Something about English

Most Sundays in Colombo are usually charming and sunny, but I don’t have so much time to relax, and it’s even a luxury for me to sleep in. Because I have to rush to the British Council before 8 am, or I will get a kind suggestion of punching my face by myself. :-) (finally I find the favourite English word of Mr. Gary O’Connor is ‘punch ‘) What to do?! This is one of the few ways I can experience the authentic and original British English so as to deviate my Chinglish and correct my laughable accent. In addition, good capability of English can help me to communicate the local people a little bit better. Foreign language study is a tough job. But I know I am not alone.

Nowadays among the Chinese youngsters, English is the most important and popular knowledge, and it’s of importance to acquire the skill of English if you want to find a foothold in the contemporary society of China where more than 6 million college students graduate every year.

Although English is not our official language, from the year of 1977 every high school student has to pass the English Test if they want to be enrolled into the Universities. The other major subjects of the University Entrance Examination include Mathematics, Chinese Languages. (in several Chinese provinces high school students can also choose Russian and Japanese to take their foreign language test.)

When students are luckily enrolled in a good university, it’s indeed some kind of liberation of their 12-year arduous journey. But it’s not over, English is their long-time friend. If you want a degree after 4-year study, you have to pass the College English Test (though it’s not as difficult as IELTS); If you want to go abroad to study in the TOP University in the U.S. and U.K., you have to pass the TOFEL, GRE or IELTS; If you want to get a offer in Government Authorities, you have to show them the diploma of your English skills. In one word, if you want to build up your advantage, you have to learn English.

Sometimes I am keeping asking myself, when he Chinese language can be viewed by us as important as English. Maybe one day, but the question is how long. To some extent, since the Industrial Revolution, the world is the very product of English thanks to the three super powers in consecutive centuries: the British Empire and U.S. and the invisible English-coded Internet under the backdrop of growing globalization. The by-product of the dominance of the English goes beyond. The ideological trend, scientific trend (just see the percentage of the scientists whose mother tongue is English ) and popular culture is anglicised.

In the meantime the future of other languages is just in doubt, right now nearly a variety of 2500 languages worldwide have been in the danger of extinction. Some reason is that the language shift causes the lack of the use of minority languages, and even crowds out the rare language because they are not passed on to next generation effectively.

If this situation continues, what’s the consequence?! We have to recognize that every language is special, belonging to the heritages of civilization of mankind. And existence of various languages is the foundation of the diversity of civilizations within this world which indeed gives birth to competition and communication and mutual progress among different regions.

A world of peaceful coexistence and joint development is a dynamic and colorful world featuring the exchange and mutual reference of different types of civilizations and the equal treatment and mutual respect of all countries. This will be impossible if we only have 2 or 3 languages.

But right now it seems the Tower of Babel is shaking. We have been in the a vicious spiral as several languages are surging with the cost of fading of others. Some says don’t worry about that, it the law of survival of the fittest. What a pity!