World Wide Language

Hello everybody!

It is a reality that English is becoming the World Wide Language. Actually
this is happening without imposition. Our Modern Society's Nature is just
acting altogether with other forces like global economy or the Web.
Nevertheless the point is: is English prepared (or well-suited) to assume
this responsibility?
Frankly I've got concerns about it. These factor wouldn't act as contrainst
against the rise of WWL.

1. English doesn't offer regularity between the written way and the spoken
form. It seems it has a systematic anarchy (excuse the words) in this
matter. One sign has several sounds and also there are sounds without a
specifical sign for them.

This first factor can mean a troublesome situation for the layman, i.e. he
has to use his memory to overcome it and "record" in his mind the "rules"
and the copious exceptions.

2. Something as simple as vowel system doesn't fit with the "common" values
present in other modern languages. For instance, Spanish plain "o" has no
correspondence in Standard English.

I have observed Spanish natives speaking English with German natives and
noticed that they tend to replace the English o-like sounds with the plain
"o" heard in Spanish and German.

3. Since English is poorly inflected and very shortened, it has to
compensate these lacks with a variegated collection of sounds;
imagine that non-native speakers (with narrower spectrum of phonemes will
try to assimilate them), thus losing the quality of the language.

4. Irregularities on inflections (mainly verbs) are the dinosaurs of the
museum. Once more a challenge for the learning layman.

5. Another important issue: a World Wide Language should be able to adopt
new foreign words with least change; this is achieved by widening the sounds
inventory.

For example, a common sound as the palatal nasal " � " in Spanish ("gn" in
Italian and French, "nh" in Portuguese), has no phonemic correspondence in
English.

To overcome this, English speakers only have two ways for a borrowed word
(like "lasagna"); one: to learn how it is pronounced in the source language,
possibly breaking the rules of pronunciation established in E.; or... to
invent a new pronunciation for that.

5. Finally shortness in spoken realm is threatening the effectiveness of
communication (giving besides economy). Many final consonants, clusters and
even medial sounds are dropped by the fashionable speeches. Today we can
hear them in mass media inclusively: advertising, TV, websites, etc.

EXPECTING YOUR IMPORTANT REMARKS,

Manuel
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