Image by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center on Flickr.com is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
With around a billion ESL or EFL speakers out there and more than half a billion native English speakers in the world you might be wondering how did English get to be such a popular language?
Only 500 years ago, there were less than 7 million people who spoke English and most of them lived on a few small islands in the North Atlantic! Now there are English speakers on every continent in some of the most remote places on earth. How English became such a dominant world language is the topic of today’s post.
I’m sure you won’t be surprised to learn that the rise of the English language is connected to the rise of the British Empire, starting in the 1600s. One of the main goals of the British Empire was trade (buying and selling goods). This goal is different from the objective of colonizing (sending people to live, make homes, and take over new place). The fact that England was so focused on trade helps explain how the English language became the dominate language in certain places in Asia and Africa. In these places English became the language of business and education, and remains so today. In fact, English is the dominant or official language in dozens of former British Empire territories.
The British didn’t just trade for goods in the places they went. In some of the British territories, there was colonization, where English speaking people ended up deciding to live and stay. In these places, like in the United States, Australia, and New Zealand the English language became the dominant language of the entire population over time. There were many languages spoken (French, Spanish, and Native American languages) on the North American continent when the American’s declared independence from Britain. The founders of the ‘United’ States of America thought that encouraging a ‘united’ feeling was important and so English was promoted as the day-to-day language for everyone. Interestingly though English never became the “official” language of the USA – there is no official language in the USA.
As the British Empire lost much of its power, French became the language of international trade and diplomacy, but English never went away. English again became an important international language in the 20th century.
The English language started to gain in use and popularity again after the first and second World Wars. While Europe and parts of Asia were recovering from these wars the USA was growing very strong economically. This meant the USA was now trading more with the rest of the world, just like Great Britain did in the past. Here again trade plays a big role in the rise of the English language. American businesses were creating new products that the rest of the world wanted. The influence of the British Empire combined with America’s economic boom in the 1940-60s, helped make English the number one language for international business and trade today.
The Internet helped too! Even though English was an important language in business, trade, and politics before the Internet, the World Wide Web certainly had an impact. Although you can now surf the web in any language you want, back when the Internet was getting started English was the dominant language. Today, many say English is no longer the dominant language on-line, Chinese is. This doesn’t change the fact that English is still a very popular language world-wide, and not just for trade, education, or business and politics – it is also popular because of the culture of music and entertainment it transmits around the world.
Some say the English language now belongs to everyone who speaks it, not just native speakers like Americans or Brits. After all, ESL speakers outnumber native speakers 2-to-1. The English language is only as popular as it is because of all of these non-native speakers out there – like you!
