What does all this, then, have to do with English? English is expanding as a lingua franca but not as a mother tongue. More than 1 billion people speak English worldwide but only about 330 million of them as a first language, as this population is not spreading. The future of English is in the hands of countries where non native speakers live. Will they always learn English? There two new factors stopping the spread of English, modern nationalism and technology. Several of Britain's ex colonies once tried to eliminate English, but only because English was a neutral language among competing native tongues. English has been rejected in other ex colonies, such as Sri Lanka and Tanzania, where English specking elites gave way to Sinhala and Swahili speaking nationalists. In 1990 the Netherlands considered but rejected on nationalist grounds making English the sole language of university education. English will fade as a lingua franca, but not because some other language will take its place. Rather, English will have no successor because none will be needed. Technology will fill the need. This argument relies on huge advances in computer translation and speech recognition. So far such software is a disappointment even after 50 years of intense research, and an explosion in the power of computers. But half a century is an instant in the sweep of language history. It is absolutely right to observe the nationalist limits to the spread of English as a mother - tongue. If technology replaces any lingua - franca, future generations will come to see English as something like calligraphy or Latin: prestigious and traditional,
