form of the harmony of peoples: in the form of neoliberal imperialist domi-
nation, to the detriment of the overwhelming majority of human languages –
i.e. cultures and conceptions of the world. If we are optimists, we shall think
that the triumph of linguistic imperialism is no more guaranteed than that
of imperialism in general and that English will inevitably suffer the fate of
Latin – even if this prediction, which is also a hope, refers to the long term.
In my introduction I adopted an optimistic position. It is possible that in so
doing I took my desires for realities. The converse argument will be found
in Andrew Dalby’s excellent book, Language in Danger.^6 It rests on two
observations: the globalisation of English (whereas the imperial domination
of Latin hardly extended beyond the proximity of the Mediterranean basin);
and the fact that the usual instruments of linguistic imperialism – colonisation
(speakers of the dominated languages disappear through massacres or
epidemics), administration (the children of the survivors are schooled in the
language of imperialism), and trade (the economic survival of native speakers
involves adopting the dominant language) – have been joined by a fourth:
the global development of the media, which means that the whole world will
talk like the characters in Miami Beach. This argument contains a weakness:
it fetishises the language of imperialism, making it a single, stable entity.
If it is true that the extension of English, which has already led to the
disappearance of virtually all the Indian languages of America and Aboriginal
languages of Australia, will create new victims (it is calculated that half the
languages currently spoken will have disappeared by the end of the century),
it is also true that the globalised English of the media is only one of the dialects
of English and that English dialects are diversifying, to the extent that mutual
comprehension will soon become difficult. (The language of Glaswegian inner
cities is as difficult for a Londoner to understand as some forms of Québécois
French are for a Parisian: Québécquois films that reach Paris are sub-titled
for the first half-hour.) The English of the media, with its limited vocabulary
and elementary grammar, is going to become a global lingua franca. Despite
globalisation, however, the different dialects of English might well give
rise to a family of languages, just as Latin gave rise to the Romance lan-
guages. Marxists therefore incline towards the optimistic interpretation of
the contradiction, if not out of teleological certainty, then, at least, out of
Contrasting Short Glossaries of Philosophy of Language • 207(^6) See Dalby 2003.