Welcome to the most widely spoken language

Thomas Friedman’s ‘Eureka moment,’ as you may recall, came in Bangalore when Nandan Nilekani, the then CEO of Infosys, used the phrase ‘the playing field is being levelled’ to describe the new opportunities available to the India-based computer company. Reminiscing this, Robert McCrum writes in ‘Globish: How the English language became the world’s language’ (www.landmarkonthenet.com), how in the new knowledge economy, cities such as London, Boston, San Francisco, Kuala Lumpur, and Bangalore, could all be linked simultaneously, offering a new challenge as much for a modernising India as for a globalising America.

“Armed with this insight, Friedman mobilised himself to explore the many economic aspects of globalisation, from Wal-Mart to Yahoo!, that were contributing to this flattening process. For Friedman, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the rise of the PC, Netscape, outsourcing and ‘off-shoring’ – his ‘flattening’ forces – combined to enhance a new global awareness.”

While the new technology was beginning to dismantle old frontiers, lubricate social frictions and facilitate global interconnections, there was also the need for a language to humanise the software, a language that was adaptable, collaborative, and populist, argues McCrum. The practical response to a practical need came in the form of ‘part English, part American, part global.’

Full report here Hindu