For one thing, its spelling is illogical and inconsistent. At the same time, English grammar is complex with long lists of exceptions, while pronunciation is as confusing as `women are to men`, or `men are to women`, whatever you prefer. Have a look at  the chaos of English pronunciation and be amazed!

 

To make matters worse, American English and British/Australian English are in disagreement on everything, from the spelling of basic words like color (colour) to the meaning of certain expressions. E.g.: in American, a decision is `up to you`, while in British it’s `down to you`.

Yet `English` has won the world battle of languages. While Chinese may be spoken by more people in the world as a mother tongue, it is not unlikely that in the near future more Chinese will be fluent in English than the almost 400 million people who live in official English speaking countries. English has become the `Lingua Franca` of our times, replacing a form of Franca-French in Medieval times and Latin before that. The question is: will it be an all time victory? Will the people from Earth move towards speaking one language: English?

As a Dutch citizen living in Australia for many years now, I love the sound of different English accents. At school we learn English from a very young age, while TV-movies and playing Play-Station helps building a vocabulary. I’ve always admired the beauty of Shakespeare, but we also use rough four letter swearwords like `S..t` and `F..k` more than we should. As a non native speaker, it is often hard to feel the degree of impoliteness that comes with those words.

What do you think? Are we lucky that English is the common language of our time, or are other languages better suited to take over world dominance? I’ve travelled many countries and my favourite would be the African `Swahili`, a beautiful poetic language with fantastic sounds and a `singing` rhythm. Tell me your suggestions.