A decade after he wrote The Future of English, British linguist David Graddol is back with a report on global English. He tells Faizal Khan that India will get no special advantage if elsewhere in the world everyone speaks English:
Your report English Next says global English may mean the end of English as a foreign language.
English has become a second language for most people across the world. People are using it more and more in their own countries. They are not learning it as a foreign language. It is largely to communicate as a language of business and employment.
You say in India "very many know a few words, but only a few have a high level of competence in both local and more standard varieties" of English. What is the basis of this conclusion?
The majority of students in Indian higher education do not have good enough English. There is no hard data on this, but in 2007, the International English Language Testing System examination conducted by the British Council in India showed that only a third of the candidates had good enough English to be studying at the under-graduate level. It was a self-selected group of students from across the country that wanted to study abroad. Only a third of them scored 6.5 or higher out of 10. Universities have expanded, but the problem is still there. Most of these students are in affiliated colleges. We are not talking about Delhi University or JNU. If you move out of the main highways, you hear less English in India.
You argue that for India to become a superpower, it would need better English-speaking skills. What is the correlation between economic prowess and English-speaking skills, especially since economic superpowers like Germany, Russia and Japan use little English?
In Russia, English has become the working language. It's the corporate language for Germany. Brazil is going to teach English to its students from class I starting next year. The way wealth is created is different after globalisation. Even in mid-1990s, Belgians were teaching English to Chinese so that they could communicate with German and Italian engineers installing machines in their steel factories. In India, not many know the changes that have happened outside. India used to think 'we speak English, so we have an advantage'. You don't get special advantage if everyone speaks English. Twenty years ago you had this special advantage. China is teaching English to a much wider demographic whereas in India, it continues to be to a fairly elite group.
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