Should English be Dominant?

 written by 10325 Ha Dayeon

These days, English is a dominant language.

According to the CIA Factbook, the number of people who are using English as their first or second language is around 84 million.

If you include the number of people using English as a foreign language, the number has grown to 1.1 billion. The crucial reason why English became dominant was World War II. Before it, the U.S. was experiencing the Great Depression because of a lack of effective demand. However, as World War II occurred, the demand exploded. The economy flourished again. Moreover, because the war didn’t take place on U.S. soil, the U.S. was less damaged and became the most powerful country.

Naturally, English also became a dominant language. However, should we keep English as a dominant language in a global society? Is it right?

Pros

English is appropriate as a dominant language because we need a common language. Using one language makes communication much easier.

It should be English because it’s already dominant all over the world. Therefore, it is more efficient to use English as a dominant language. Using English as a dominant language will make discussions more fluent. Many global societies already use English when communicating. If there is no dominant language, there could be serious problems.

When using different languages, there can be misunderstandings between them even though there are translators. One small misunderstanding could lead to a tremendous problem in global societies. Therefore, we should use English as a dominant language.

Cons

Using English as a dominant language will lead to a decrease in language diversity. Local languages are disappearing even now. This is because more and more people from these communities are learning English and forgetting their own languages.

Experts also forecast that this extinction will be accelerated in the near future. Moreover, these languages are not only the language itself but also a collection of cultural features.

Therefore, using English and literally dominating other languages is not right.

My Opinion

I agree that using one language will make communication easier.

Even now, we are using English as a common language. However, the dominant use of English can lead to languages being less diverse. So, I don’t agree with using English as a dominant language. Moreover, I think no other language can be a dominant language.

When there is a dominant language, there can be unfairness in any form. Therefore, I think the ideal situation is where everyone uses their own language. So I hope everyone can use their own language and communicate easily with advanced translation technology in the future.