 The global language system draws upon the world system theory to account for the relationships between the world's languages and divides them into a hierarchy consisting of four levels, namely the peripheral, central, supercentral and hypercentral languages.According to de Swaan, the global language system has been constantly evolving since the time period of the early 'military-agrarian' regimes.Under these regimes, the rulers imposed their own language and so the first 'central' languages emerged, linking the peripheral languages of the agrarian communities via bilingual speakers to the language of the conquerors.