| Never before in history has a single language been as | | | | imagine such a widespread resource as the Web to |
| widely used as English. The number of English users in | | | | become a solid reference for spelling and grammar, |
| Asia alone is more or less equal to the number of | | | | we are met with quite the opposite, English over the |
| Native English speakers worldwide: 350 million, more or | | | | Net is evolving, or rather de-evolving towards a more |
| less the combined populations of the United States, | | | | simplified form. |
| Britain and Canada. | | | | More and more frequently we encounter what might |
| The advent of the Internet has boosted English even | | | | look like harmless spelling mistakes; blogs, newsletters, |
| further, about eighty percent of the world's | | | | chats and forums are full of them. At a closer look we |
| electronically stored information is in English, and this | | | | might notice that some of these altered forms are |
| widespread use of the language has caused an | | | | consistent across the Web, in some cases we might |
| increase in the demand for English courses. An | | | | encounter simplifications, such as there used |
| estimate by the British Council reports that today more | | | | indifferently as 'there' or 'their', or phonetic shifts, |
| than 1 billion people are learning English for work, study | | | | caused by the natural tendency to spell similar sounds |
| or leisure. China is strongly pushing English language in | | | | the same way: thus unstressed _ent and _ant both |
| its schools, there are more Chinese children studying | | | | sound the same and tend to be spelled _ant e.g. |
| English as second language than there are Britons. | | | | consistant. |
| Those among the native English speakers who believe | | | | Other changes might involve the tendency to either |
| their language will soon be the standard for worldwide | | | | spell 's no matter what grammar is involved, two |
| communication should think again: | | | | chair's or the opposite, its for 'it is' pronoun + verb or 'its |
| Firstly, it can hardly be considered their language | | | | own' possessive pronoun. |
| anymore, since the vast majority of English users are | | | | The result of this might be surprising and, for the |
| not native speakers. English is a living language and like | | | | purists, rather unsettling. If there ever will be a common |
| all languages it evolves, it changes and adapts itself | | | | world language, it won't look or sound much like English |
| according to its environment and - especially - the | | | | anymore. Current trends might produce a language |
| cultural and historical background of its speakers, often | | | | with simplified grammar, she look chair, phonetic spelling |
| mingling with idioms and linguistic structires of the local | | | | ther is a tendansy to bad wether and foreign words |
| language. There is no longer one English, but rather | | | | Hungry kya 'Are you hungry?' a mixture of English and |
| various adapted forms of the language, often with | | | | Hindi found in a recent ad for Domino's pizza in India. |
| dramatic changes in spelling, pronunciation, vocabulary | | | | Being a living language, the de-evolution of English |
| and grammar. | | | | seems unstoppable, in a certain sense this is a signal |
| Secondly, the Internet fastlane is producing an even | | | | of its good health and of its massive usage in today's |
| more interesting phenomenon, when one would | | | | world. Only dead languages never change. |