A Global Language English Language Essay

A Global Language English Language Essay A  global language,  is a  language  spoken internationally, which is learned by many people as a  second language, the most popular one being English. A wide range of the lexical units in the English language were taken from German, Latin, French and other European countries. A large portion of the word borrowing uses as main source the French language justifying English language affinity for foreign words as well as mixed vocabulary. Crystal D. (2003: 7-10) argues that Languages have a strong relation between dominance and cultural power. The main reason that the languages exist is because of a strong power-base, political and military or economic. Linguists argues whether the simplicity of the English language is the main reason of it becoming a global language. Generally, nothing is considered to be easy. It generally depends on who the learner is. Ellis suggested that success depends on the learner and not on the language that one is learning. Some factors that have a significant role in making a person learn a foreign language are his motivation, age, aptitude, cognitive style and personality. While learning another language one can observe that some languages appear to be more difficult than others. There are some languages that have almost the same patterns or similar soundings of the words which make them simpler to remember and learn. For example Greek has many similar words with Italian. However, there are languages that have a rough pronunciation or spelling and they are not similar to any other languages, like for example German. English is a very effective language, that it is proved by the many native and non-native speakers all over the world. According to David Crystal (2003) â€Å"Statistics suggest that nearly a quarter of the world’s population is already fluent or content in English†. For example, Chinese has more native speakers, however it is a more complicated language in terms of grammar, verbs, meaning of the w ords, etc. However, some linguists have different points of view as to weather a language becoming global depends on the number of people speaking it . Crystal D. (2002: 7-10) claims that †Why a language becomes a global language has little to do with the number of people who speak it†. Furthermore, English can help one to express various meanings. That is happening because English language not only has a lot of words with different meanings but also has various different types of syntax which help the speakers to be more accurate and to give more emphasis to a particular point if it is needed. Another interesting point is that the writing of English language is simple. There are even languages that have hundreds of letters in their alphabets that could have a different meaning when pronounced differently, like Chinese. The Roman alphabet is considered to be very easy to learn and surely much easier than the Chinese writing system which is very difficult for most people. Moreover, the Roman alphabet in English language is very phonetic, rather than character based, hence it can help to describe the actual sounds of words or phrases.