Eamonn Fitzgerald's Rainy Day

Of late, we've been neglecting the debate about the future and form of English. But it rumbles on, and seeing that this argument will continue long into the 21st century, there's no harm in ignoring it for a while. It has its own dynamic, regardless of what we think. At the end of the day (decade?), some see the emergence of a global English driven by trade and the internet and accented by CNN and Hollywood; others say, of course, there's no such thing as a global lingua franca, and they'll quote various linguistic sources in support of their arguments. Fair enough. But entertaining and all as academic debates can be, they're put in perspective by facts on the ground. Which is what makes Singapore such an interesting place.

But before we come to Singapore, we'll take a quick trip to Ireland and call in at the website of the county's official tourist body. As you can see, it is brazenly, gloriously monolingual, despite all the codology that the Irish spout about being "true" Europeans. The reality is that the Irish don't give a feck, as Fr Ted would say, about foreign languages and their only interest in the EU is in milking it of as many billions as they can, while they can. If they can get Brussels to make Gaelic an official EU language at the same time, great. That means siphoning off even more euros for Padraig and Aoibhinn from Strasbourg, or wherever the gravy train has pulled in.

Which brings us to Singapore, another island nation, another exposed economy with a similar sized population — 4 million. When we visit "Uniquely Singapore", the official website for tourist information on Singapore, we are greeted in how many languages? One? No. Sixteen! And five of those are English! There's English US, English UK, English Australia/NZ, English India and, topping the list, English Global. Academics will say that this terminology is chicanery, but while they trek from conference to conference delivering papers on the transformation of English, the reality is that Singapore is busy expanding its global trading links (its port is one of the world's busiest in tonnage handled) and becoming one of the planet's most prosperous countries with a per capita GDP equal to that of Western Europe's wealthiest nations. If the Singaporeans say that there's such a thing as "English Global" or Global English, and they're brave enough to put it in first place in their list of important languages for visitors, it's time to accept the fact that they are actively promoting it. By naming it, they are ushering it into being. By 2010 it will be a linguistic fact, simply because Singapore wants it to be so.