Globish : How the English language became the worlds language / Robert McCrum.
- London.
- 310
Globish belongs to a new post-imperial wave in which the story has been reframed to make it less anglocentric. McCrum is one of several recent writers who argue that the latest and greatest achievement of English is to have transcended the legacy of empire. Today its bounds are set so wide that it can truly be said to belong to the world. While its triumph continues, it is no longer coterminous with the triumph of the English-speaking peoples. Some commentators even suggest that it may now be happening at their expense. That is the view of Jean-Paul Nerrière, the French businessman who coined the term globish in 1995. He had noticed that non-native English speakers in Asia found it easier to do business with one another than with native speakers. Globish was his name for the kind of English they were using: a decaffeinated version without complexity or cultural baggage.Rather than duplicating the expressive functions of a mother-tongue, globish meets our practical need for a universal other tongue â€" a simple, neutral, intelligible medium for cross-cultural communication. And as it spreads, Nerrière predicts, it will reduce the international influence of English and eliminate the advantage long enjoyed by its native speakers. If in future the world's business is conducted in globish, native anglophones, like everyone else, will find themselves obliged to learn it.