Three Options to Asia’s Lingua Franca
In The Future of English? (The British Council, 1997), David
Graddol suggests three options for English as the lingua
franca* of Asia. First, it might keep this role indefinitely. Second,
it might be supplanted by Mandarin. Third, there might
not be any Asian lingua franca.
Which option is most likely? But before trying to answer
that question it might be good to check what Graddol and
other commentators mean by ‘Asia’ and also consider the
uses to which Asians put such languages as English and
Chinese. After all, ‘Asia’ isn’t a simple concept. Some commentators
on Asia focus on the East, others on the South.
For Americans, ‘Asians’ tend to be Chinese, Japanese, and
Koreans; for the British, they tend to be Indians, Pakistanis,
and Bangladeshis. West Asia is a large region, but it is seldom
so called, being more commonly known, notably in
English in an old Eurocentric way, as the ‘Near’ and ‘Middle’
East. Central and North Asia tend to be left out of most discussions
about English in the continent, yet these vast regions
include much of Russia and all the ‘-stans’ (Kazakhstan,
Uzbekistan, etc.).