown Colony in 1843, the country an independent member ofthe Commonwealth in 1965 and a republic in 1970. It had a population of 1.4 million in 2002. Krio is widely used as a lingua franca.

* Nigeria After a period of early nineteenth-century British ex-ploration of the interior, a British colony was founded at Lagos in 1861. This amalgamated with other southern and northern territories to form a single country in 1914, and it received independence in 1960. It is one of the most multilingual coun-tries in Africa, with some 500 languages identified in the mid- 1990s. Its population in 2002 was over 126 million. About half use pidgin or creole English as a second language.

* Cameroon Explored by the Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch and British, this region became a German protectorate in 1884, and was divided between France and Britain in 1919. After some uncertainty, the two areas merged as a single country in 1972, with both French and English remaining as official languages. It is also a highly multilingual region, with a 2002 population of nearly 16 million. It is thus a country in which contact languages have flourished, notably Cameroon Pidgin, spoken by about half the population.

* Liberia Africa's oldest republic was founded in 1822 through the activities of the American Colonization Society, which wished to establish a homeland for former slaves. Within fifty years it received some 13,000 black Americans, as well as some 6,000 slaves recaptured at sea. The settlement be¬came a republic in 1847, and adopted a constitution based on that of the USA. It managed to retain its independence de¬spite pressure from European countries during the nineteenth- century 'scramble for Africa'. Its population in 2002 was some 3.2 million, most of whom use pidgin English as a second lan-guage (but there are also a number of first-language speakers). Links with US African-American English are still very evident.

Although English ships had visited East Africa from the end of the sixteenth century, systematic interest began only in the 1850s, with the expeditions to the interior of such British explorers as Richard Burton, David Livingstone and John Speke. The Impe¬rial British East Africa Company was founded in 1888, and soon afterwards a system of colonial protectorates became established, while other European nations (Germany, France, and Italy) vied with Britain for territorial control.

Several modern states, each with a history of association with Britain, gave English official status when they gained indepen-dence, and British English has thus played a major role in the development of these states, being widely used in government, the courts, schools, the media, and other public domains. It has also been adopted elsewhere in the region as a medium of international communication, such as in Rwanda, Ethiopia and Somalia.

* Botswana Under British protection from 1885, the southern part of the country became part of Cape Colony in 1895, the northern part becoming Bechuanaland. It received its indepen-dence in 1966. Population in 2002 was 1.5 million. English is the official language.

* Kenya A British colony from 1920, this country became inde-pendent in 1963, following a decade of unrest (the Mau Mau rebellion). English was then made the official language, with Swahili made a national language in 1974. English none the less retains an important role in the country, which had some 31 million people in 2002.

* Lesotho Under British protection as Basutoland from 1869, it became independent in 1960. Its population was nearly 2.2 million in 2002. English is the official language.

* Malawi (formerly Nyasaland) The area became a British colony in 1907, and received its independence in 1964. Its population was 10.5 million in 2002. English is an official lan-guage along with Chewa.

* Namibia A German protectorate from 1884, it was mandated to South Africa - by the League of Nations in 1920 - who later annexed it (as South-West Africa). The United Nations assumed direct responsibility in 1966, and the country became known as Namibia, receiving full independence in 1990. Its population in 2002 was 1.8 million. English is the official language.

* Tanzania (formerly Zanzibar and Tanganyika) Zanzibar be-came a British protectorate in 1890, and Britain received a man¬date for Tanganyika in 1919. The first East African country to gain independence (1961), its population was over 36 million in 2002. English was a joint official language with Swahili until 1967, then lost its status as a national language; but it remains an important medium of communication.

* Uganda The Uganda kingdoms were united as a British pro-tectorate between 1893 and 1903, and the country received its independence in 1962. Its population was over 24 million in 2002. English is the sole official language, but Swahili is also widely used as a lingua franca.

* Zambia (formerly Northern Rhodesia) At first administered by the British South Africa Company, the country became a British protectorate in 1924, and received its independence in 1964. Its population was over 11 million in 2002. English is the official language.

* Zimbabwe (formerly Southern Rhodesia) Also administered by the British South Africa Company, it became a British colony in 1923. Opposition to independence under African rule led to a Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) by the white- dominated government in 1965. Power was eventually trans¬ferred to the African majority, and the country achieved its independence in 1980. Its population was around 11 million in 2002. English is the official language.

The kinds of English which developed in East Africa were very different from those found in West Africa. Large numbers of British emigrants settled in the area, producing a class of expa-triates and African-born whites (farmers, doctors, university lec-turers, etc.) which never emerged in the environmentally less hos-pitable West African territories. A British model was introduced early on into schools, reinforcing the exposure to British English brought by the many missionary groups around the turn of the century. The result was a range of mother-tongue English vari-eties which have more in common with what is heard in South Africa or Australia than in Nigeria or Ghana.