Dirty Pretty Things

When we imagine London we automatically see beautiful places in our head. Big Ben. London Eye. Tower of London. Tower Bridge. The Parliament. Piccadilly Circus. Whatever. For us this is London, an amazing city with tons of amazing places. Many dream to come here for living or just for holidays. But for others this dream is a nightmare.

In hope for a better life, many people come to London. But it gets complicated when you are an illegal immigrant.

Always running away from the police, illegal immigrants have to work clandestine many hours a day or have a couple of jobs to earn some money to buy their documents to be a normal citizen. However documents are very expensive and they receive very low salaries.

These men and women live in permanently danger, they are blackmailed every time by their bosses, if they are hurt they cannot go to the hospital, if they have kids they cannot attend school, they cannot use public services and they hardly have food to eat. Women are even in a harder position, once they are sexually abused, and they cannot do anything about it.

Many of these clandestine immigrants are so desperate that they don’t mind to swap a kidney for a forged passport. Organ trade is one of the main business of the Black Market, dealers get a lot of money by selling inner organs such as hearts, livers and kidneys. So they “help” illegal immigrants in getting them a false passport, but immigrants have to give them a kidney or another organ. As these operations cannot be found, they are not performed in hospitals; instead people do them under careless ways. This may result in complicated infections for the clandestine people, or even their death.

If you want to become aware of this reality and realize how terrible this situation is, I suggest you to watch the movie ‘Dirty Pretty Things’, which tells a story of two illegal immigrants, a Nigerian man and a Turkish woman, who live in London and who face horrible atrocities. I must say that I got inspired in this movie to write this article, although I’m perfectly conscious that this not only happens in London, but all over the world. 

The future of the English language

It is proved nowadays that English is the most widely spoken language all over the world. It is the language of business, international politics, advertising, the recording industry, science, technology, travel, media, and especially the Internet. People can communicate all over the world thanks to this language. If it weren't for the English language, it would be difficult for people from different countries to communicate effectively. Therefore, it has become a link between many different cultures.

The English language emerged in Britain and gained a lot of importance due to the British overseas empire. It was the dominant language in these colonies until after World War II when the British lost their power to the USA. This is why English is such an important language. The USA is a powerful country with an enormous economy and industry that uses English as the universal language to communicate with people from many different countries.

What's next? What is the future for the English language?

English is being learned all over the world as a first foreign language. In general, this is making it the most learned language outside the English speaking countries. On the other hand, the population in the countries in which English is the first language is steadily declining.

As a result, many new varieties of English will develop in these countries. Each country has its own pronunciation of many English words, and they also have their own way of adapting to the English language. While adapting to the English language, they are also trying to find a way to learn the language while trying to express their ethnic identity.

In conclusion, we can't say there will only be one form of English. In the future, it's possible to say that English will be combined with other languages and it may come to be spoken in many different variations that we can refer to as "New Englishes."

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