'Teens, young adults no longer favour English' : HindustanTimes.com/UK: News for UK Asians:

"English is slowly losing its popularity among 15-24 year-olds, according to a language expert. It is expected that in the world language table, English will be overtaken by Hindi/Urdu and Arabic in the next 50 years.

According to David Graddol, a language consultant writing in the journal Science, nine years ago English (372 million) was second only to Chinese (1.1 billion) in terms of the overall number of people speaking it as their first language.

Graddol, director of the Milton Keynes-based consultancy, The English Company (UK) Ltd, said that by 2050 English will lose its supremacy and slip to fourth among 15-24 year olds. Chinese will dominate in this age group, with 166 million speakers, followed by Hindi/Urdu (73.7 million) and Arabic (72.2 million). English speakers will number 65 million."