Text 2
How English develops in the world is no business whatsoever of native speakers in England, the United States, or anywhere else. They have no say in the matter, no right to intervene or pass judgment. They are irrelevant. The very fact that English is an international language means that no nation can have custody over it. To grant such custody of the language is necessarily to arrest its development and so undermine its international status. It is a matter of considerable pride and satisfaction for native speakers of English that their language is an international means of communication. But the point is that it is only international to the extent that it is not their language. It is not a possession which they lease out to others, while retaining the freehold. Other people actually own it (Widdowson, 1994, p. 385).
KILICKAYA, F. World Englishes, English as an International Language and Applied Linguistics. English Language Teaching, Vol. 2, No. 3, 2009. Available at:https://www.researchgate.net/publication/42386333_World_Englishes_English . Access on: 21 may. 2024. [Adapted].
In the excerpt from the text "It is not a possession which they
lease out to others, while retaining the freehold," what does
the noun freehold mean?