English's irresistible ascendency everywhere but at home
Some products are chosen not because they are the best available, but because everyone else is using them. Fashions in children's toys and sports footwear come and go. But for some goods and services there are economic or practical advantages in co-ordinated behaviour. The widest range of movies is available for the most popular format, the best dating agency has the most potential dates.
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Control of networks and standards has been lucrative for companies such as Microsoft, BSkyB and Ebay.
The peculiar characteristic of these markets is that quality is not the key to commercial success. Microsoft triumphed not because its operating system was outstanding but because sponsorship by IBM led to many early adoptions. The opportunity to achieve market dominance with unexceptional products is a business strategist's dream but such opportunities are rare. Google is not the next Microsoft, or even Ebay. Its customers want the best search engine rather than the search engine with the most users. If it ceases to be good, it will be less widely used.
It is hard for private companies to own standards because wide acceptance and proprietary control are in conflict. This tension explains why Sony's Betamax lost the format war to VHS, and why Visa supplanted Amex as the leading provider of plastic money.
These business lessons are key to the economics of the oldest and most important compatibility standard of all - language.
Almost no one speaks Lithuanian or Tagalog because they chose it as the most mellifluous language, or the easiest to learn, or the one which gave access to the most beautiful literature. Your mother tongue is literally the tongue of your mother. You learn language to communicate first with your parents and then with your friends and neighbours.
Mother tongue compatibility is, like all standards, a natural monopoly; but it is a local one. So many different standards survive, each geographically dominant; only languages spoken by too few people to meet the full range of everyday needs die out.
But globalisation creates a distinct requirement for a standard of global communication. This role was once served by Latin and then by French. But few people then lived in a global world. English is the new lingua franca. Stopped in a French street by Italians asking the way I automatically gave an English response to their question in English. Later I wondered how they knew I was British. Then I realised they probably did not.
So we have the paradox described in last week's British Council report. English as a first language is in decline. Once the most widely spoken mother tongue, English may already have been overtaken by Hindi, Spanish and variants of Mandarin. But English as a second language is in irresistible ascendancy. The local monopoly becomes less significant as English-speaking regions account for a smaller proportion of population and purchasing power. The global monopoly becomes more entrenched as command of English becomes essential to commercial activity.
Will global, second-language English differ from local, first-language English? And will the economic advantages enjoyed by English native speakers grow or decline? The financial services industry, the most global of all, points to the answers. Native English speakers are now less internationally useful than their bilingual French, German or Spanish colleagues, and British firms have similarly lost a source of advantage.
But the language of the trading floor, peppered with specialist terms and expletives, is not the language of Jane Austen, just as the language of the Australian outback is not the language of Jane Austen. Yet if the trader or the redneck arrive in the boardroom, they speak in terms that Austen would have understood. It is not necessary to have the language skills of Joseph Conrad, Isaiah Berlin or Kazuo Ishiguro to order a meal in a restaurant, but international mergers and acquisitions are never likely to be negotiated in pidgin. The spread of English is not good news for native English speakers but can only be of benefit to the native English language.
英语：墙里开花墙外香
人
们选购某些产品并非因为它们是最好的，而是因为别人都在使用这些产品。儿童玩具和运动鞋的时尚变来变去，但就某些商品和服务而言，如果协调行动，那么就有经济或实际优势。范围最广的电影以最普及的形式进行销售，最好的婚介最有可能帮人们安排到约会。
控制网络和标准已让微软(Microsoft)、英国天空广播公司(BSkyB)和Ebay等公司获利丰厚。
这些市场的独特之处是，质量并非商业成功的关键。微软的成功并非因为它的操作系统出类拔萃，而是因为IBM的赞助导致许多用户早期采用了微软系统。用普通产品取得市场主导地位的机遇是企业战略家的梦想，但罕有这样的机遇。Google不是下一个微软，甚至也不是下一个Ebay。Google用户要的是最好的搜索引擎，而非用户最多的搜索引擎。如果Google不再优秀，用户就会减少。
私人集中持股企业很难拥有标准，因为广为接受和专利控制相互矛盾。这种对立解释了为什么索尼(Sony)的Betamax在格式大战中输给了VHS，为什么维萨(Visa)取代美国运通(Amex)，成了领先的信用卡发卡商。
这些商业教训是最古老、最重要的兼容标准经济学的关键，这个标准就是语言。
人们说立陶宛语或他加禄语，几乎都不会因为这种语言最甜美流畅、最容易学会，或者是能够用这种语言阅读最优美的文学作品而选它。母语从字面上解释就是你母亲的语言。学习语言首先是为了同你父母交流，然后与你的朋友和邻居交流。
和所有标准一样，母语兼容性是自然垄断；但它是地方垄断。如此多的不同标准都生存了下来，每一个支配一块地方。只有那些说的人太少、无法满足日常全面需要的语言才会消失。
但全球化创造了全球交流标准的独特需求。拉丁语曾经担任这一职能，然后是法语。但当时很少有人生活在全球化的世界中。英语是新的通用语言。当我在法国街头被意大利人拦住问路时，我很自然地就用英语回答他们的问题。随后我感到奇怪，他们怎么知道我是英国人呢？后来我意识到，他们可能不知道。
于是，我们就有了英国文化协会(British Council)最近报告中描述的悖论。英语作为第一语言的地位在衰落。作为一度被最广泛使用的母语，英语可能已被印地语、西班牙语和各种中国方言超过了。但作为第二语言的英语，其地位却在不可抗拒地上升。由于使用英语的地区在人口和购买力上所占比例较小，因此地方垄断变得不那么重要了。由于商业活动中必须掌握英语，英语的全球垄断地位更牢固了。
作为第二语言的全球语言，英语会与本土、作为第一语言的英语有什么不同吗？英语母语人士所享有的经济优势会增加还是减少？全球化程度最高的金融服务业给出了答案。现在，英语母语人士在国际上发挥的作用，比他们说双语的法国、德国或西班牙同事要小，英国公司也同样丧失了一项优势来源。
交易大厅里的语言夹杂着专业术语和咒骂，它不是英国作家简?奥斯汀(Jane Austen)的语言，正如澳大利亚乡间的语言不是简?奥斯汀的语言一样。但如果交易员或农村人来到董事会会议室，那么他们讲的话奥斯汀也能听懂。在餐馆里点菜不需要约瑟夫?康拉德(Joseph Conrad)、以赛亚?伯林(Isaiah Berlin)或石黑一雄(Kazuo Ishiguro)的语言技巧，但国际并购决不可能用洋泾浜英语来谈判。英语的普及对英语母语人士不是什么好消息，但对本土英语语言则只有好处。
