Globish

By Robert McCrum    Copyright 2010

The word Globish is a combination of the words Global and English, and the author of this book is attempting to popularize the word. He argues that the English language is becoming the basis of a new worldwide language.

The subtitle of this book is "How the English Language Became the World's Language." However, if readers are looking for a linguistic history of how the English language has developed over the centuries, and how it is changing in our current times, they will be disappointed. This book doesn't deliver what it promises. It barely touches on word and grammar history.  Instead, it is a breezy history of political and social events involving English speaking people. The format is similar to Winston Churchill's book, "A History of the English Speaking Peoples."

The author of Globish begins with a discussion of the origins of England. The history of England began with the fall of the Roman empire.  Then there were invasions by Anglos and Saxons from Germany and Normans from France.  And then there was a migration of England's people to the United States, Australia, and India.

Then after the second world war, when the United States became a world superpower, the English language was spread by American businesses and military to secure it's place as the dominate global language.

The author also discusses the technology of the Internet as another force propelling the spread of the English language. English is the language of the Internet, because the Internet and personal computer's were invented in the United States. The author then ends the book by discussing how English is spreading in China because of trade relationships and economic development.

If readers are interested in linguistic history, this book won't interest them because it is almost entirely about political and social history. But if readers are interested in political and social history, this book still won't interest them because it simply skims over centuries of history from a high level, and also with a highly biased viewpoint.

Readers will know from the start the author is not a serious thinker or academic, because he discusses Barack Obama as though the current American President represents a serious influence on the spread of English. Several times in the book he discusses Barack Obama and always in glowing terms. No serious book on the history of the English language has any need to mention Barack Obama. Also, further proving the hack status of the author is the fact he even manages to work in an insult of Sarah Palin.

This book is too silly to waste any time on. The English language is without doubt an international language, and it will certainly form the basis of future languages. It is similar to Latin in the days of the Roman empire. But this book doesn't contribute anything to understanding the history of the English language or predicting its future.