以英语为母语的人老是沾沾自喜于它一枝独秀的地位，认为英语无法替代——如今它在商业界、科技界以及娱乐界独领风骚。然而，在《最后的通用语言：巴别塔重现前的英语》一书中，作者尼古拉斯奥斯特勒对盎格鲁中心主义思想以及常见的目光短浅的狂热爱国主义情绪进行了大胆纠正。

　　作为濒危语言基金会主席的奥斯特勒(他是位英国人)在书中开篇就语出惊人：“当英语语言开始衰落时，将会是波澜不惊”。

　　奥斯特勒向读者讲述了世界其它主要语言跌宕起伏的命运。事实说明每种语言的“唯我独尊”到最后均是不堪一击。拿波斯语来说，它差不多花了1000年才确立通用语的地位，但在短短的16年里就沦为了寻常语言。奥斯特勒说，如果我们臆想英语至高无上的地位会永远持续下去，就是犯了“失忆症”与“典型的想象力缺乏症”。

　　众所周知，如今英语就好比是“通往国际高管俱乐部的入场券”。但是，怀疑论者指出：英语会让人联想起过去大英帝国大肆扩张的历史以及现在美国人在政治上到处指手画脚的爱好，这无疑会成为其未来发展道路上的污点。

　　忧天者则断言，英语的大肆传播必将导致其最终的衰落：英语会朝各个方向发展演变，最终各种新变体相互之间会变得难以沟通理解。

　　奥斯特勒则认为，未来可能会出现完全不同的图景：在新的世界语言格局中，随着中国、印度、俄罗斯以及巴西在经济上逐渐变得举足轻重，它们会发现即使不借助英语，同样能巩固自身在全球市场中的地位。国际性的语言将不复存在，英语会重新成为寻常语言，只有英语发源国家与地区才会继续使用它，届时那些国家与地区在政治上和经济上都将不再举足轻重。

　　通常说来，持英语地位不稳论观点的人认为其它某种语言——西班牙语和汉语的可能性最大——最终将取而代之。但奥斯特勒的观点是：到2050年前后，世界将不再需要全球性的通用语言。从很大程度来说，这要归功于科技发展，比方说随着机器翻译能力的提高，越来越多的语言之间可以实现互通。

　　奥斯特勒的论点说服力强、令人警醒。然而，他也给了我们某种有益的启迪：尽管如今的世界变得越来越扁平与同质化，每两周就有一种语言从地球消失，但很多独具特色的方言仍然顽强地存续着，而且借由这些方言，千姿百态的丰富传统、历史以及民族性格的细微差异均得以传承。

　　people whose first language is english are apt to be complacent about its pre-eminence. english is seen as indomitable – ruling the worlds of business, science and entertainment. yet in the last lingua franca, nicholas ostler serves up a bold corrective to anglo-centrism and its familiar flag-waving myopia。

　　ostler, a briton who chairs the foundation for endangered languages, opens with the provocative statement that “the decline of english, when it begins, will not seem of great moment”。

　　ostler gives an account of the fluctuating fortunes of other major world languages. in each case their majesty has proved fragile. for instance, the might of persian, established over a period of almost a thousand years, was shaken to its foundations in just 16. if we imagine that the supremacy of english will endure forever, says ostler, we are guilty of both “memory failure” and a “signal lack of imagination”。

　　today, we’re told, english “offers an entry card to the world’s executive club”. but sceptics suggest that its prospects are tainted by its association with britain’s exploitative past and america’s recent taste for political interventionism。

　　worriers allege that the diffusion of english must lead to its break-up: it will develop in many directions, its various new forms in the end becoming mutually unintelligible。

　　ostler contends that the future promises something quite different: a new linguistic world order, in which china, india, russia and brazil, increasingly dominant economically, will discover that they can secure their positions in the global marketplace without recourse to english. the international form of the language will evaporate, and english will revert to being spoken only in its native heartlands. those heartlands will be less important politically and commercially。

　　usually, anyone who argues that english’s position is insecure proposes that some other language – most likely spanish or mandarin chinese – will supersede it. yet ostler takes the view that by around 2050 no global lingua franca will be needed. to a large extent, this will be thanks to technology, for example as improved machine translation will make more languages mutually accessible。

　　yet while he writes with engaging crispness, at times the text becomes forbiddingly technical, and one can lose oneself in a thicket of thorny names and bristling verbiage。

　　ostler’s arguments are cogent and alarming. yet he leaves us with a salutary thought: while the world can today seem flat and homogenous, and while a language dies out every fortnight, many distinct tongues persist, and in them survives a rich miscellany of traditions, histories and nuances of human character。

　　据英国《金融时报》