Or, for that matter, French or Portuguese?
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本文作家从英语发源国英国的角度，发扬了英语走遍天下之后，将不再是英国的英语，也不再是盎格鲁撒克逊国度的英语。英语走遍天下让作家傲气，然而关于其他文化对英语，至极是英语语法的更动，作家也示意了担忧。
WHAT COUNTRY does French belong to? The answer seems obvious: France, as it says on the label. But there are roughly four times as many speakers of French outside France as there are within it. Who does Portuguese belong to? You might now hesitate to blurt out “Portugal”, remembering that Brazil’s population is about 20 times bigger than Portugal’s. Maybe Portuguese belongs jointly to them both. But then 70m people live in African countries in which Portuguese is an official language. Perhaps it belongs to them, too.
注："Blurt out" 的兴趣兴趣是"快言快语"，指在不经过想考的情况下，顷刻间说出某个不雅点。举例，"I didn't mean to blurt out that secret about her, it just slipped out."（我不是特意露出她的机密，仅仅不防范快言快语了。）
本段中提到，法国除外说法语的东谈主数是法邦原土的四倍，而葡萄牙之外说葡语的除了东谈主口是葡萄牙20倍之多的巴西除外，还有7000万非洲东谈主将葡语算作官方讲话。
The English can be under no illusion that the language of the same name is exclusively theirs. The small matters of the other nations in the British Isles, and of the superpower across the Atlantic, make clear that it is joint property. But these countries—along with Canada, Australia and other Anglophonepeoples—must at some point come to terms with the fact that, even collectively, their language no longer belongs to them. Of the estimated billion people who speak English, less than half live in those core English-speaking countries.
注："Under no illusion" 的兴趣兴趣是"莫得幻想"，这里指英国东谈主不可有英语是英国的英语这种幻想。that从句是illusion的同位语。
"Anglophone" 指的是说英语的东谈主或地区，普通用于描摹那些英语是主要或官方讲话的国度或地区。举例，加拿大不错被称为是一个"Anglophone country"。不异的，好意思国、英国、澳大利亚、新西兰、南非等国度亦然。
"Come to terms with the fact" 的兴趣兴趣是"给与事实"，普通用来描摹一个东谈主经过一段本领的想考、反省等经过后，终于给与了某个不吹法螺或不可幸免的事实。举例，"After months of denial, he finally came to terms with the fact that his marriage was over."（经过数月的否定，他终于给与了他的婚配依然截至的事实。）
Every day, the proportion of English-speakers born outside the traditional Anglosphere grows. Perhaps 40% of people in the European Union speak English, or about 180m—vastly more than the combined population of Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. In India, calculations range from 60m to 200m. Most such estimates make it the second-biggest Anglophone country in the world.
注：在欧洲，有1.8亿东谈主会说英语，而在印度，说英语的东谈主口在6000万到2亿之间，印度是天下上第二大以英语为母语的国度。
English-speakers pride themselves on the spread of the language, and often attribute that to an open, liberal-minded attitude whereby it has happily soaked up words from around the world. In the coming century, though, English will do more than borrow words. In these non-Anglophone countries, it is becoming not just a useful second language, but a native one. Already it is easy to find children in northern Europe who speak as though they come from Kansas, the product of childhoods immersed in subtitled films and television in English, along with music, gaming and YouTube.
注："Soak up" 的兴趣兴趣是"招揽"或"吸取"，本义是近似海绵吸水那种招揽，扩充指关于某种信息、常识、教诲等的招揽和学习。举例，"She soaked up all the information in the book in just one evening."（她在一个晚上就招揽了书中通盘的信息。）
Today, many learners still aim for an American or British standard. Textbooks instruct Indian English-speakers to avoid Indianisms such as “What is your good name?” for “What is your first name?”, or “I am working here for years” instead of “I have been working here for years.” A guide to avoiding Europeanismshas long circulated in European Union institutions, to keep French-or German-speakers from (for example) using “actual” to mean “current”, as it does in their languages.
Yet as hundreds of millions of new speakers make English their own, they are going to be less keen to sound British or American. A generation of post-colonial novelists has been mixing native words and phrasings into their English prose, without translation, italics or explanation. Academic movements such as “English as a lingua franca” (ELF) have been developing the ideology that speakers—no longer referred to as “non-native” but rather “multilingual”—should feel free to ignore British or American norms. Karen Bennett of Nova University in Lisbon says the university website has been translated using words common in southern European English—like “scientific” for “academic”, or “rector” for “vice-chancellor”. The appropriate local dialect is not British or American but ELF.
注："Lingua franca" 是指在不同讲话和文化的地区粗豪使用的共同讲话。在外洋相通中，英语被以为是一种lingua franca。
Given enough time, new generations of native speakers contribute not just words but their own grammar to the language they learn—from older speakers’ point of view, distortingit in the process. “I am working here for years” is a mistake today, but it is not hard to imagine it becoming standard in the future in culturally confident Anglophone Indian circles.
注：作家在挂牵其他地区的英语使用者会更动英语的用法。
"Distort" 的兴趣兴趣是"扭曲"、"歪曲"或"曲解"，普通用来描摹某种信息、事实或不雅点被特意或不测地更动或污蔑。举例，"The media often distorts the truth to get more attention." （媒体通常会为了劝诱更多原谅而歪曲事实。）
If this disturbs you, remember that this column is written in a mangled version of Anglo-Saxon, learned badly by waves of Celts, Vikings, Normans and others until it became an unrecognisably different tongue. And take comfort in the fact that such changes usually happen too slowly to affect comprehension in a single lifetime. Written language is less volatile than the spoken kind and exerts a stabilising force.
注："Mangled" 的兴趣兴趣是"糟塌的"、"弄乱的"或"损坏的"，指某个物体或事物被严重浮松、毁伤或弄乱的景况。举例，"The car was mangled in the accident" 示意"车在事故中被撞毁了"。本文中，作家以为，英语本来即是凯尔特东谈主、维京东谈主、诺曼东谈主等共同变成的一种讲话。
"Anglo-Saxon" 指古代盎格鲁-撒克逊东谈主（Anglo-Saxon people）以及他们的文化和讲话。盎格鲁-撒克逊东谈主原来是在公元5世纪傍边从德国和丹麦等地挪动到英国的日耳曼族东谈主。在讲话方面，英语的发源不错讲究到古代的盎格鲁-撒克逊语（Anglo-Saxon language）。在当代英语中，"Anglo-Saxon" 还不错指英国或英国东谈主的文化和传统。
But if language is always evolving (true to the point of cliché), the adaptations are even more profound when they come as a result of new speakers hailing from different linguistic worlds. No language has ever reached more speakers than English. It is hard to predict how they will change it, but easy to rule out the notion that they will not change it at all. In the end, it will be theirs too.
"True to the point of cliché" 指讲话老是在进化这一不雅点其实是夏炉冬扇。举例，"His behavior was true to the point of cliché, he was the typical arrogant businessman" 示意"他的行动异常稳当刻板印象，是典型的豪恣商东谈主"。
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