English still rules the world, but that's not necessarily a good thing.  Is it time to curb his power?

Anyone who has spent a Christmas holiday in mainland Europe has likely noticed that it is very common to meet staff in shops and hotels who can carry on a conversation in English, and read signs and menus in the language.  This fact should not come as a surprise, and it is not a coincidence: the spread of English language skills in Europe is largely due to educational policies that have intensively promoted its teaching in public schools over the past decades.

The reasons are diverse and well known.  English is the main language of the culture, and is the third most widely spoken language in the world as an indigenous language, after Chinese and Spanish.  The number of English speakers is approximately 373 million (about 5% of the world's population), most of them concentrated in six advanced industrial democracies (Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States), which together produce 33% of the world's GDP.  GDP in nominal terms.  As a result of the colonial legacy, English has become an official or lingua franca in many countries of the world, especially in Africa.

Therefore, the value of communicating in English is high, as is the interest in learning it.  Many people use English as a second or foreign language.  Exact estimates are risky, but when taken together, the total number of native and non-native speakers in the world is between 1 billion and 1.5 billion, depending on the definition of “speaker.”  This represents 12-19% of the world's population.  However, efficiency levels vary greatly.

The emergence of English as the dominant (though not exclusive) international language is viewed by many as a positive phenomenon with many practical advantages and no downside.  However, it also raises issues that are only slowly beginning to be understood and studied.