A single language spoken around the world would not only allow us to express to anyone in the world but also help to reduce misunderstanding and miscommunication.
With more than 350 million native speakers, and more than 450 million speaking it as a second language, English has been unanimously considered as the global language. With speakers in more than 70 countries, and English speaking countries accounting for more than 40% of World’s Gross National Product, this should not come by as a surprise. But the question arises, why only English? In this article we try to answer this.
1. The British Empire:
The first and probably the most important reason why the English language became so popularized is the British Empire. Before colonizing around one fourth of the entire planet, the British were the only ones speaking English and the language was confined to the British Isles.
But once they started expanding their business particularly in Asia and Africa and thereby colonizing and settling in these places, the language became widespread. However English was only used in these colonies for administrative and business related dealing.
The local still used to communicate in their mother tongue. But when it came to education, it was done in English. So people in these colonies started thinking the English language as something spoken by only the elites. That is exactly how French also became popular.
2. Post-war USA:
After the two world wars, the world was left vulnerable and had to change with the new times. Just like the industrial revolution that started in Great Britain during the 19th century, American businesses started to boom this time and started trading all around the world.
This also increased the use of English language for trade related deals. During the same time, western culture was spreading all over the rest of the world through art and music.
The advent of jazz, rock n’ roll and other popular music genres from both the USA and UK found its way in the culture of local people everywhere, making English not just a language of business, but the language of entertainment for the masses. With the emergence of Hollywood, movies were also being exported worldwide and English became more popular.
3. Invention of Internet:
During the time was USA was starting to become the next superpower of the world in terms of economy, business and everything else, the internet was also introduced in the US. This created an entire lexicon for computers and technology that was invented in English.
Computer keyboards are suited for writing languages using the Latin alphabet, and the hardware for all our smart technology uses English words that have become commonly used around the world.
Moreover the world of science was also dominated by English as the Universities did and published their research in English and even today, any important research must be published in English. With science and technology being such an important part of our today life, English is going to remain the language of the world for some time.
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