How English’s Global Dominance Fails Us
Document Type
Article
Publication Title
Time
Publication Date
4-7-2024
Abstract
(Excerpt)
Back in 2012, in an op-ed for the New York Times, former Harvard president Lawrence Summers questioned whether the “substantial investment” to learn another language was “universally worthwhile” given rapidly changing machine translation and the “fragmentation of languages” worldwide. Over time, he said, mastering a language would become “less essential in doing business in Asia, treating patients in Africa, or helping resolve conflicts in the Middle East.”
The subsequent years of globalization, mass migration, and geopolitical conflicts have proven Summers dead wrong. Although AI generated translation has become increasingly accurate, it lacks the essential human element and the cultural sensitivity that comes with learning a language. And while English has continued to be the favored lingua franca in many parts of the world, other languages like Chinese and Spanish are increasingly chipping away at its dominance. English, long considered the primary language for business, has never been as universal or sufficient as conventionally believed.
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Available at: https://time.com/6963810/english-global-lingua-franca/