ENGLISH IN THE LEAD.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 11248, 11 April 1908, Page 2 (Supplement)

ENGLISH IN THE LEAD.

The American World's Work lias a remarkable article on the lead -of .English as a/ world-language. The writer I points oxit that its geographical distribution corresponds to -a remarkable exI tent with the world's greatest literacy, and predicts that within 'the century "English will be the vernacular of a quarter instead of a. tenth of the people of the world, and be read by a half instead of a quarter of the people of the world! who can road." Even now, he says, three-fourths of the world? s mail matter is addressed m English and more than half of the world's newspapery'are printed m English. .One hundred and thirty-six millions can read English, • 82,000 can read German, 70,---000,000 Chinese, 28,000.000 French, a,nd 30,000,000 Bussian. The \wViter' thinks that by the end of the, century everyone will be able, to read and write m all the countries m the temperate zones, audi m- that case English will still lead, even if no one reads it outside the countries where it' is the vernacular. He contends tliat ■'«. language must : havo a recognised literary standard, and all the people m its territory must have learn to use it, before it can extend its influence far abroad. English, French, and "German alone have reached this point, and as France and Germany bave not the new country which, is available for the spread of English, German and French are bound to fair off relatively as vernaculars, and this implies a 'falling 'off of their . importance as culture-languages. But the importance of English m this respect is bound to grow. Many European and South American countries give it first place among foreign languages m their schools. Mexico and Japan make it compulsory m all higher grade schools, and China is to follow Japan as soon as the work can be organised. The map of the world's literacy shows that m Great Britain, most of Canada and the United States, Australia and New Zealand, France, Germany, Swit^ zerland, part of Austria, Scandinavia and Iceland, 90 per cent of the people can read. The English-speaking communities thus loom pretty large m this list of literary peoples. :" .