‘World English’ and the Latin analogy: where we get it wrong

Abstract

Will World English go the way of Latin? The phrase ‘Latin analogy’ was, it seems, coined by McArthur (1987), who distinguished a pessimistic or what he called ‘Babelesque’, perspective from an optimistic and a neutral (or pragmatic) perspectives to the comparison. The comparison continues to be made even today and generally it comes with a dire warning: the days of English as an international language, or a lingua franca for peoples from different parts of the world, are numbered. It will, sooner or later, break up into a number of different, mutually incomprehensible languages just the way good old Latin did. What is worse, in some cases this apprehension seems only to grow with the passage of time.