English is fast becoming the language of science around the world, but what is its future among everyday speakers? One expert points out that the percentage of native English speakers is declining   while the languages of other rapidly growing regions are being spoken by increasing numbers of people. But English will continue to remain widespread and important. However,British language scholar David Graddol says English will probably drop in dominance  by the middle of this century to rank,after Chinese,about equally with Arabic,Hindi,and Urdu. "The number of people speaking English as a first language continues to rise,but it isn't rising nearly as fast as the numbers of many other languages around the world,simply because the main population group has been largely in the less developed countries where languages other than English have been spoken," he says.  In a recent article in the journal Science,Mr. Graddol noted that three languages that are not near the top of the list of the most widely spoken now might be there soon. These are Bengali,Tamil,and Malay,spoken in south and southeast Asia.  David Crystal,the author of The Cambridge Encycloredia of the English Laeguage, says about 1. 5 billion of the world's six billion people speak it as a second tongue compared to the 400 million native speakers. But another expert on the English language says Mr. Graddol underestimates   the future of its dominance.  _ but nobody quite knows what's going to happen because no language has been in this position before. " he said. According to David Graddol,which of the folowing will possibly be one of the languages that will be most widely spoken?
Malay. Arabic. Urdu. German.