Thirteenth Global Studies Conference

Abstract

The globalized world needs a universal auxiliary language to communicate across borders and to overcome cultural, religious, racial, social, or even national barriers. The world has experimented with a few languages, prominent among these being French, German, Russian, Spanish, Arabic and Esperanto. This paper considers English, which, at present, seems to be the preferred language for global communication in science and technology, legal and banking systems, higher education, government communications, cultural exchanges, etc. It has gained the status of the most global language with around 1.5 billion speakers, whereas only 360 million people speak English as their first language. Such a rapid spread of English, on the one hand, is helping to share information and enhance mutual understanding, yet, on the other, it is leading to a cultural invasion by propagating Western values, causing a decline in the use of some languages and imposing a uniform pattern of thinking and behaviour that results in inequalities among English speaking populations and non-English speaking ones. English is understood to act as a barrier in the natural growth and development of children if used a medium of instruction at the primary level. It is therefore important to decide what are the roles and functions of a widely accepted auxiliary universal language. The universal language would help to unite humanity in one-fold as everyone would be using it in addition to one’s own mother tongue, and thus gain from the innumerable benefits of being bilingual.