English as an International Link Language
English is the most widely spoken language in the world. It is the mother-tongue of more than 320 million people and another 200 million use it as their second language. Until recently it was believed that Chinese, which was supposed to be the mother- tongue of over 700 million people, had the largest number of speakers in the world. But now it has come to light that ‘Chinese’ consists of a number of mutually unintelligible dialects and Mandarin Chinese, the official language and most widely spoken variety, can claim no more than about 400 million speakers. English therefore occupies the unique position of being the language used by the largest number of people in the world. But the more significant aspect of English is its distribution. While Chinese is confined only to the Chinese sub-continent, English is spread throughout the globe. Apart from being the native or first language in countries as widely apart as the United Kingdom, the United States of America, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa, English is an important second language almost everywhere in the world. Even in India it is not only a popular second language, but also the mother-tongue of a small Indian community, the Anglo-Indians. According to the 1971 census nearly two hundred thousand Indians use English as their mother-tongue. Besides quite a few Indian States like Nagaland, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram and Sikkim have adopted English as the official language. Mr. M. C. Chagla, when he was the Chief Justice of the Bombay High Court, once ruled that English was an Indian language, and the Supreme Court had upheld the judgment. The Sahitya Academy of India recognizes English as one of the Indian languages; and Jawaharlal Nehru even wanted to include it in the Eight Schedule of the Constitution, thus giving it statutory recognition as an Indian language.
The same situation obtains in many countries in Asia and Africa where English is not spoken as a native language. Even in countries like Russia and China the demand for learning English as an important foreign language is increasing. In Italy, the birth-place of most of the languages of continental Europe, there is now a strong movement to make English an associate official language of the country.
Because of this great popularity and worldwide distribution, English has the pre-eminent claim to be the medium of international communication. In fact, English has ceased to be the language of its native speakers only - it has already attained the stature of a world language. If a person knows English, he is sure to be understood anywhere in the world. With tremendous advance in modern transport and communication systems, the world is growing smaller and smaller. Today we are in closer contact with the different parts of the world than our forefathers could ever dream of. To express our views in the comity of nations and to develop trade, commerce and diplomatic relations with other countries we need to have a common medium of communication. A common language is also a great cementing force, for it is through a mutually intelligible that nations can better understand each other.
English is therefore going to play an important role in world affairs and it will be to our own advantage if we continue to learn English as an important foreign language.