Is globalization creating a single language world?

As the world is gradually flattened out more and more, unique cultures and languages are being rolled over. The world demands more and more that English be the universal language in order to communicate between buisnesses, as well as between individuals. Because this is happening, my question is: Will English become the single language of the world in years to come?

Although, for now, many countries are learning English only as a second language, will globlization demand that it become a first? Already I have observed through my exchange program that most countries now consider learning English to be a requirement in most schools. In a convergence of students from all across the country at the Frankfurt, I was allowed to fully observe this. Although we were all coming to Germany to learn about German culture and language, most of the students only had the common language of English to use to communicate.

I met people from Congo, Romania, Japan, China, Thailand, Brazil, Argentinia, Australia….etc. Most of us could speak English. I beleive this was the first time I was personally ever exposed to globalizaiton in the making. It was a realization that we, as peoples of the world, were no longer divided so much by the language barrier, as perhaps, people who’d done exchanges at least ten years earlier.

Because the world is or is becoming flat, we all need a common language to communicate our ideas and in order to work with one another efficently and effectively. In certian areas of the world such as Africa or even Hawaii, though, languages, as well as cultures are being lost to the black hole of globalizaiton. Very few people are still able to speak the origonal Hawaiian language, and Africa is loosing many unique tribal languages. Is this due to globalization?

In Freidman’s book, he does not describe particularly how the languages of the world are being affected. However, he does speak about the cultural loss of certian peoples. In one particular example, when he explains how part of the Egyptian tradtion is, in a sense, being lost due to outsourcing in order to more cheaply produce Ramadan lanterns. Wheras all of the lanterns were once made of glass, and real candles were being used, they are now being cheaply made through China of plastic and a battery-powered light. Because the lanterns can be bought more inexpensively in a Chinese factory, rather than hand made by tradtional Egyptian workshops, there has been a sharp decrease in the amount of lanterns that are still handmade. In fact, according to Freidman, only about 5% of the lanterns are still being made in Egypt. This outsorcing, has destroyed part of a local traditon, but there is little that can be done about it.

It is not only Egypt that is loosing its traditons through globalizaiton, but other countries are as well. A historical example that might be used to explain how globalizaiton is affecting very unique cultures is the Native Americans. In what Friedman considers Globalization 1.0, when Colombus discovered the Americas, is the very beginning of culture loss. As soon as the Europeans started to colonize the New World, the Native Americans began to get pushed out. But, they also began adapting to the ways of the white man. Horses and guns are just two examples of how something so small can make a huge impact on a community and begin to change the culture altogether.

Horses allowed the Indians to become more mobile, although many tribes were nomadic before the arrival of the Equines, these animals allowed them to become even more so. They also helped their riders to hunt. Buffalo, although it was large game, was no much easier to hunt on horseback than it had been to do on foot. Guns also influenced the Natives, moving them away from traditional spears, and bows and arrows, which had been used for hundreds, even thousands of years.

Today, it is extremely unfortunate to lose these individual cultures and languages of the world. Because, each defines better the people who live within the traditions and speak the languages. Individuality of culture is something of the past, it is crumbling as a structure that was once strongly built, but is now lying unkept and unused because the people who once lived there have now moved on.  It is a sad existence, and like many endangered animals, we will also have to work hard in order to preserve the individuality of each community, before it is lost to a single, global, world.

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