Introduction

This book takes the reader on a journey that includes an impressive account of the extent of English language usage in India before expanding to a broader view of English as the Lingua Franca due to its potential as the language of international communication.

The growing use of English in India is not an uncontested space, due to concomitant concerns about the possibility of languages and dialects dying out in response. This aspect has not been shied away from in the book, with the author tackling the issue by consoling readers that “the sheer number of speakers of India’s nativelanguages more or less ensures that they do not face extinction.”

The most important one in the book in terms of providing insights into tensions associated with the range of possible future directions for the use of the English language in India.

The purpose of this book has been to prove how this massive foreign language growth has evolved and what factors and issues have influenced and affected this transformation.

The global spread of English may also be associated with decreased use of endangered languages. The future of English is in the hands of countries outside the core of Anglophone group. Is English going to be learnt forever or not is an unanswerable question that only time will answer.