The Fall of Language in the Age of English (日本語が亡びるとき 英語の世紀の中で, Nihongo ga Horobiru Toki: Eigo no Seiki no Naka de) is a Japanese non-fiction book by novelist Minae Mizumura.

Mizumura's criticisms of contemporary Japanese literature and recommendation to eliminate compulsory English language education generated significant public controversy in Japan.

[10] She remained in the United States until she completed a graduate degree in French literature at Yale University,[6] then returned to Japan in 1990 to pursue a career as a novelist.

[2] In 2008, Chikuma Shobō published the first edition of the book in Japanese under the title Nihongo ga Horobiru Toki: Eigo no Seiki no Naka de (lit.

[13] The book became what literary scholar and translator Jay Rubin has called "one of the most widely discussed non-fiction titles ever published".

[16] Umeda wrote a positive review on his Hatena blog suggesting that every Japanese person should read Mizumura's book.

[19] A discussion between Mizumura and Umeda about English, Japanese, literature, and the internet was published in the January 2009 issue of Shinchō magazine.

[26] According to Mizumura, she had anticipated the need to revise seemingly "overly patriotic" passages for any eventual English translation, but University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa professor Mari Yoshihara so quickly translated the Japanese edition and found the US publisher, Columbia University Press, that Mizumura was temporarily too busy with other commitments to make her own planned revisions.

In an essay for the Financial Times, Simon Kuper concurred that the increasing emphasis on perfect English, particularly in social media and journalism, was "bad news for non-English languages and literatures".

[30] Writing for Claremont Review of Books, Mark Heberle agreed that English "is the virtually inescapable medium for those desiring to be taken seriously".