- English is the most widely spoken language on the planet. Research estimates that there are upwards of 1. 5 billion English speakers worldwide.
That's billion with a B, more than 18% of the entire global population. But how did English become the most widely spoken language in the world, and why are there so many different kinds of Englishes? Well, the first kind of answers the second.
There are so many different world Englishes because there are just so many English speakers, with diverse cultural and societal influences impacting their language use. I'm speaking American English because I was born, raised. and educated in the United States, but there are over 160 different Englishes around the world.
And as more people learn English, more varieties of English are developing. It's even the language of the air and of the sea, Aviation English and Seaspeak. In fact, English language education is considered so crucial that 138 countries require English to be taught as part of the mandatory core curriculum.
That's 70% of the countries in the world, and another 40 offered as an optional course of study. So in total, at least 91% of countries have some sort of formal English language curriculum. But the real question is why English, and why not some other language?
Let's jump in. I'm Dr Erica Brozovsky, and this is "Otherwords". - [Speaker] "Otherwords".
- English wasn't always that popular. In fact, French used to be the go-to language for diplomacy and business when communicating between entities that didn't share the same language, otherwise known as a lingua franca. Now, lingua franca literally means language of the Franks, which at the time of its creation, really referred to all Western Europeans, not just the people who live in what is now France.
It derives its same from the original Lingua Franca, capital L, capital F, which developed in the Mediterranean basin through borrowing from several languages and was used for trade and diplomacy in that area from the 11th to 18th centuries. Capitalized Lingua Franca is actually a pigeon language, but that's a topic for another day. Back to French.
After the Norman Conquest in the 11th century, William the Conquerer installed French-speaking nobles to rule England, who quickly replaced English with French in all domains of power, from the courts of law to the church. Although the peasants still spoke English, the aristocracy maintained French as their preferred language for the next few hundred years. And by the 14th century, French was the most widely spoken language in Europe.
By the 17th century, France was the leading land power in Europe, and French was well established as the language of prestige, replacing Latin as the language of diplomacy in international relations. So why aren't we all speaking French right now? Well, one, we aren't all diplomats, but even if we were, there was a huge global power shift in the the 20th century, (canon fires) the World Wars.
English was already predominant in the technology and innovation sectors thanks to the Industrial Revolution. But after the first World War, the negotiated treaties were written not just in French, but also English, which was a big deal, giving English space in the diplomacy scene. After World War II, France was frankly no longer a dominant power.
English, the defacto language of the new major economic powerhouse, the United States, became the language of the economy, and money talks. Put simply, English is the most popular language in the world because of money and power. And American English is particularly popular because of pop culture influences imported all over the world, including TV, music, food, and cinema.
So that answers our first question, but what about the second one? Why are there so many different varieties of English? Well, first, there is no set standard English.
Unlike French, whose standard on everything from usage and vocabulary to grammar, and even the dictionary, is enforced by the Academie Francaise, English does not have any such authoritative governing body determining correctness, which means we get a lot of variation between Englishes spoken all around the world, and they're all proper and authentic Englishes. Beyond that, it's really the same reason why anyone talks differently from anyone else. There are cultural, social, historical, political, and geographical factors that contribute to the way we all speak.
Within the United States, we see English as based on cultural heritage, like African-American English, Chicano English, and Cajun English, or on a region like Pittsburghese or Appalachian English. And if you're from England, you know the difference between Yorkshire and Lancaster English, even though the counties are only two and a half hours apart. Many global Englishes are influenced by local languages.
For example, Singapore English or Singlish, which is based on British English because of that Colonial history, includes elements such as discourse particles, and loan words from other local languages, including Malay, Hokkien, and Tamil. The same is true with Nigerian English, where there weren't words in British English that expressed certain cultural concepts that were then borrowed from Native languages of the region. Linguists have attempted to organize the various Englishes into a model.
The most famous is Braj Kachru's three-circle paradigm where countries are labeled inner circle, outer circle, and expanding circle. The inner circle contains the countries whose primary language is English. The outer circle contains countries where English is used as an official language or a second language, typically countries that were colonized by the inner circle.
And the expanding circle is where English is widely used but learned as a foreign language. In other words, everywhere else. This lends a hierarchical vibe, but if you've been following along, you know that no one language is better than any other.
There are multiple scenarios about what could happen next. Maybe all of our Englishes will converge because we're all so much more interconnected, or oppositely, in a Tower of Babel moment, they'll become so different as to be mutually unintelligible. Unlikely.
More likely, if English doesn't remain the most widely spoken, it's because another economic powerhouse sways the tide of language popularity in a different direction. But for now, English is the foremost world language. In an increasingly globalized world, the most important and exciting part about all these different Englishes is the fact that if you speak English, you can communicate with literally a billion more people than you otherwise could.
And if you can speak multiple languages, well, then you're ahead of the game. Replacing Latin as a language of diplomacy and international relations. Now, lingua franca, literal, franca, franca.
English wasn't always that popular. Back to French.
