Some reflections on English as a ‘semi-sacred’ language

Abstract

BY GENERAL consensus English has become, if not a global language, then at the very least a lingua franca. Some commentators on English in the world, like Robert Phillipson (Linguistic Imperialism (Oxford University Press, 1992), use the term that serves him as a title to imply that English is itself part of the problem of having just such a global language. The argument here however is that English – like Latin, Sanskrit, Classical Arabic and Examination Chinese – through its political ascendancy (as a result of various waves of colonial activity alongside its use for religious purposes), may have taken on the character of a ‘semi-sacred’ rather than simply an imperial and imperialist language.