English as an Asian Language
Tom McArthur
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. Sec- ond, 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 com- mentators 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 sel- dom 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 dis- cussions about English in the continent, yet these vast re- gions include much of Russia and all the ‘-stans’ (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, etc.).
I would argue that the situation of English and of other languages is different in each of these regions.
To demonstrate this it may be useful to look at Chinese first, because it is the largest language in the world and might well be competing with English in Asia. Yet, if so, the evi- dence is hard to find, and it is also difficult to find a need for Chinese as a lingua franca, despite its size and significance, beyond East Asia. Chinese has little impact on Russia and the -stans, and no role at all in South and West Asia. In addi- tion, there are two other comparable large Asian language complexes: Hindi-Urdu in India and Pakistan, and Arabic in West Asia. Both have worldwide diasporas, but even so both are largely centred on their region, in much the same way as Mandarin. Arabic, Hindi-Urdu, and Mandarin Chinese are large and will keep growing regionally, but none is likely to serve as a pan-Asian lingua franca, and speakers of these languages often also learn and use English.
With the decline of Communism, Russian has lost ground in Asia in recent decades, most notably in China, and En- glish appears to be filling the vacuum it has left, in both Chi- na and the -stans. The shrinkage of Russian has in fact served to extend the use of English, which formerly had little signif- icance in North and Central Asia. In addition, ASEAN (the Association of South East Asian Nations) has since it cre- ation in 1967 used English as its working language, and cur- rently also uses it in its increasingly important discussions with China, Japan, and other Asian territories.
Evolution of English as Lingua Franca
A key reason, of course, for the use of English as an Asian lingua franca is its use as the world’s lingua franca. Both roles are likely to continue expanding: in the air, by sea, in the media, in telecommunications, and so forth. Asia does, how- ever, differ from other continents in having no large native English-speaking population base, but at the same time it has had a long acquaintance with English as the key medi- um of first the British Empire then the United States (itself an offspring of that empire). Indeed, since the Second World
Tom McArthur
War, instead of contracting as the Empire contracted, English has expanded beyond both its native and settler communi- ties into non-native areas everywhere: beyond the UK into mainland Europe, beyond North America into Latin Ameri- ca, and beyond both the UK and the US in Asia. Such mo- mentum has been strengthened by at least two social factors: first, the efforts of ministries of education worldwide to pro- vide English-as-a-second-language programmes for their school populations; second, the determination of millions of non-native-speaking parents to get English for their children from the earliest possible age, with or without state help.
There are few indigenous mother-tongue English commu- nities in Asia, and those that exist are small. Yet, paradoxi- cally, they have been significant in extending the use of the language. Such communities have in the main been Chris- tian, and have tended to create denominational school sys- tems in which English has been the medium of instruction. Because of a widespread parental pressure for English- medium education, and the readiness of such schools to ac- cept students from other social groups (usually without proselytizing, but also without compromising, and often needing the numbers to survive), these communities have had an influence far beyond their size, first within the Em- pire, then because of a disproportionate influence on educa- tion, social life, and careers in post-imperial nation-states.
The largest community has been Anglo-Indian, whose mainly Protestant school networks have served as a homog- enizing factor in India from north to south, contributing to a more or less national style of speech (and to English-lan- guage media), and often being identified as the medium of an envied elite. A similar community, referred to in the sub- continent as ‘Goan’ and ‘East Indian’, consists of descendants of converts to Roman Catholicism in Portuguese colonies such as Goa and (in origin) Bombay/Mumbai. This commu- nity has been the base for what have come to be known as ‘convent schools’, notably for well-to-do girls of all back- grounds, who are often described in marriage ads (with an upmarket effect) as ‘convent-educated’.
Current Situations
South Asians with this inheritance, whatever their religious backgrounds, have had a further influence on English teach- ing, learning, and usage not only in the subcontinent but also in Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Hong Kong, and Fiji, locali- ties in all of which expatriate South Asians can be found in significant numbers. Whereas the original impulse behind these Anglo-Indian/East Indian schools was British English, a parallel community of converts to Roman Catholicism has grown up in the Philippines, which was first a Spanish then an American colony.
* lingua franca: a language, usually in a simplified, adapted, or specialized form, used as a means of communication among groups of people who do not have