The English Cosmopolis

A historical analogy in late modernity

Dados Bibliográficos

ID19218976
AutoresNikola Dobrić (0000-0002-2410-4934, University of Klagenfurt, autor correspondente)
Ano2026
Páginas1-7
Data de publicação2026-05-26
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoEnglish Today (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0266-0784 • E-ISSN: 1474-0567
EditoraCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s026607842610131x
OpenAlexW7162415604
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas2
Referências citadas31

A cosmopolis may be understood as a durable, cross–regional cultural–political order in which a prestigious bridge language provides the central anchor and the shared medium for knowledge, cultural authority and institutional practice across multilingual settings. In this article I hypothesise that, in the early 21 st century, English in international employ is beginning to occupy a socio–cultural position comparable in certain respects to that of the pre‐modern formations associated with Sanskrit, Latin and Classical Arabic. To examine this possibility, I begin with a deliberately broad, first‐pass identification of the most salient cosmopolis features, limiting the analysis to the characteristic profile of the prestige bridge language that underwrites each cosmopolis. I then consider whether a comparable profile plausibly holds for global modern English, drawing on existing research on its global role. The results are preliminary, but they suggest that this perspective may offer a useful analytical lens for investigating English in its present sociolinguistic position, and that it merits more systematic follow‐up work

Bridge (graph theory) · Limiting · Order (exchange) · Perspective (graphical) · Position (finance) · Prestige · Salient · Island Studies and Pacific Affairs · Linguistic Variation and Morphology · Multilingual Education and Policy