The Future of English A mighty language and its prospects. By John Derbyshire, NR contributing editor e live in an age of Anglophone triumphalism. The m lange of low-German dialects carried to Britain on the tongues of mercenary war bands a millennium and a half ago has now become the first language of some 350 million people and the second language of at least a billion more. When an Indonesian businessman meets a customer from Finland, they converse in English.
Airline pilots flying international routes communicate with their controllers in English.
Seventy-six percent of the content of the Internet is in English. There are a number of reasons for thinking that English may be at, or perhaps even past, the high tide of its influence. To begin with, the proportion of humanity speaking English as its first language is declining. If the rate of decline is linear we must now be hovering just over 7 percent. To be sure, this decline is relative, not absolute.