Deborah Cameron predicts an uncertain future for English
The Guardian, Saturday 4 December 2010
Article history
The Emperor Charles V is supposed to have remarked in the 16th century
that he spoke Latin with God, Italian with musicians, Spanish with his
troops, German with lackeys, French with ladies and English with his
horse. In most books about English, the joke would be turned on Charles,
used to preface the observation that the language he dismissed as
uncultivated is now a colossus bestriding the world.
Nicholas Ostler, however, quotes it to make the point that no language's triumph is permanent and unassailable. Like empires (and often with them), languages rise and fall, and English, Ostler contends, will be no exception.