English Simply Can't Be Replaced!

English is destined to be in the next and succeeding centuries more generally the language of the world than Latin was in the last or French is in the present age.

 

John Adams (1735 - 1826)

U.S. president.

 

John Adams said that statement when he was the second president of the United States, more than 200 years ago but still his words are true. English has transformed itself into a worldwide language, wider than the use of Latin in the Renaissance and French in the early ages of colonization.

As you might want to know, Latin was the world language and was widely spoken in Western Europe until around the 18^th century. Latin actually originates from the word Latium since the language Latin originated from ancient Rome and specifically the neighboring territory of Latium.  During the Renaissance and until its end in the 18^th century, Latin was considered as the language of scholars and diplomats since it was once thought that if you could speak or read Latin then you would be considered as a well-educated person. Also, Latin was the language in poets and widely used in romantic plays. However, since it was very hard to learn let alone to master Latin , the language of Latin didn’t actually grow into a widely spoken language, since only the scholars, the diplomats, the aristocrats and the kings and queens who could master it. Until now, the language of Latin does still exist but it’s not barely spoken by people, even by its creator, the people of Latium ( the name of a place in ancient Roman empire ).

Then the language of French emerged. As you might want to know, French was actually the official language of England from 1100 A.D. until about 1300 A.D. Pretty shocking eh? Well, French is originated from the language of the Gaul, the inhabitants of today’s France. The Gauls at early times spoke a Celtic language, from which Irish, Welsh, Breton, and other modern Celtic languages were derived. French was widely spoken during the 18^th and 19^th century but its use by people was ended by the emergence of English.

English as you know is the language of all people. English actually is not actually ‘a’ language. It’s actually a language which words are from various languages. We can say like eau de cologne ( cosmetics), a la carte ( separately priced ) which are from French, aura ( actually from Latin ) and many other examples. Words in English are mostly derived from languages around the world so if you look through the words in an English dictionary, you will find similarities with other languages. Most English words are from other European languages, such as Greek, German, French, Italian and etc.

So, the statement which John Adams made more than 200 years ago is completely matched by today’s world conditions. I’ve said many things in my previous postings why English are the world’s language but I never mentioned the true reason, from the linguistic point of view, why English are so popular and easy to learn.

The reason is because English is a mixture of languages. Even Batik, a word in Indonesian, is now known as an English word. English takes words into its possession even though it doesn’t claim it’s its own creation but English has been widely recognized as a language of languages. You can find mostly anything in English since one of the biggest possibilities is that English may not exist if one of our languages doesn’t. English exists and will always exist since all of our languages support it to exist among us.

So I sometimes hate when people often say, “Later, Mandarin will replace English’s role in world’s communication.” That statement sounds perfectly stupid to me. Mandarin is a language of Chinese only while English is the language of the world. In my opinion, NO MATTER HOW HARD PEOPLE TRY TO REPLACE ENGLISH WITH CHINESE, THEY WILL ALWAYS FAIL BECAUSE THERE’S ONLY ONE LANGUAGE THE WORLD KNOWS TODAY THAT CAN UNITE THE WHOLE WORLD AND THAT’S ENGLISH. CHINESE ARE NOT CAPABLE ENOUGH TO DO THAT AND BELIEVE ME, ENGLISH WILL ALWAYS REIGN SUPREME!!!!