World Monitor Magazine, #5, Industry World Monitor Magazine, Industrial Overview | Page 30

EXPERT OPINION

Power Language Index (PLI)

Kai L. Chan, PhD
www.KaiLChan.ca

We present short
review of Kai L.
Chan, PhD on Power
Language Index,
showing effective
languages in the world
and their influence on
communication.

English is the world’s lingua franca.
Its dominance as the global means of
communication is unrivalled. It is (by the
measure of the PLI) more than twice as
effective as its nearest rival (Mandarin
Chinese). It is the leading language in each
of the five opportunities opened by language
(see tables).
The rise of English as the most powerful
language is spurred by the economic
dominance and geographic reach of the
English-speaking countries, a legacy of
the British Empire that gave rise to many
modern-day powerhouse nations. Most
notably, the USA is the world’s economic,
cultural and military superpower, and the UK,
along with Canada, are also leading nations
(G7) themselves.
The “neutrality” of English has also helped
spur its usage and uptake. For example, in
both India and Singapore it was chosen to
be an official language and means of interlinguistic communication. The “Englishisation”
of cultures at the same time threatens to
displace lesser languages.

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Mandarin Chinese is the second most
powerful language, just edging out French.
Its rise on the global stage is a recent
phenomenon. Mandarin was hardly spoken
outside of China until recent years; China
itself had remained largely outside of the
modern global economy until economic
reforms were ushered in post-Mao. However,
Mandarin remains far behind English, though
its prominence is growing. Nevertheless,
it is a regional language, with its uptake
outside of Greater China limited mostly to the
Chinese diaspora and expatriate communities.
There are two modern written forms of
Chinese: traditional and simplified. Simplified
has been used in China since circa 1950s as
part of the Chinese government’s scheme
to promote greater literacy. Traditional
characters are used in Taiwan, Hong Kong
and Macau. Singapore – where Mandarin was
not native – opted to install Mandarin (with
simplified Chinese) as its official Chinese
language when it was established (to avoid
the politics of competing Chinese languages
there).