英语竞赛演讲:全世界的通用语言The arrival of the ear99 has brought ith a near perfet opportunit to take a look bak at the last one thousand ears，assess man’s suesses and failures， and look forard ith our preditions of the third millennium。

Alread this afternoon ou’ve heard man assessments and ou’ve heard a variet of preditions。

A variet so vast，ranging from Leis Carol’s depition of elebrator life， to the Irish elebration of death。

So vast a variet that it’s diffiult to find an mon ground amongst the ontestants here toda。

Perhaps the onl thing that e all share is that e are indeed disussing millennia， the old and the ne and the turn of the millennium，and e’re all disussing it in the same language。

A fe hundred ears ago to have held an event like this it ould have been imperative that e ere all fluent in a number of different tongues， for the approah of bating the language barrier as simpl to learn man different languages。

Of ourse people bak then had an ulterior motive: that as to ensurethat different languages held their different soieties or positions， or as King Charles V of Spain put it，“ I speak Spanish to God， Italian to omen， Frenh to men and German to m horse。

”Toda our approah is somehat different。

Instead of tring to vastl spread our verbal abilit aross the board，e’ve hosen rather to fous it， onentrating on our abilit to master one partiular language， the English language。

Time magazine reentl suggested that b the turn of the millennium， English ill be the Lingua Frana for one quarter of the orld’s population。

Alread toda sixt perents of the orld’s television and radio broadasts are produed and delivered in English。

Sevent perents of the orld’s mail addressed in English。

And it is the language of hoie for almost ever bite of puter data sent aross the globe。

But h English? There are no lear linguisti reasons forits suggested global dominane， ertainl the grammar is pliated， the spelling peuliar and the pronuniation eentri，to sa the ver least。

One ould need onl look through the ditionar to find the vast list of amusing paradoxes in the English language?quiksand that orks slol， a boxing ring that is in fat square and a guinea pig that’s reall neither from Guinea nor is it a pig。

Doesn’t it seem odd that one an make amends but not one amend。

Or go through the annals of histor but not one annal。

The reason， ladies and gentlemen， is simple。

English is strange， but no here near as strange as some of our alternatives。

Perhaps I should give ou a fe idiomati examples。

In English e sa “one in a blue moon”。

The Italian hoose instead “ever death of a Pope”。

Irish doesn’t like our “drop dead”， replaing it rather ith the slightl more obsure “ou should lie in the earth。

” And if ou anted totell someone off in Spanish our relativel obvious “go fl a kite” ould be better served b the phrase “go fr asparagus”。

English’s primar advantage is that of flexibilit。

On the one hand it has the largest voabular of all modern languages， alloing us， as its users， to saexatl hat e ant in exatl the ords e hoose to use。

On the other， globalization has insured the introdution of a business English， a sort of trimmed don variet of the language e’ve all e to kno and love。

It’s interesting to kno that the simple list of just ten ords，ords like “a”，“and”，“have” and “the”，bined to form one quarter of all those ever used in modern muniation。

Perhaps the real test is: ill the global adoption of English as a master language insure the eradiation of an misunderstandings that happen toda? The anser is not as simple。

Russell Hoven one asked: “Ho man peopl e speak the same language even hen the speak the same language?” But one an onl hope that our onlaim and our onl hane of insuring that e muniate effetivel ith eah other is to make sure that e do speak one universal language。

In a thousand ears time Western loks ill hopefull have tiked onto the ear 2999 and e an be assured that sientists， **demis and futurists ill onvene，muh like e’ve done toda to look bak at the third millenium and offer their preditions for the suesses of the forth。

It’s impossible to im agine hat the might sa， impossible to imagine hat tehnolog the’ll have available or even hih planet the’ll hold the meeting on。

In fat， quite possibl the onl thing e an sa for sure is that the’ll be disussing the issues in one mon universal language。

And that ill be the language of the third millennium。

And that language ithout an doubt looks set to be English。