English: The
Global Language
(The Story of English, by
Robert Mccrum et.al. 1992)
·
The richest vocabulary. 500,000
words in the Oxford English Dictionary with about another 500,000 technical and
scientific terms still uncatalogued (versus
185,000 for German and fewer than 100,000 for French)
·
The most widespread mother tongue.
About 350 million users.
·
The most widespread second language.
Some 400 million users in more than 50 countries (e.g. India, Kenya, Nigeria,
Singapore – where it is used for administration, broadcasting and education)
·
The official international language of the
Third World. English is an official language in some 34 countries –
scattered across four continents and the Pacific basin.
·
The language of communication and
telecommunication. Three fourths of the world’s mail, telexes; and
cables are in English.
·
The language of Science and Computers.
More than half of the world’s technical and scientific periodicals are in
English; likewise, the 80% of the information stored in the world’s computers,
too.
·
The language of the world. English
is the official language of the Olympics and the Miss Universe competition.
·
The language of the airwaves. Five
of the largest broadcasting companies in the world (ABC, BBC, CBC, CBS, NBC)
transmit in English to audiences that exceed 100 million.
·
The preferred language of Europe.
English is most popular language among young people in European Community; in
1990, 42% of people aged between 15-24 could speak it, versus 34% in 1987.
·
The official language of Europe. 62%
of young Germans and 52% of young French people could hold a conversation in
English, while most Britons were ignorant of both French and German.
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