English, in spite of laws discouraging and banning its use in Quebec, is almost at an even strength as French in Montreal, according to a study conducted by Kai Chan, a Distinguished Fellow at the INSEAD Business School in Switzerland.The Power Language Index analyzed 20 indicators to compare the strength of each world language, which determined that English is over twice as powerful as its second-place competitor, Mandarin.
Since the study was released, its author has noted that he likely underestimated the power of English by discounting certain factors.
Chan provides a brief analysis on the situation in Montreal where he notes that French is the mother tongue of two-thirds of residents, compared to just 13 percent whose mother tongue is English.
He notes that English is an active language for 60 percent of the city, and on top of that visitors and temporary residents such as foreign students beef those numbers up even higher.
Chan provides custom-made PLI scores for English and French in Montreal.
French comes in at a score of 0.690 while English is only slightly behind at 0.599.
Others such as Spanish, Chinese, Italian and Arabic range at 0.095 and below.
Chen notes that English is also powerful in other places where laws discourage its use, such as in Aruba where Dutch is the sole language of government and primary language of school instruction. And yet only six percent of Arubans speak Dutch. English in Aruba remains the top power language at 0.591 compared to the local dialect Papiamento at 0.459.Chan has also projected powers of languages in 50 years time and projects that English will only get stronger around the world.
