One World? One Language?

So, what fate awaits modern-day barbarians? By a number of converging accounts, the non-English speaking hordes are in the process of being assimilated: In a small book of grand pronouncements [1] , the eminent linguist David Crystal puts the case for English as the global language. He estimates that a total of up to 1,800 million people – 30% of the world population are already "reasonably competent" in English, of whom "670 million have a native or native-like command" [2] of the language. About one billion people are learning it. In the European Union, according to a 2001 Eurobarometer survey, English – the mother tongue of only 16% of the EU's population – is spoken as a foreign language by a further 31% [3] . And when asked what language they find the most useful besides their mother tongue, 75% of respondents answered English.