India now holds the key to the long-term future of English as a global language,” says British linguist and writer David Graddol in English Next, his report on the status and future of English as a global common language.

The British Council in the UK published its health check on global English on 15 February 2006 with a report titled English Next by acclaimed linguist David Graddol. The author will visit India from 27 February to 04 March to launch English Next in key Indian cities – Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad and Kolkata  - and discuss implications of his report with Indian audiences. Click here to read the details of his all-India programme.

Containing new and controversial findings English Next promises to change the direction of current discussions of the English language as it competes with Mandarin, Spanish and Arabic. Graddol argues that India – and China – will determine how English will fare as the global language of industry, commerce and critically, the Internet, in the coming decades.

In 1997 the British Council published The Future of English? by David Graddol. The book was a combination of research on the roles and importance of English in the world and reasoned extrapolations as to its future developments. It took stock of the apparently unassailable position of English in the world and asked whether we could expect its status to remain unaltered during the following decades of unprecedented social and economic global change.

English Next now draws attention to the extraordinary speed of that change. It argues that we are already in a very new kind of environment and a distinctively new phase in the global development of English. What are the new rules and who will be the winners and who will be the losers? In this new study David Graddol suggests some of the answers by analysing the demographic and economic trends which affect Global English and the language policies worldwide which will influence its future.

Excerpts from English Next:
•The new language which is rapidly ousting the language of Shakespeare as the world’s lingua franca is English itself – English in its new global form.
•The future of English has become more closely tied to the future of globalisation itself.
•Asia, especially India and China, probably now holds the key to the long-term future of English as a global language
•English still forms a key mechanism for reproducing the old order of social elites – especially those originally constructed by imperialism.
•India […] has been triumphantly playing the English card in establishing its global leadership of outsourcing and BPO.

But it may not be smooth sailing for India in the coming decades vis-à-vis China , warns Graddol in English Next. Find out for yourself what challenges English Next predicts for the education and industry policy makers in India.