DEFINITION AND INTRODUCTION OF LANGUAGE

Life is an organic and so is our world. For as long as we live, our world will continue to grow from simple to a more sophisticatedly enigmatic form. And this growth is triggered by our never-ending knowledge and technology. These meta-complex changes are affecting us both positively and negatively, living things and non-living things, and all human facets. How we speak and write our language or lingua-franca like English is no exception. Any language like English (English communication) keeps changing as long as our knowledge grows each single day. Варнаков and Varanakov in their book Slang and Rock stress that: “Language is dynamic, and at any given time, hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of words and expressions are in the process of changing from one level to another, of becoming more acceptable or less acceptable, of becoming more popular or less popular.”

Language is an arbitrary set of symbols, phonemes and gestures which follows sequential, structured and logical rules used in communication. In other words, language is organically dynamic sets of arbitrary symbols, phones (phonemes) and gestures used to communicate among humans and express thoughts. It is a system of words, symbols, sounds and gestures used to communicate among only humans to express thoughts in information transmission. There are more than six thousand (6000) different types of languages spoken worldwide. And each language is distinct and unique from one another. Language is human and it’s a characteristic of human. This means humans are the only creatures in this universe that use and create language whether spoken or written.

Animals (non-human beings) communicate amongst themselves but they don’t use language in the process of their communication. They mainly and merely innate sounds, gestures and timbre of whistles to communicate amongst groups of the same kind. Animals can adopt more than one medium of communication amongst group of the same kind/species. But humans have the capabilities to adopt multiple media of communications amongst ourselves irrespectively of how different we are racially, geographically or culturally. A typical example is the use of English Language. English Language is the most popular language in the world used by more than two billion (2 billion) people across the globe. This means more than 30% of the world total population speak and use English Language. It is regarded as the modern international language of the world.

Imagine you’re from Angola [Portuguese is their official language] and you meet a woman (man) who is from Chile [Spanish is their official language]. Both of you don’t speak one common language (or one local dialect or one native language), but for the first time to make communication flow and to express your thoughts to each other, the two of you must understand and use a lingua franca (or a kind of interlanguage or a common language) to communicate whether spoken or written. And undoubtedly (as many researches have proven) the only lingua franca at that moment would be English Language. Virtually, every country tries to include learning and studying of English Language in their curriculum and syllabus and courses, whether at the Universities, secondary or primary education levels.

Many studies have shown that it is always English Language that majority of the people would use as lingua franca when they meet non-native speakers, and the first expression that begins their communication is ‘Hey or Hi’, whether online chatting or face to face. A typical example is the UN meetings/conferences, which involve many different countries with different languages but the dominant lingua franca is English. Majority of the international meetings, seminars and conferences are organized in English. Hence, it is an international language. It is the only medium of communication which is primarily taught and used in most schools across the globe than any other language.

According to (UKhttps://www.ukessays.com/essays/english-language/the-importance-of-language-in-the-world-english-language-essay.php?vref=1Essays. November 2018. The Importance Of Language In The World English Language Essay. [online]. Available from: https://www.ukessays.com/essays/english-language/the-importance-of-language-in-the-world-english-language-essay.php?vref=1 [Accessed 2 May 2019].) ‘English has been the considered to be the first global Lingua Franca. In today’s modern world the English language has become part and parcel of every existing field. It has been an international language of communication, business, science, information technology, entertainment and so on. It has become the working of English and also an inevitable requirement for a number of fields, professions such as computing and medicine’, Mathematics, music and art across the globe.

Wikipedia (2019) also emphasizes that English is often called “the international language”, or lingua franca. It is the main second language of the world and the international language of science, travel, technology, business, diplomacy, and entertainment. French had a similar status until the 20th century, and other languages had it at other times, ibid. English as a first language has about 380 million people; as an official second language has up to 300 million people; taught as a second language, but with no official status has up to 1000 million/1 billion people, Wikipedia.

Language, according to