The power of English language in the world

The development of English as a universal language is a fact that we cannot deny, as we cannot deny that the language is inextricably tied to the culture of the country that it represents and even though it is true that an international language can give small languages a better chance to survive, it is also true that in the case of English, the language is been used as a weapon, something to control other countries and to have advantage over them in scientific research, technology and world affairs.

The context of globalized communication systems give us the idea that we are learning English because we like and not because we need it, but the most dangerous side of this linguistic imperialism is not the language, but the cultural domination. Together with the language, a whole culture is been imposed to us, we can clearly see the American culture present in all aspects of our lives, like pop music, the Internet, the movies, food and even in the Portuguese Language Dictionaries.

Like Latin, English became the Lingua Franca through imperialist conquest. An empire is not complete until the conquered peoples adopt and accept the conquerors language and culture since it is communication what decides the size of political states. On the other hand, what made of Roma a complete empire was also what made of Latin a dead tongue. Latin was universal but it never eliminated other languages, because language is related to thoughts and each community has its own ways of thinking. Consequently, Latin was affected by the small languages which originated new dialects that finally became new languages.

Even been widely spoken, English is not uniform because it needs to reflect the social and cultural conditions in which it is used, this differences are not only in the pronunciation but in vocabulary, too. As with Latin, uniformity in English language would never be possible for the reason that a standard universal language is nothing more than a utopia since the nature of human kind is diverse and the diversity of languages is a vital part of world’s cultural diversity. One community is different of other just like one individual is different form another, each community has its own ways of thinking and it needs different ways of expressing its thoughts and feelings.

It seems to be the fate of all universal languages to follow the same process: become varied, then become fragmented and finally follow its way toward decline carrying with it the whole empire upon which the language is based. That is the fate of all languages that had been used to control small countries and communities and would certainly be the fate of English language which is already showing indications of an advanced state of decline.