It might come as no surprise that English is the most popular spoken language in the world. In the past few decades, there’s been a trend for people to learn a foreign language with an American accent which gradually replaces British English as a dominating international language.
However, a new dialect of English is spreading rapidly and has already become popular under the name Globish.
Jean-Paul Nerriere, the French CEO of IBM, introduced the term in 1990.
Is Globish is the new lingua franca?
Globish is an English language without borders. It belittles the importance of grammar and the syntactic structure, avoids confusing idioms and pays attention to the efficiency of communication. Nerriere identified 15000 keywords which help communication between people of different nationalities. According to him, this “new” language is spoken by two billion people worldwide.
It’s interesting what the future of Globish will be. Whether it will assimilate foreign words from various other languages, like lingua franca, or remain closer to the English language? Will people begin to write books or even poetry in Globish? Will there be any movies featuring this language?
Despite the mass widespread of Globish, the international business needs and will continue to depend on professional, high quality translation services. An universal and simple language such as Globish can not capture all the nuances, can not achieve technical precision and recreate specific expressions typical of the unique cultural context of each traditional language. And let’s not forget that although 2 billion people speak Globish, at least five billion people are unable to communicate with each other so easily.
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