By Jennifer Pak
BBC News, Kuala Lumpur
English has been the dominant global
language for a century, but is it the language of the future? If Mandarin
Chinese is to challenge English globally, then it first has to conquer its own
backyard, South East Asia.
In Malaysia's southernmost city of Johor Bahru, the desire to speak good
English has driven some children to make a remarkable two-hour journey to school
every day.
Nine-year-old Aw Yee Han hops on a yellow mini van at 04:30. His passport is
tucked inside a small pouch hung around his neck.
This makes it easier for him to show it to immigration officials when he
reaches the Malaysian border.
His school is located on the other side, in Singapore, where unlike in
Malaysia, English is the main language.
It's not your typical school run, but his mother, Shirley Chua thinks it's
worth it.
"Science and maths are all written in English so it's essential for my son to
be fluent in the language," she says.
Robert Lane Greene Author of You Are What You Speak
The assumption that Mandarin will grow with China's economic rise may be
flawed. Consider Japan which, after spectacular post-war economic growth, became
the world's second-biggest economy. The Japanese language saw no comparable rise
in power and prestige.
The same may prove true of Mandarin. The character-based writing system
requires years of hard work for even native speakers to learn, and poses a
formidable obstacle to foreigners. In Asia, where China's influence is thousands
of years old, this may pose less of a problem. But in the West, even dedicated
students labour for years before they can confidently read a text of normal
difficulty on a random topic.
Finally, many languages in Asia, Africa and the Amazon use "tones" (rising,
falling, flat or dipping pitch contours) to distinguish different words. For
speakers of tonal languages (like Vietnamese) learning the tones of Mandarin
poses no particular difficulty. But speakers of non-tonal languages struggle to
learn tones in adulthood - just ask any adult Mandarin-learner for their
funniest story about using a word with the wrong
tone.
An estimated 15,000 students from southern Johor state
make the same bus journey across the border every day. It may seem like a
drastic measure, but some parents don't trust the education system in Malaysia -
they worry that the value of English is declining in the country.
Since independence from the British in 1957, the country has phased out
schools that teach in English. By the early 1980s, most students were learning
in the national language of Malay.
As a result, analysts say Malaysian graduates became less employable in the
IT sector.
"We've seen a drastic reduction in the standard of English in our country,
not just among the students but I think among the teachers as well," says
political commentator Ong Kian Ming.
Those who believe that English is important for their children's future
either send their kids to expensive private schools or to Singapore, where the
government has been credited as being far-sighted for adopting the language of
its former colonial master.
Nearly three-quarters of the population in Singapore are ethnic Chinese but
English is the national language.
Many believe that this has helped the city state earn the title of being the
easiest place to do business, by the World Bank.
Lost in translation
- Up to 7,000 different languages are estimated to be spoken around the
world
- Mandarin Chinese, English, Spanish, Hindi, Arabic, Bengali, Russian,
Portuguese, Japanese, German and French are world's most widely spoken
languages, according to UNESCO
- Languages are grouped into families that share a common ancestry
- English is related to German and Dutch, and all are part of Indo-European
family of languages
- Also includes French, Spanish and Italian, which come from Latin
- 2,200 of the world's languages can be found in Asia, while Europe has
260
However, the dominance of English is now being
challenged by the rise of China in Singapore.
The Singapore Chinese Chamber Institute of Business has added Chinese classes
for business use in recent years.
Students are being taught in Mandarin rather than the Hokkien dialect spoken
by the older Chinese immigrants.
These courses have proved popular, ever since the government began providing
subsidies for Singaporeans to learn Chinese in 2009 during the global financial
crisis.
"The government pushed to provide them with an opportunity to upgrade
themselves so as to prepare themselves for the economic upturn," says chamber
spokesperson Alwyn Chia.
Some businesses are already desperate for Chinese speakers.
Lee Han Shih, who runs a multimedia company, says English is becoming less
important to him financially because he is taking western clients to do business
in China.
"So obviously you need to learn English but you also need to know Chinese,"
says Mr Lee.
As China's economic power grows, Mr Lee believes that Mandarin will overtake
English. In fact, he has already been seeing hints of this.
"The decline of the English language probably follows the decline of the US
dollar.
"If the renminbi is becoming the next reserve currency then you have to learn
Chinese."
More and more, he says, places like Brazil and China are doing business in
the renminbi, not the US dollar, so there is less of a need to use
English.
Bilingualism
Indeed, China's clout is growing in South East Asia, becoming the region's
top trading partner.
But to say that Mandarin will rival English is a "bit of a stretch", says
Manoj Vohra, Asia director at the Economist Intelligence Unit.
Even companies in China, who prefer to operate in
Chinese, are looking for managers who speak both Mandarin and English if they
want to expand abroad, he says.
"They tend to act as their bridges."
So the future of English is not a question of whether it will be overtaken by
Mandarin, but whether it will co-exist with Chinese, says Vohra.
He believes bilingualism will triumph in South East Asia.
It is a sound economic argument, but in Vietnam's case, there is resistance
to learning Mandarin.
The country may share a border with China, but the Vietnamese government's
choice to not emphasise Mandarin is an emotional one, says leading economist Le
Dang Doanh.
Shirley Chua fears her son's
English will suffer in the Malaysian school system
"All the streets in Vietnam are named according to generals and emperors that
have been fighting against the Chinese invasion for 2000 years," he says.
Tensions flared up again last May over the disputed waters of the South China
Sea.
Anti-Chinese sentiment means that young Vietnamese are choosing to embrace
English - the language of a defeated enemy. Many families still bear the
psychological scars from the Vietnam War with the United States.
Yet there is no animosity towards English because the founding father of
Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh, made a clear distinction between the so-called American
imperialists who were bombarding Vietnam and the American people, says Le Dang
Doanh.
Many Vietnamese who have lost family members during the war are now studying
in America, he says.
"We never forget any victim in the past but in order to industrialise and
normalise a country, Vietnam needs to speak English."
The Vietnamese government has an ambitious goal to ensure all young people
leaving school by 2020 will have a good grasp of the English language.
Vietnamese Ngoc Tu only listens
to music in English
But it's not hard for young Vietnamese to accept English. For some, the
language offers a sense of freedom in Vietnam, where the one-party communist
state retains a tight grip on all media.
In a public square in central Hanoi, a group of young men are break-dancing
to the pulsing beats of western hip hop. Ngoc Tu, 20, says he only listens to
English music.
"The Ministry of Culture has banned a lot of [Vietnamese] songs and any
cultural publications that refer to freedom or rebellion but... English songs
are not censored."
It is debatable whether English or Mandarin will dominate in South East Asia
in the future. There are arguments for both on the economic front.
But culturally, there is no dispute.
Even Mandarin language enthusiasts like Singaporean businessman Mr Lee, says
that English will remain popular so long as Hollywood exists.
The success of movies such as Kung Fu Panda, an American production about a
Chinese animal, has caused a lot of anxiety in China, he says.
There have been many cartoons in China about pandas before, but none had
reached commercial success, says Mr Lee.
"The moment Kung Fu Panda hit the cinemas everybody watched it. They bought
the merchandise and they learned English."
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