[Dr. Jamshid Ibrahim]

Hi Ed
Thanks for you post and your interest. Let me now comment as follows:

1. Maybe we are still not ready yet but the pace of English dominance is increasing even without noticing. You can now even draw annual comparisons on languages and see the rate of English infleuence. So not only people of non-English descent are worried about the dominance of English/American language and culture but the English and Americans themselves are worried about what will become of English. Their tragedy is even more dramatic because this involves the loss of linguistic identity.The pace of language change used to be very slow but now it has increased enormously.

2. You are right with your prediction that a global English might also split into different languages. However, there is one important difference. Now global communication is fast and ubiquitous, practically any time and any place. We have already become a 24-hour society and a global village. So the degree and pace of any change will be much differnt. People are often afraid of new shifts in their lives and are often worried. Retrospectively the picture is not that dramatic.

3. The Arabic language has in a way experienced something quite unique in the world. It's still a living language and the only remaining sacred language of a major religious group in the world. The languages of Christianity, Judiasim and Budism are dead now and can only be found in scripts. This is one of the reasons why Arabic hasn't changed so much and why people can still understand an old text like Quran which goes back to the seventh century. In comparison the gap between old English, Middle English and Modern English is wide.

Regards
Jamshid