Are you worried about Englishnisation?

I did not invent the word Englishnisation:

There are some obvious reasons why multinational companies want a lingua franca. Adopting English makes it easier to recruit global stars (including board members), reach global markets, assemble global production teams and integrate foreign acquisitions. Such steps are especially important to companies in Japan, where the population is shrinking.
There are less obvious reasons too. Rakuten’s boss, Hiroshi Mikitani, argues that English promotes free thinking because it is free from the status distinctions which characterise Japanese and other Asian languages. Antonella Mei-Pochtler of the Boston Consulting Group notes that German firms get through their business much faster in English than in laborious German. English can provide a neutral language in a merger: when Germany’s Hoechst and France’s Rhône-Poulenc combined in 1999 to create Aventis, they decided it would be run in English, in part to avoid choosing between their respective languages.
Tsedal Neeley of Harvard Business School says that “Englishnisation”, a word she borrows from Mr Mikitani, can stir up a hornet’s nest of emotions.

I told you that it was not me!

businesses worldwide are facing up to the reality that English is the language on which the sun never sets. Still, Englishnisation is not easy, even if handled well: the most proficient speakers can still struggle to express nuance and emotion in a foreign tongue. For this reason, native English speakers often assume that the spread of their language in global corporate life confers an automatic advantage on them. In fact it can easily encourage them to rest on their laurels. Too many of them (especially Englishmen, your columnist keeps being told) risk mistaking their fluency in meetings for actual accomplishments.

We are really off to an empire where the sun never sets. All from a tiny island that is barely the size of Madagascar!  As I noted in this post, the British Empire disrupted and severed history and traditions, and it continues on with the increasing adoption of English as the language of commerce.

Slowly, this Englishnisation will trigger a greater awareness of the local languages. A couple of years ago, during the extended sabbatical stay in India, I bought at the Chennai Book Fair tshirts that had Tamil lettering.  When I wore them, boy did it attract attention from the autorickshaw driver to waiters at the restaurant!

Sadly, the business model of those tshirt makers didn't survive the brutal dynamics of the marketplace. But, they were on to something, as evidenced by this report in The Hindu:

There are so many reasons why quirky Tamil T-shirts are doing well these days, whether it is the increasing love for the language or adding a local flavour to one’s wardrobe. With more number of youngsters getting into this business, it is evolving from being just a fashion statement into a movement with everything from movie dialogues to Subramania Bharati’s poetry being flaunted on colourful, contemporary tees.

They sell because:

These tees, say the entrepreneurs, help people connect to the language and instil a sense of pride.

Exactly!

As long as it is not French that is imposed on us! ;)