Beyond Babel. Program 4. Future

With the advent of the 21st century came the unstoppable global spread of English as the universal language. “Beyond Babel” explores the reasons behind this phenomenal growth through four separate programs: Trade, Culture, Politics, Future. This final program studies the future, and the question is put, “What place does English have in our globalised world?”. The twentieth century proved to be the greatest scientific and technological period in recorded history and English was seen as the global language medium of expression for the development and acquisition of this knowledge. Through computers and eventually the internet, the spread of the English language globally grew to about 70%-80%, although this figure is beginning to turn around as more and more non-English speaking countries are accessing the net. There is of course the great divide between the wealthy nations and those that cannot access the internet due to poverty and lack of technological development such as South Africa’s shanty towns and rural village communities. Discusses India’s current situation where many of their brightest IT graduates are being lost to foreign companies. The future it would seem has to be multilingual. Today the BBC broadcasts in 43 languages and CNN are now producing regional language services parallel with the international global English services. Asia as a whole is using English as a second language but still wants to retain each country’s individual identity. Wales has adopted a bi-lingual society with both Welsh and English being taught in schools and South Africa runs both multi-racial and multilingual programs on television. “Beyond Babel” is an excellent documentary, informative, comprehensive and thought provoking. Narrated by Hugh Quarshie.