Karshi state university foreign languages faculty

Choice of supercentral languages

There is disagreement as to which languages should be considered more central. The theory states that a language is central if it connects speakers of "a series of central languages". Robert Phillipson questioned why Japanese is included as one of the supercentral languages but Bengali, which has more speakers, is not on the list.⁸

Inadequate evidence for a system

Michael Morris argued that while it is clear that there is language hierarchy from the "ongoing interstate competition and power politics", there is little evidence provided that shows that the "global language interaction is so intense and systematic that it constitutes a global language system, and that the entire system is held together by one global language, English". He claimed that de Swaan's case studies demonstrated that hierarchy in different regions of the world but did not show the existence of a system within a region or across regions. The global language system is supposed to be part of the international system but is "notoriously vague and lacking in operational importance" and therefore cannot be shown to exist. However, Morris believes that this lack of evidence could be from the lack of global language data and not negligence on de Swaan's part. Morris also believes that any theory on a global system, if later proved, would be much more complex than what is proposed by de Swaan. Questions on how the hypercentral language English holds together the system must also be answered by such a global language system.⁹