Advantages and Challenges Facing English as a Lingua Franca

English Lingua Franca
Students Name
Institutional Affiliation
Lingua franca English is a case whereby English is used as a means of communication by members of a nation whose first language is not English. There have been many factors that led to the spread of English among different nations across the world. During the ruling of Queen Elizabeth 1 and that of Queen Elizabeth two, English because one of the most commonly used languages in the world whereby its users rose from approximately seven million to two billion. In the mid-sixteenth century, English was being spoken as a first language by a few of the individuals that were raised in British and the shores of its Isles (Jenkins, 2014). Currently, the language is spoken in many parts of the world, and it is not the first language to most of the speakers. Therefore, this essay will focus on lingua franca English and the manner in which it has become widespread in different parts across the world.
In addition to the widespread of English in the world, the Caribbeans and Asians came to know of the language in the 17th century as a result of the slave trade. Slave trade took place on the American coast whereby the slaves from West Africa were exchanged for rum and sugar. This led to the development of English as a pidgin language between the slaves and the captors. All that they needed to know was the basic contact vocabularies. It did not take much communication for them to understand one another (Jenkins, 2014). The next generation was more fluent, and they developed creoles. This was the beginning of the spread of the English language as their communication kept on becoming better. However, over the years, the English language in West Africa has some dialect mixing as a result of the different native aboriginal languages. There are still individuals who do not understand the English language and consider to use their indigenous language. In addition, the spread of English in England was as a result of the European traders, but it faces a dialect mixing due to the influence of the Maori vocabularies. However, such influence has reduced and currently, most of the people in New Zealand can speak fluent English. The country has been able to engage in trade activities with different European languages because they have a common language which makes it easy for them to carry out business transactions.
Most countries have made English their national language hence bringing out the need for its citizens to understand the language. This explains the reason as to why it is widely spread across the world. Once a nation has made English as part of the official languages, then most of the documents are written in English hence calling for the citizens to learn it. This has been made possible by making it a subject in the school curriculum. Learning English in such countries is essential because the law and the government use the language to address important matters which affect the country as a whole. Being a second language to most of the speakers, this has possed a great challenge because most of them are not able to speak fluent English. Some speakers combine it with their first language during communication hence coming up with a slug language. Such language includes specific...