GLOBAL LANGUAGE

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GLOBAL LANGUAGE. A late 20c term for a language used everywhere on earth (and usually linked with English): ‘It has become the language of the planet, the first truly global language’ ( Robert McCrum et al., The Story of English, 1986); ‘What is a global language?-A language achieves a genuinely global status when it develops a special role that is recognized in every country’ ( David Crystal, English as a Global Language, 1997); ‘The future of English as a global language therefore may depend, in large measure, on how the language is taken up and used by young adults in Asian countries’ ( David Graddol, The Future of English?, 1997); ‘English is shockingly emerging as the only truly global language’ ( Michael Toolan, ‘Recentering English’, in English Today, 52, October 1997). See GLOBAL ENGLISH. Compare WORLD LANGUAGE.

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