本文节选自专著《A History of the English Language》
In numbers of speakers as well as in its uses for international communication and in other less quantifiable measures, English is one of the most important languages of the world. Spoken by more than 380 million people in the United Kingdom, the United States, and the former British Empire, it is the largest of the Western languages. English, however, is not the most widely used native language in the world. Chinese, in its eight spoken varieties, is known to 1.3 billion people in China alone. Some of the European languages are comparable to English in reflecting the forces of history, especially with regard to European expansion since the sixteenth century. Spanish, next in size to English, is spoken by about 330 million people, Portuguese by 180 million, Russian by 175 million, German by 110 million, French by 80 million native speakers, Italian by 65 million. A language may be important as a lingua franca in a country or region whose diverse populations would otherwise be unable to communicate. This is especially true in the former colonies of England and France whose colonial languages have remained indispensable even after independence and often in spite of outright hostility to the political and cultural values that the European languages represent.
英语是世界上最重要的语言之一，无论是在使用人数上，还是在国际交流中，还是在其他不可量化的衡量标准上，都是如此。在英国、美国和前大英帝国，有3.8亿多人使用英语，英语是西方最大的语言。然而，英语并不是世界上使用最广泛的母语。汉语，有8种方言，仅在中国就有13亿人会说汉语。有些欧洲语言在反映历史的力量方面可与英语相媲美，特别是在16世纪以来欧洲的扩张方面。西班牙语(仅次于英语)的人口约3.3亿，葡萄牙语人口1.8亿，俄语人口1.75亿，德语人口1.1亿，法语人口8000万，意大利语人口6500万。在一个国家或地区，使用一种语言作为通用语可能很重要，否则这个国家或地区的不同人口将无法交流。在英国和法国的前殖民地尤其如此，即使在这些国家独立之后，尽管对欧洲语言所代表的政治和文化价值观有公然的敌意，殖民者的语言仍然是不可或缺的。
French and English are both languages of wider communication, and yet the changing positions of the two languages in international affairs during the past century illustrate the extent to which the status of a language depends on extralinguistic factors. It has been said that English is recurringly associated with practical and powerful pursuits. Joshua A. Fishman writes: “In the Third World (excluding former anglophone and francophone colonies) French is considered more suitable than English for only one function: opera. It is considered the equal of English for reading good novels or poetry and for personal prayer (the local integrative language being widely viewed as superior to both English and French in this connection). But outside the realm of aesthetics, the Ugly Duckling reigns supreme.” The ascendancy of English as measured by numbers of speakers in various activities does not depend on nostalgic attitudes toward the originally English-speaking people or toward the language itself. Fishman makes the point that English is less loved but more used; French is more loved but less used. And in a world where “econo-technical superiority” is what counts, “the real ‘powerhouse’ is still English. It doesn’t have to worry about being loved because, loved or not, it works. It makes the world go round, and few indeed can afford to ‘knock it.’”
法语和英语都是交际范围更广的语言，然而在过去一个世纪里，这两种语言在国际事务中的地位不断变化，说明一种语言的地位在多大程度上取决于语言本身以外的因素。人们常说，英语与实际和强大的追求联系在一起。约书亚·A·菲什曼写道:“在第三世界(不包括前英语国家和法语殖民地)，法语被认为比英语更适合一种功能:歌剧。在阅读优秀小说或诗歌和个人祈祷方面，法语和英语是旗鼓相当的(在个人祈祷方面，当地的综合语言被普遍认为优于英语和法语)。但是在美学领域之外，英语占绝对优势。”从说英语的人在各种活动中的数量来衡量，英语的优势并不取决于人们对母语是英语的人或对这门语言本身的怀旧态度。菲什曼指出，英语不那么受欢迎，但使用得更多;法语更受欢迎，但使用较少。在一个“经济技术优势”才是最重要的世界里，“真正的‘发动机’仍然是英语。”它不需要担心被爱，因为，爱或不爱，它有用。它让世界运转起来，但很少有人能真正承担得起‘敲打它’的代价。”
If “econo-technical superiority” is what counts, we might wonder about the relative status of English and Japanese. Although spoken by 125 million people in Japan, a country that has risen to economic and technical dominance since World War II, the Japanese language has yet few of the roles in international affairs that are played by English or French. The reasons are rooted in the histories of these languages. Natural languages are not like programming languages such as Fortran or LISP, which have gained or lost international currency over a period of a decade or two. Japan went through a two-century period of isolation from the West (between 1640 and 1854) during which time several European languages were establishing the base of their subsequent expansion.
如果“经济-技术优势”是重要的，我们可能想知道英语和日语的相对地位。尽管日本有1.25亿人说日语，但日语在国际事务中所扮演的角色却很少像英语或法语那样。这些原因根源于这些语言的历史。自然语言不像Fortran或LISP这样的编程语言，它们在一、二十年的时间里获得或失去了国际流行度。日本经历了一个与西方隔绝的两世纪时期(1640年至1854年)，在此期间，几种欧洲语言为后来的扩张奠定了基础。