World language

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A world language or international lingua franca is a natural language that has gained importance as a lingua franca far beyond its original language area . The number of speakers alone is not decisive here, but also the wide distribution over the autochthonous area of origin of the language. Chinese , Hindi and Bengali or German are therefore not to be regarded as world languages ​​in the narrower sense, despite the large number of speakers, but only as locally limited vernacular languages with a large population.

Such international lingua franca are spoken and understood by many people of different nationalities as first or second languages , they serve as the lingua franca in diplomacy or in international trade contacts as well as in the transfer of knowledge; the world languages ​​are often also official languages ​​in several countries or international organizations.

Since the end of the Second World War , English has been the world's most important language as the world's lingua franca.

Development of world languages

Most world languages ​​emerged from the warlike expansions of states in which the corresponding language was spoken and the subsequent long-term hegemony of the conquered territories. This applies to all regions of the world and to the world languages ​​of antiquity as well as to those of the modern age or the present.

The term world language always has a certain imperial background that can be perceived as repressive by speakers of smaller languages. This was already true of the world language of classical antiquity , ancient Greek , the spread of which can be traced back to the campaign of Alexander the Great .

Historical world languages

The ancient world languages ​​are Babylonian , Aramaic , Greek , Latin , Persian and Chinese .

Latin , which became a world language with the expansion of the Roman Empire , retained this status as the language of the church , literature and law until the 17th century. In the late Middle Ages , Middle Low German was the lingua franca in the entire Baltic region due to the importance of the Hanseatic League .

Sanskrit and Pali were global languages ​​in South and Southeast Asia in connection with the spread of Hinduism and Buddhism in the first millennium AD.

With the Islamic expansion since the early Middle Ages, Arabic began to rise to become a world language.

The Turkic languages were also a world language during the time of the Kök Turks and during the Mongol Empire .

Modern world languages

Many of the modern world languages ​​are former colonial languages , which were spread on other continents mainly through conquest, colonization and extermination. Indigenous and tribal languages ​​were fought against, banned and suppressed, particularly in colonies that were ruled according to the principle of the Direct Rule ; conversely, however, the assimilation assumption z. B. promised the French language and culture full participation in civilization. In colonial states that were ruled according to the principle of the indirect rule (British and German colonies), the acquisition of the language of the colonial powers was mainly reserved for the elite who were supposed to control the simple population. The continued existence of indigenous languages ​​in broad sections of the population was even expressly desired in this power model as an effective barrier to advancement.

The possession of a large colonial empire led all European colonial powers of the 19th and 20th centuries to the rise of their national language to become a world language, such as English , French , Spanish , Portuguese and Dutch . French had replaced Latin as the language of the aristocrats and the educated in Europe as early as the 17th century and retained this status at least until the revolution of 1789 .

The Russian regained its importance only by the expansion of Russia to East Asia; After the Second World War, this importance was further established by the dominance of the Soviet Union for the Eastern Bloc and the communist world. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union , the importance of Russian has declined again; Citizens in the former Soviet states have increasingly returned to their native language, and the birth rate and economy of Russia continue to stagnate.

World languages ​​in special contexts

The French gained in the 17th century as the language of diplomacy, the postal system and the European nobility its importance as the leading world language. For diplomacy, the year 1678 with the peace of Nijmegen can even be given.

The German was built from the late 18th century as a result of the Weimar cultural policy (s. Weimar Classicism , represented by poets and politicians such as Goethe , Schiller and the brothers Humboldt , but also by the importance of the writings of philosophical enlightenment, especially Kant , see: Poets and thinkers ) a very important language in science and art; However, it lost this status after the defeats in the two world wars and probably also as a result of the continuous decline of Enlightenment ideals that preceded these wars.

Smaller cultural niches in which certain languages ​​are still dominant worldwide are ballet with the French and classical music with the Italian language.

Spread of world languages ​​at the beginning of the 21st century

English is the lingua franca of international diplomacy, international economic relations and the international scientific and cultural exchange, the world's only common literally lingua franca and the most important world language.

The major languages Chinese (Mandarin), French , English , Russian and Spanish have been the official languages ​​of the United Nations since 1946 . In 1973, Arabic was added as the sixth official language.

Mandarin is the most important of the Chinese languages and has more native speakers than English and Spanish combined.

Hindi / Urdu or their mixed form Hindustani is spoken almost exclusively in the original language areas of India and Pakistan ; the same applies to Bengali and its language areas Bangladesh and West Bengal as well as Japanese and the language area Japan . Despite the large number of speakers, these languages ​​are therefore normally not counted as world languages. The fact that, as a result of global migration movements since the middle of the 20th century, larger groups of speakers of South Asian languages ​​also live permanently outside the original language area, for example in Great Britain or the USA, has so far (as of 2011) not led to the languages ​​in the new settlement areas would have become lingua franca.

See also

Web links

Wiktionary: World language  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Footnotes

  1. ↑ cf. on this in detail David Crystal : English as a Global Language , Edition 2, illustrated, revised, Cambridge University Press, 2003, ISBN 9780521530323 . ( Digitized version )
  2. ↑ Resolution 2 of the General Assembly of the United Nations of February 1, 1946, PDF document available at www.un.org/documents/ga/res/1/ares1.htm and Resolution 3191 of the General Assembly of December 18, 1973, PDF document accessible via www.un.org/documents/ga/res/28/ares28.htm