Amglish In, Like, Ten Easy Lessons_ A Celebration of the New World Lingo - Arthur E. Rowse [40]
The reason nobody has devised a simplified form of English that works for everybody is that it has to be naturally formed in the streets, in the suites, in the workplace. Planning can’t help the language process.
WORLD CONFERENCE LINGO
Meanwhile, organizations dealing with global issues have quietly but surely made English the preferred lingua franca for conferences. Participants must acknowledge its role as a bridge language not only for general sessions but for informal task forces. They confirm it each day with their mouths and mouses.
Such use of English for international meetings and conferences started in earnest with the United Nations, where English is the working language for all conferences and publications. For example, at the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity that represented 190 nations and drew 15,000 participants to Tokyo in October 2010, all the proceedings were in English.
John Fitzgerald, a lawyer for the U.S.-based Society for Conservation Biology, says that not only were all discussions in English but delegates who expected to have any effect on the proceedings had to have more than a casual knowledge of the language in order to handle the sophisticated questions that would arise. The usual pattern for such international conferences, he added, is to translate plenary sessions simultaneously into major languages but to use only English in subcommittees and task forces where the basic work gets done.
Other international conferences in 2010 that operated primarily in English included the Conference on the Future of Science that met in Venice and the World Conference on Computer Science that met in Cancun, Mexico. No longer does the language of the host city qualify if it is not English. There are more than 10,000 international organizations.
The December 2010 ceremony in Oslo awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to Liu Xiaobo, the political dissident held in a Chinese prison, was also conducted in English. Nothing new for Scandinavians.
UNIVERSITY ENGLISH
Another indication of how extensively English has spread, especially among young adults, is the number of English courses offered in overseas universities. According to Diane Spencer of University World News, the number tripled from 2003 to 2008. She said the Academic Cooperation Association in Brussels found approximately 2,400 courses, almost all at the master’s level. Most of the courses were in countries north of the Alps. In keeping with the cosmopolitan nature of the times, more than two-thirds of the students were from another country.
A more dramatic example of the growth of English in European universities occurred in March 2009 in Groningen, Holland. Marlies Hagers reported in the now-defunct nrchandelsblad that hundreds of students met in the Academieplein Square in that city as university Rector Frans Zwarts lifted a glass of champagne on the steps of the university building and toasted in English: “To a very successful next academic year. I wish you all the best.” Earlier that day, he had given a speech in English at the official convocation.
A proposal to make English the official language of instruction at Dutch universities was made first in 1990 by education minister Jo Ritzen as a necessary step to attract more international students. At the University of Amsterdam, 105 of 170 master’s programs were already given in English. As expected, however, Ritzen’s plan ran into some opposition from establishment types, who bemoaned the dilution of their national character.
BAD ENGLISH WORKS GOOD
For American travelers, it is now routine to encounter both formal and informal American words and phrases almost everywhere. Typical was the experience of a group of American psychiatrists, including John Kafka of Bethesda, Maryland, who were invited to teach medical students in Odessa in 2007. When a visitor asked a group of students what language they normally spoke, they replied almost in unison: “Bad English.” Call