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SIGNS OF UNITY

A major side effect of the war was a worldwide quest for some way to avoid another world war. With American leadership, the United Nations was born in 1945, the same year the war ended.

Since then, the UN has grown in member states from only a few dozen to nearly two hundred, including nearly every sovereign state in the world. So has the number and scope of its activities. The UN has also inspired the growth of numerous nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) for many international purposes. They include groups promoting trade, preventing hunger, improving general health, promoting education, and stamping out disease.

The very existence of so many international organizations and programs has added pressure for a single language that would allow more efficient communication, not only for the UN and its satellite arms, but also among nations. Although the UN has six official languages, English has dominated open discussions and official reports from the start.

The ultimate test of a language is its power to absorb the inflections, dialects, accents, and other irregularities that go with the territory. The attraction of English perhaps lies more in its informal state than its formal one. After all, it is easier to learn a few fundamentals that allow more people to communicate on a basic level. This may be the secret to why English seems so adaptable and flexible. Since the advent of the computer, it has also been more available than any other language.

TERROR GROUPS CHOOSE ENGLISH

Even international terrorists have joined the parade. Allies of Osama bin Laden have learned to send messages in English and have apparently enticed a number of recruits in English via the Internet. One example is Nidal Hassan, who killed thirteen people at Fort Hood after becoming friendly by computer with Ayman al-Zawahiri, an Egyptian-born cleric who was close to bin Laden before the latter was killed.

Al-Qaeda has even launched an online magazine in English called Inspire.25 The first edition was somewhat amateurish, with instructions for making “a bomb in the kitchen of your mom,” an article on “Mujahedeen 101,” and a lesson in sending and receiving encrypted messages.

Apparently a virus interrupted most of the pages. Reporter Jeremy W. Peters wrote that the problem “could have been the work of hackers, possibly working for the United States government.”

English has become the chief foreign language taught in the schools of more than one hundred countries, though the quality varies considerably from nation to nation and from classroom to classroom. English is even replacing French in North African countries. In Tunisia, where a dictator was toppled in early 2011, the government is now requiring it in primary schools.

DID JESUS SPEAK ENGLISH?

Although the above question may sound ridiculous, it keeps popping up in real American places like Texas.

Persistent reports indicate that a feisty female governor of that state named “Ma” (for Miriam A.) Ferguson once declared, “If the King’s English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it’s good enough for the children of Texas.” She was reportedly facing pressure to allow Spanish to be taught in state schools in the 1920s.

Frequent repetition has kept the concept alive.

In China, each child is required to take English for the first nine years of school. But the quality of teaching varies considerably, largely because so many teachers are former students who were never exposed to the authentic sounds, accents, and mannerisms, which differ so much from Mandarin, the national language of China. Japan begins English lessons at five years of age. Even Mongolia has plans to be bilingual in English.

OTHER LANGUAGES LOSING STATUS

While interest in learning English continues to expand, interest in studying foreign languages has been waning and wavering in the two major bases of English, Britain and the United States.

The contrast appears greater in the island nation, according to a study by the European