This interesting article, from a Pakistani English language newspaper called Dawn, points out that English is no longer the property of native speakers."There is no hiding the fact that today in the world there are more non-native speakers of English than there are native speakers. To give an estimate of users of English in the world today, David Crystal in his book English as a Global Language has written: “Three hundred and thirty-seven million to 450 million have English as their first language. Two hundred and thirty-five million to 350 million have English as a second language. A hundred million to 1,000 million have learned English as a foreign language.”
"The outcome of this situation is that English has become the property of its users native and non-native. That is to say neither England nor the United States “owns” the English language. This is exactly what David Crystal points out in his book when he says: “In a world where the largest English-speaking nation, the United States, has only about 20 per cent of the world’s speakers of English, no one, it seems, can ‘claim sole ownership’ of language.”
"The effects of this trend towards English have yet to be assessed, but they point towards the developing diversity of English. In fact, the evidence of this diversity can be seen in the varying dialects of British English, American English, Irish English, Scots English, Welsh English, Canadian English, Australian English, South African English, Caribbean English, Indian English, Bangladeshi English, Nepali English, Pakistani English and Sri Lankan English.
"These new “Englishes” actually highlight international varieties of English and affirm the nations’ right to their own patterns and varieties of the language — the dialect of their nature or whatever dialects in which they find their own identity and style".
via www.dawn.com Pakistan
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