Directions: Kindly read the passage carefully and answer the questions given beside.
To begin with, residual problems from the end of the earlier era of colonisation, usually the result of untidy departures by the colonial power, still remain dangerously stalemated. The dramatic events in East Timor in 1999 are no longer fresh in the memory, and the more recent woes of neither Afghanistan nor Myanmar, can be attributed to colonialism. But no closure seems in sight in western Sahara, Jammu and Kashmir or in those old standbys of Cyprus and Palestine, all messy legacies of colonialism. Fuses lit in the colonial era could ignite again, as they did in the Horn of Africa, between Ethiopia and Eritrea, where war broke out over a colonial border that the Italians of an earlier era of occupation had failed to define with enough precision, and, more recently still, between the government of Ethiopia and its Tigrayan minority.
But it is not just the direct results of colonialism that remain relevant: there are the indirect ones as well. The intellectual history of colonialism is littered with many a wilful cause of more recent conflict. One is, quite simply, careless anthropology: the Belgian classification of Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda and Burundi, which reified a distinction that had not existed before, continues to haunt the region of the African Great Lakes. A related problem is that of motivated sociology: how much bloodshed do we owe, for instance, to the British invention of “martial races” in India, which skewed recruitment into the armed forces and saddled some communities (Punjabi Muslims, for instance) with the onerous burden of militarism? And one can never overlook the old colonial administrative habit of “divide and rule”, exemplified, again, by British policy in the subcontinent after 1857, systematically promoting political divisions between Hindus and Muslims, which led inexorably to the tragedy of Partition. Such colonial-era distinctions were not just pernicious; they were often accompanied by an unequal distribution of the resources of the state within the colonial society. Belgian colonialists favoured Tutsis, leading to Hutu rejection of them as alien interlopers; Sinhalese resentment of privileges enjoyed by the Tamils in the colonial era in Sri Lanka prompted the discriminatory policies after Independence, that in turn fuelled the Tamil revolt.
A “mixed” colonial history within one modern state is also a potential source of danger. When a state has more than one colonial past, its future is vulnerable. Secessionism, after all, can be prompted by a variety of factors, historical, geographical and cultural as well as “ethnic”. Ethnicity or language hardly seem to be a factor in the secessions (one recognised, the other not) of Eritrea from Ethiopia and the “Republic of Somaliland” from Somalia. Rather, it was different colonial experiences (Italian rule in Eritrea and British rule in Somaliland) that set them off, at least in their own self-perceptions, from the rest of their ethnic compatriots. A similar case can be made in respect of the former Yugoslavia, where parts of the country that had been under Austro-Hungarian rule for 800 years had been joined to parts that spent almost as long under Ottoman suzerainty. The war that erupted in 1991 was in no small measure a war that pitted those parts of Yugoslavia that had been ruled by German-speaking empires against those that had not (or had resisted such colonisation).
Q. What can be concluded about colonialism's legacy from this passage?
Directions: Kindly read the passage carefully and answer the questions given beside.
To begin with, residual problems from the end of the earlier era of colonisation, usually the result of untidy departures by the colonial power, still remain dangerously stalemated. The dramatic events in East Timor in 1999 are no longer fresh in the memory, and the more recent woes of neither Afghanistan nor Myanmar, can be attributed to colonialism. But no closure seems in sight in western Sahara, Jammu and Kashmir or in those old standbys of Cyprus and Palestine, all messy legacies of colonialism. Fuses lit in the colonial era could ignite again, as they did in the Horn of Africa, between Ethiopia and Eritrea, where war broke out over a colonial border that the Italians of an earlier era of occupation had failed to define with enough precision, and, more recently still, between the government of Ethiopia and its Tigrayan minority.
But it is not just the direct results of colonialism that remain relevant: there are the indirect ones as well. The intellectual history of colonialism is littered with many a wilful cause of more recent conflict. One is, quite simply, careless anthropology: the Belgian classification of Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda and Burundi, which reified a distinction that had not existed before, continues to haunt the region of the African Great Lakes. A related problem is that of motivated sociology: how much bloodshed do we owe, for instance, to the British invention of “martial races” in India, which skewed recruitment into the armed forces and saddled some communities (Punjabi Muslims, for instance) with the onerous burden of militarism? And one can never overlook the old colonial administrative habit of “divide and rule”, exemplified, again, by British policy in the subcontinent after 1857, systematically promoting political divisions between Hindus and Muslims, which led inexorably to the tragedy of Partition. Such colonial-era distinctions were not just pernicious; they were often accompanied by an unequal distribution of the resources of the state within the colonial society. Belgian colonialists favoured Tutsis, leading to Hutu rejection of them as alien interlopers; Sinhalese resentment of privileges enjoyed by the Tamils in the colonial era in Sri Lanka prompted the discriminatory policies after Independence, that in turn fuelled the Tamil revolt.
A “mixed” colonial history within one modern state is also a potential source of danger. When a state has more than one colonial past, its future is vulnerable. Secessionism, after all, can be prompted by a variety of factors, historical, geographical and cultural as well as “ethnic”. Ethnicity or language hardly seem to be a factor in the secessions (one recognised, the other not) of Eritrea from Ethiopia and the “Republic of Somaliland” from Somalia. Rather, it was different colonial experiences (Italian rule in Eritrea and British rule in Somaliland) that set them off, at least in their own self-perceptions, from the rest of their ethnic compatriots. A similar case can be made in respect of the former Yugoslavia, where parts of the country that had been under Austro-Hungarian rule for 800 years had been joined to parts that spent almost as long under Ottoman suzerainty. The war that erupted in 1991 was in no small measure a war that pitted those parts of Yugoslavia that had been ruled by German-speaking empires against those that had not (or had resisted such colonisation).
Q. Which statement accurately sums up the author's tone in this passage?
Directions: Kindly read the passage carefully and answer the questions given beside.
To begin with, residual problems from the end of the earlier era of colonisation, usually the result of untidy departures by the colonial power, still remain dangerously stalemated. The dramatic events in East Timor in 1999 are no longer fresh in the memory, and the more recent woes of neither Afghanistan nor Myanmar, can be attributed to colonialism. But no closure seems in sight in western Sahara, Jammu and Kashmir or in those old standbys of Cyprus and Palestine, all messy legacies of colonialism. Fuses lit in the colonial era could ignite again, as they did in the Horn of Africa, between Ethiopia and Eritrea, where war broke out over a colonial border that the Italians of an earlier era of occupation had failed to define with enough precision, and, more recently still, between the government of Ethiopia and its Tigrayan minority.
But it is not just the direct results of colonialism that remain relevant: there are the indirect ones as well. The intellectual history of colonialism is littered with many a wilful cause of more recent conflict. One is, quite simply, careless anthropology: the Belgian classification of Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda and Burundi, which reified a distinction that had not existed before, continues to haunt the region of the African Great Lakes. A related problem is that of motivated sociology: how much bloodshed do we owe, for instance, to the British invention of “martial races” in India, which skewed recruitment into the armed forces and saddled some communities (Punjabi Muslims, for instance) with the onerous burden of militarism? And one can never overlook the old colonial administrative habit of “divide and rule”, exemplified, again, by British policy in the subcontinent after 1857, systematically promoting political divisions between Hindus and Muslims, which led inexorably to the tragedy of Partition. Such colonial-era distinctions were not just pernicious; they were often accompanied by an unequal distribution of the resources of the state within the colonial society. Belgian colonialists favoured Tutsis, leading to Hutu rejection of them as alien interlopers; Sinhalese resentment of privileges enjoyed by the Tamils in the colonial era in Sri Lanka prompted the discriminatory policies after Independence, that in turn fuelled the Tamil revolt.
A “mixed” colonial history within one modern state is also a potential source of danger. When a state has more than one colonial past, its future is vulnerable. Secessionism, after all, can be prompted by a variety of factors, historical, geographical and cultural as well as “ethnic”. Ethnicity or language hardly seem to be a factor in the secessions (one recognised, the other not) of Eritrea from Ethiopia and the “Republic of Somaliland” from Somalia. Rather, it was different colonial experiences (Italian rule in Eritrea and British rule in Somaliland) that set them off, at least in their own self-perceptions, from the rest of their ethnic compatriots. A similar case can be made in respect of the former Yugoslavia, where parts of the country that had been under Austro-Hungarian rule for 800 years had been joined to parts that spent almost as long under Ottoman suzerainty. The war that erupted in 1991 was in no small measure a war that pitted those parts of Yugoslavia that had been ruled by German-speaking empires against those that had not (or had resisted such colonisation).
Q. What does the passage's usage of the word "reified" mean?
Directions: Kindly read the passage carefully and answer the questions given beside.
To begin with, residual problems from the end of the earlier era of colonisation, usually the result of untidy departures by the colonial power, still remain dangerously stalemated. The dramatic events in East Timor in 1999 are no longer fresh in the memory, and the more recent woes of neither Afghanistan nor Myanmar, can be attributed to colonialism. But no closure seems in sight in western Sahara, Jammu and Kashmir or in those old standbys of Cyprus and Palestine, all messy legacies of colonialism. Fuses lit in the colonial era could ignite again, as they did in the Horn of Africa, between Ethiopia and Eritrea, where war broke out over a colonial border that the Italians of an earlier era of occupation had failed to define with enough precision, and, more recently still, between the government of Ethiopia and its Tigrayan minority.
But it is not just the direct results of colonialism that remain relevant: there are the indirect ones as well. The intellectual history of colonialism is littered with many a wilful cause of more recent conflict. One is, quite simply, careless anthropology: the Belgian classification of Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda and Burundi, which reified a distinction that had not existed before, continues to haunt the region of the African Great Lakes. A related problem is that of motivated sociology: how much bloodshed do we owe, for instance, to the British invention of “martial races” in India, which skewed recruitment into the armed forces and saddled some communities (Punjabi Muslims, for instance) with the onerous burden of militarism? And one can never overlook the old colonial administrative habit of “divide and rule”, exemplified, again, by British policy in the subcontinent after 1857, systematically promoting political divisions between Hindus and Muslims, which led inexorably to the tragedy of Partition. Such colonial-era distinctions were not just pernicious; they were often accompanied by an unequal distribution of the resources of the state within the colonial society. Belgian colonialists favoured Tutsis, leading to Hutu rejection of them as alien interlopers; Sinhalese resentment of privileges enjoyed by the Tamils in the colonial era in Sri Lanka prompted the discriminatory policies after Independence, that in turn fuelled the Tamil revolt.
A “mixed” colonial history within one modern state is also a potential source of danger. When a state has more than one colonial past, its future is vulnerable. Secessionism, after all, can be prompted by a variety of factors, historical, geographical and cultural as well as “ethnic”. Ethnicity or language hardly seem to be a factor in the secessions (one recognised, the other not) of Eritrea from Ethiopia and the “Republic of Somaliland” from Somalia. Rather, it was different colonial experiences (Italian rule in Eritrea and British rule in Somaliland) that set them off, at least in their own self-perceptions, from the rest of their ethnic compatriots. A similar case can be made in respect of the former Yugoslavia, where parts of the country that had been under Austro-Hungarian rule for 800 years had been joined to parts that spent almost as long under Ottoman suzerainty. The war that erupted in 1991 was in no small measure a war that pitted those parts of Yugoslavia that had been ruled by German-speaking empires against those that had not (or had resisted such colonisation).
Q. What is the main point made in the passage regarding the impact of colonialism?
Directions: Kindly read the passage carefully and answer the questions given beside.
To begin with, residual problems from the end of the earlier era of colonisation, usually the result of untidy departures by the colonial power, still remain dangerously stalemated. The dramatic events in East Timor in 1999 are no longer fresh in the memory, and the more recent woes of neither Afghanistan nor Myanmar, can be attributed to colonialism. But no closure seems in sight in western Sahara, Jammu and Kashmir or in those old standbys of Cyprus and Palestine, all messy legacies of colonialism. Fuses lit in the colonial era could ignite again, as they did in the Horn of Africa, between Ethiopia and Eritrea, where war broke out over a colonial border that the Italians of an earlier era of occupation had failed to define with enough precision, and, more recently still, between the government of Ethiopia and its Tigrayan minority.
But it is not just the direct results of colonialism that remain relevant: there are the indirect ones as well. The intellectual history of colonialism is littered with many a wilful cause of more recent conflict. One is, quite simply, careless anthropology: the Belgian classification of Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda and Burundi, which reified a distinction that had not existed before, continues to haunt the region of the African Great Lakes. A related problem is that of motivated sociology: how much bloodshed do we owe, for instance, to the British invention of “martial races” in India, which skewed recruitment into the armed forces and saddled some communities (Punjabi Muslims, for instance) with the onerous burden of militarism? And one can never overlook the old colonial administrative habit of “divide and rule”, exemplified, again, by British policy in the subcontinent after 1857, systematically promoting political divisions between Hindus and Muslims, which led inexorably to the tragedy of Partition. Such colonial-era distinctions were not just pernicious; they were often accompanied by an unequal distribution of the resources of the state within the colonial society. Belgian colonialists favoured Tutsis, leading to Hutu rejection of them as alien interlopers; Sinhalese resentment of privileges enjoyed by the Tamils in the colonial era in Sri Lanka prompted the discriminatory policies after Independence, that in turn fuelled the Tamil revolt.
A “mixed” colonial history within one modern state is also a potential source of danger. When a state has more than one colonial past, its future is vulnerable. Secessionism, after all, can be prompted by a variety of factors, historical, geographical and cultural as well as “ethnic”. Ethnicity or language hardly seem to be a factor in the secessions (one recognised, the other not) of Eritrea from Ethiopia and the “Republic of Somaliland” from Somalia. Rather, it was different colonial experiences (Italian rule in Eritrea and British rule in Somaliland) that set them off, at least in their own self-perceptions, from the rest of their ethnic compatriots. A similar case can be made in respect of the former Yugoslavia, where parts of the country that had been under Austro-Hungarian rule for 800 years had been joined to parts that spent almost as long under Ottoman suzerainty. The war that erupted in 1991 was in no small measure a war that pitted those parts of Yugoslavia that had been ruled by German-speaking empires against those that had not (or had resisted such colonisation).
Q. What is the significance of having more than one colonial past in a modern state, as mentioned in the passage?
Directions: Kindly read the passage carefully and answer the questions given beside.
In 400 years, English went from being a small language spoken in the British Isles to becoming the most dominant language in the world. In the year 1600, at the end of Queen Elizabeth I’s reign, English was spoken by 4 million people. By the 2020s, at the end of Queen Elizabeth II’s reign, that number had risen to nearly 2 billion. Today, English is the main language in the United Kingdom, Ireland, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand; and it’s an ‘intra-national’ language in former British colonies such as India, Singapore, South Africa and Nigeria. It is Earth’s lingua franca.
For some, English is Britain’s greatest ‘gift’ to the world. In an online interview with ConservativeHome in May 2022, Suella Braverman, now the UK’s Home Secretary, said she was proud of the British Empire for giving its colonies infrastructure, legal systems, the civil service, militaries and, in her words, ‘of course, the English language’. On the other side of the political spectrum, in 2008 Gordon Brown, then the prime minister, delivered a speech in which he stated that he wanted ‘Britain to make a new gift to the world’ by supporting anyone outside the UK who wished to learn English. In the same year, The Times announced proposals for a new museum dedicated to the language, to ‘celebrate England’s most elaborate gift to the world’. And, more recently, Mark Robson of the British Council described English as ‘the UK’s greatest gift to the world’. The notion of English as a gift from Britain to the planet is so commonplace it’s almost unremarkable.
English may have become universal, but not everyone believes it is a gift. In fact, many hold diametrically opposite views. In an article in The Guardian in 2018, the journalist Jacob Mikanowski described English as a ‘behemoth, bully, loudmouth, thief’, highlighting that the dominance of English threatens local cultures and languages. Due to the ways in which English continues to gain ground worldwide, many languages are becoming endangered or extinct. This not only impacts relatively small languages like Welsh or Irish, but also larger languages, such as Yoruba in Nigeria, which are pressured by English in business, trade, education, the media and technology.
For this reason, a number of scholars in the field of sociolinguistics consider English a killer language and have described it as a kind of monster, like the deadly multi-headed Hydra from Greek mythology. Those who see English from this perspective consider its global roles a form of linguistic imperialism, a system of profound inequality between English and other languages, which are crushed under the might of a former colonial power, Britain, and the current world superpower, the US. In The Oxford Handbook of World Englishes (2017), the sociolinguists Robert Phillipson and Tove Skutnabb-Kangas note how ‘the international prestige and instrumental value of English can lead to linguistic territory being occupied at the expense of local languages and the broad democratic role that national languages play.’
Q. What primarily refutes the idea that English is a gift from Britain to the world?
Directions: Kindly read the passage carefully and answer the questions given beside.
In 400 years, English went from being a small language spoken in the British Isles to becoming the most dominant language in the world. In the year 1600, at the end of Queen Elizabeth I’s reign, English was spoken by 4 million people. By the 2020s, at the end of Queen Elizabeth II’s reign, that number had risen to nearly 2 billion. Today, English is the main language in the United Kingdom, Ireland, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand; and it’s an ‘intra-national’ language in former British colonies such as India, Singapore, South Africa and Nigeria. It is Earth’s lingua franca.
For some, English is Britain’s greatest ‘gift’ to the world. In an online interview with ConservativeHome in May 2022, Suella Braverman, now the UK’s Home Secretary, said she was proud of the British Empire for giving its colonies infrastructure, legal systems, the civil service, militaries and, in her words, ‘of course, the English language’. On the other side of the political spectrum, in 2008 Gordon Brown, then the prime minister, delivered a speech in which he stated that he wanted ‘Britain to make a new gift to the world’ by supporting anyone outside the UK who wished to learn English. In the same year, The Times announced proposals for a new museum dedicated to the language, to ‘celebrate England’s most elaborate gift to the world’. And, more recently, Mark Robson of the British Council described English as ‘the UK’s greatest gift to the world’. The notion of English as a gift from Britain to the planet is so commonplace it’s almost unremarkable.
English may have become universal, but not everyone believes it is a gift. In fact, many hold diametrically opposite views. In an article in The Guardian in 2018, the journalist Jacob Mikanowski described English as a ‘behemoth, bully, loudmouth, thief’, highlighting that the dominance of English threatens local cultures and languages. Due to the ways in which English continues to gain ground worldwide, many languages are becoming endangered or extinct. This not only impacts relatively small languages like Welsh or Irish, but also larger languages, such as Yoruba in Nigeria, which are pressured by English in business, trade, education, the media and technology.
For this reason, a number of scholars in the field of sociolinguistics consider English a killer language and have described it as a kind of monster, like the deadly multi-headed Hydra from Greek mythology. Those who see English from this perspective consider its global roles a form of linguistic imperialism, a system of profound inequality between English and other languages, which are crushed under the might of a former colonial power, Britain, and the current world superpower, the US. In The Oxford Handbook of World Englishes (2017), the sociolinguists Robert Phillipson and Tove Skutnabb-Kangas note how ‘the international prestige and instrumental value of English can lead to linguistic territory being occupied at the expense of local languages and the broad democratic role that national languages play.’
Q. What major factor has led to English's emergence as the world's most prevalent language, according to the passage?
Directions: Kindly read the passage carefully and answer the questions given beside.
In 400 years, English went from being a small language spoken in the British Isles to becoming the most dominant language in the world. In the year 1600, at the end of Queen Elizabeth I’s reign, English was spoken by 4 million people. By the 2020s, at the end of Queen Elizabeth II’s reign, that number had risen to nearly 2 billion. Today, English is the main language in the United Kingdom, Ireland, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand; and it’s an ‘intra-national’ language in former British colonies such as India, Singapore, South Africa and Nigeria. It is Earth’s lingua franca.
For some, English is Britain’s greatest ‘gift’ to the world. In an online interview with ConservativeHome in May 2022, Suella Braverman, now the UK’s Home Secretary, said she was proud of the British Empire for giving its colonies infrastructure, legal systems, the civil service, militaries and, in her words, ‘of course, the English language’. On the other side of the political spectrum, in 2008 Gordon Brown, then the prime minister, delivered a speech in which he stated that he wanted ‘Britain to make a new gift to the world’ by supporting anyone outside the UK who wished to learn English. In the same year, The Times announced proposals for a new museum dedicated to the language, to ‘celebrate England’s most elaborate gift to the world’. And, more recently, Mark Robson of the British Council described English as ‘the UK’s greatest gift to the world’. The notion of English as a gift from Britain to the planet is so commonplace it’s almost unremarkable.
English may have become universal, but not everyone believes it is a gift. In fact, many hold diametrically opposite views. In an article in The Guardian in 2018, the journalist Jacob Mikanowski described English as a ‘behemoth, bully, loudmouth, thief’, highlighting that the dominance of English threatens local cultures and languages. Due to the ways in which English continues to gain ground worldwide, many languages are becoming endangered or extinct. This not only impacts relatively small languages like Welsh or Irish, but also larger languages, such as Yoruba in Nigeria, which are pressured by English in business, trade, education, the media and technology.
For this reason, a number of scholars in the field of sociolinguistics consider English a killer language and have described it as a kind of monster, like the deadly multi-headed Hydra from Greek mythology. Those who see English from this perspective consider its global roles a form of linguistic imperialism, a system of profound inequality between English and other languages, which are crushed under the might of a former colonial power, Britain, and the current world superpower, the US. In The Oxford Handbook of World Englishes (2017), the sociolinguists Robert Phillipson and Tove Skutnabb-Kangas note how ‘the international prestige and instrumental value of English can lead to linguistic territory being occupied at the expense of local languages and the broad democratic role that national languages play.’
Q. What is the author's perspective on the global adoption of English?
Directions: Kindly read the passage carefully and answer the questions given beside.
In 400 years, English went from being a small language spoken in the British Isles to becoming the most dominant language in the world. In the year 1600, at the end of Queen Elizabeth I’s reign, English was spoken by 4 million people. By the 2020s, at the end of Queen Elizabeth II’s reign, that number had risen to nearly 2 billion. Today, English is the main language in the United Kingdom, Ireland, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand; and it’s an ‘intra-national’ language in former British colonies such as India, Singapore, South Africa and Nigeria. It is Earth’s lingua franca.
For some, English is Britain’s greatest ‘gift’ to the world. In an online interview with ConservativeHome in May 2022, Suella Braverman, now the UK’s Home Secretary, said she was proud of the British Empire for giving its colonies infrastructure, legal systems, the civil service, militaries and, in her words, ‘of course, the English language’. On the other side of the political spectrum, in 2008 Gordon Brown, then the prime minister, delivered a speech in which he stated that he wanted ‘Britain to make a new gift to the world’ by supporting anyone outside the UK who wished to learn English. In the same year, The Times announced proposals for a new museum dedicated to the language, to ‘celebrate England’s most elaborate gift to the world’. And, more recently, Mark Robson of the British Council described English as ‘the UK’s greatest gift to the world’. The notion of English as a gift from Britain to the planet is so commonplace it’s almost unremarkable.
English may have become universal, but not everyone believes it is a gift. In fact, many hold diametrically opposite views. In an article in The Guardian in 2018, the journalist Jacob Mikanowski described English as a ‘behemoth, bully, loudmouth, thief’, highlighting that the dominance of English threatens local cultures and languages. Due to the ways in which English continues to gain ground worldwide, many languages are becoming endangered or extinct. This not only impacts relatively small languages like Welsh or Irish, but also larger languages, such as Yoruba in Nigeria, which are pressured by English in business, trade, education, the media and technology.
For this reason, a number of scholars in the field of sociolinguistics consider English a killer language and have described it as a kind of monster, like the deadly multi-headed Hydra from Greek mythology. Those who see English from this perspective consider its global roles a form of linguistic imperialism, a system of profound inequality between English and other languages, which are crushed under the might of a former colonial power, Britain, and the current world superpower, the US. In The Oxford Handbook of World Englishes (2017), the sociolinguists Robert Phillipson and Tove Skutnabb-Kangas note how ‘the international prestige and instrumental value of English can lead to linguistic territory being occupied at the expense of local languages and the broad democratic role that national languages play.’
Q. How is English described in the passage in terms of its impact on local cultures and languages?
Directions: Kindly read the passage carefully and answer the questions given beside.
In 400 years, English went from being a small language spoken in the British Isles to becoming the most dominant language in the world. In the year 1600, at the end of Queen Elizabeth I’s reign, English was spoken by 4 million people. By the 2020s, at the end of Queen Elizabeth II’s reign, that number had risen to nearly 2 billion. Today, English is the main language in the United Kingdom, Ireland, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand; and it’s an ‘intra-national’ language in former British colonies such as India, Singapore, South Africa and Nigeria. It is Earth’s lingua franca.
For some, English is Britain’s greatest ‘gift’ to the world. In an online interview with ConservativeHome in May 2022, Suella Braverman, now the UK’s Home Secretary, said she was proud of the British Empire for giving its colonies infrastructure, legal systems, the civil service, militaries and, in her words, ‘of course, the English language’. On the other side of the political spectrum, in 2008 Gordon Brown, then the prime minister, delivered a speech in which he stated that he wanted ‘Britain to make a new gift to the world’ by supporting anyone outside the UK who wished to learn English. In the same year, The Times announced proposals for a new museum dedicated to the language, to ‘celebrate England’s most elaborate gift to the world’. And, more recently, Mark Robson of the British Council described English as ‘the UK’s greatest gift to the world’. The notion of English as a gift from Britain to the planet is so commonplace it’s almost unremarkable.
English may have become universal, but not everyone believes it is a gift. In fact, many hold diametrically opposite views. In an article in The Guardian in 2018, the journalist Jacob Mikanowski described English as a ‘behemoth, bully, loudmouth, thief’, highlighting that the dominance of English threatens local cultures and languages. Due to the ways in which English continues to gain ground worldwide, many languages are becoming endangered or extinct. This not only impacts relatively small languages like Welsh or Irish, but also larger languages, such as Yoruba in Nigeria, which are pressured by English in business, trade, education, the media and technology.
For this reason, a number of scholars in the field of sociolinguistics consider English a killer language and have described it as a kind of monster, like the deadly multi-headed Hydra from Greek mythology. Those who see English from this perspective consider its global roles a form of linguistic imperialism, a system of profound inequality between English and other languages, which are crushed under the might of a former colonial power, Britain, and the current world superpower, the US. In The Oxford Handbook of World Englishes (2017), the sociolinguists Robert Phillipson and Tove Skutnabb-Kangas note how ‘the international prestige and instrumental value of English can lead to linguistic territory being occupied at the expense of local languages and the broad democratic role that national languages play.’
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