How English Became The Global Language

Why is English the international language. Is it because of invasion and colonialism or is there more? Is there something about English that makes it an excellent choice as the global tongue? We look at 1000 years of history, take a look at the stats (which are often misleading) and more.

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00:00 Lots of Statistics
01:03 Why English?
03:33 The Death of English?
07:32 The Fightback
12:07 A Side note about Scotland
12:36 Colonisation and America
16:08 Industry and Empire
18:17 Who speaks English and Wikipedia's misleading stats

#historyofenglish

CREDITS

Sources
History of English Podcast

A History of the English Language
Baugh, Albert C,Cable, Thomas

The Adventures of English - Melvyn Bragg
Mother Tongue - Bill Bryson

The Story of English Paperback - Robert McCrum

Times of India

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[Thera]

Fascinating video, thanks.

With respect to English as a second langauage, I was in a small Italian village where I met an old chap walking his grand daughter around - amazingly, he spoke very good English. I asked him where he had learned it - he said from reading NATO technical manuals.

I told him that he had done extremely well, as English is a hard language.
He replied :"No, it is the easiest language on the planet".
I asked him how so?
He replied "You just have to learn 40 words, and then you can travel anywhere around the planet without any problem".

Unfortunately, I didn't ask him what those 40 words were. However, this third or fourth tier level of English speaking, would take the number of people who can understand rudimentary English to the many billions in number.
Regards.-

[artistjoh]

All I know is that traveling the world, the one great constant is that it is always easy to find English speakers. Hotels everywhere speak English. Airports, airlines, banks, and so on, English is the language that connects.

[SpiritmanProductions]

We native English speakers should not make the mistake of thinking that all the people around the world who are learning English do so because they like it, or because they like us. Some do, maybe, but that is often not the case. Many people learn English only for pragmatic reasons: It has become the dominant international language of communication and trade, and thus learning it can be advantageous.
Thanks for a great video.

[oskarm]

I don't think I've ever learnt this much from watching a 20-minute video before. Good job as always!

[charlesm]

Funny you mention that you doubt the number of English speakers in Paris being approx 60%. I'm bilingual English/French, when in Paris many people I've met who suspect I'm British insist on speaking French only, as if they know no English, but as soon as I start speaking French they are only too willing to show off their proficiency in English! Academie Francaise lives on!

[PurnaRodman]

I am half Indian (Bengali) and half Anglo-Dutch "American." I have a large family in India, most of whom speak at least two languages. They are native speakers of both English and Bengali, with neither being dominant. I assume Arundhati Roy is the same.

As for English becoming the language of diplomacy, I think that has to do with the U.S. involvement in the world wars and it's economic dominance in the 20th century. The UK spread English across the globe, the US sealed the deal.

[jazzalingvo]

Professor Svetlana Ter-Minasova of Moscow State University claims there were 3 great empires that put English forward making it the most widespread language in the world today, among them the British Empire, the USA, and the Internet. Sounds reasonable to me

[PongthipK]

Hello Gideon! I apologize my comment is not about the video, I’ll check it out later though. I’m Sam, the person who said hi to you when you were in Chaingmai, Thailand. I really want to say that I was so happy to see you! Anyhow, thanks for the great videos and your YouTube channel. I’ll keep improving my English from your vids!

[FrancisRatnieks]

Interesting video. I am a Bahai and one of the principles of the Bahai Faith is the need for an international auxiliary language, to improve communication and understanding. The fact that English is now so widely and increasingly used probably reflects this need. People want to be able to communicate. I am a scientist and in my travels around the world I have found that most scientists know English and use it in communication.

[pahtar]

The world population in 1600 was about 660 million, meaning English speakers made up less than 1% of people, so the current 20% is a truly enormous change!

[robertkeyes]

One of the advantages of English is the wide variety and easy creation of words that German has, by means of separable prefixes and suffixes. Yet, there is more restraint in English in doing so, because we often use modifiers (adverbs and adjectives) until a concept so described becomes common enough so that a new word, born from prefixes and suffixes upon the root word, is created. This gives us a much more useful and coherent dictionary than German, with much more flexibility than languages such as French provide. A friend of mine grew up speaking Russian. After 25 years in America, he says that much, but not all, of his thoughts, even his internal dialogue, is in English. As far as critique of the British Empire, its lasting legacy is the standards it has provided and the industrial competency and infrastructure as well. I am of predominantly Irish background, and am appalled at many things the British did in Ireland, but the existing knowledge of English gave the Irish a great advantage over immigrants from other countries when they immigrated to other English speaking countries.

[DavidGS]

I am English Canadian & when I lived in Montreal 9 months, I did speak French (I had to with govt & bus drivers), but 90% of people enthusiastically chose to answer me in English, 1/2 with no accent. Preschool kids just speak French, but are exposed to English & therefore tend to pick it up well after starting school. Very rarely I met someone who tried & failed to learn English, someone who refused to learn it, or old people who just spoke French. Strictly speaking Quebecois are not native English speakers, but become so fluent, that Quebec is a subculture of English speaking North America.

[gaufrid]

As an Aussie living in Mindanao Philippines I can attest to the fact that many Filipinos speak English well. English is one of the official languages of the Philippines, along with Filipino (Tagalog). Anyone who attends school is taught English and Filipino. Most Filipinos could be regarded as native speakers of English because of that fact. Certainly, proficiency levels will vary, but business is carried out in English usually. Filipinos are polyglot as a result. My wife is fluent in English, Mindanao Cebuano (Bisaya), Tagalog, Boholano, Hiligaynon and her tribal language Higaonon Binukid. I have some degree of fluency in Bisaya, less so in Tagalog and Higaonon Binukid. Many Tagalog speakers regularly use "Taglish", where English words will at times appear in Tagalog speech. This is common in the media and is used as well by government officials. I wouldn't be surprised if the figure of 60 million English speakers in the Philippines is a bit on the low side.

[Bibir]

You’re analyses are fantastic. And i appreciate your cautions around estimating populations. That is a very difficult one. I live in the French part of Switzerland where most people appear to barely know English yet many in the country prefer to use English to talk across language regions bc neither wants to speak the other’s language of French or German. English predominates everywhere; even in our small medieval village boulangerie where they do not speak English at all but for some reason they keep making notes in English even though all their clientel are francophone, and they confirmed we are the only family learning french in their shop. English words are invading the language everywhere, most music is in English, many programs are translated from English into French… it is impossible to go a day without some invasion of English somehow somewhere even in the ultra local almost all native francophones area that we live in. It is so strange and fascinating to watch language bring change. Sadly, start this year especially, all of a sudden expats or whoever who are anglophones seem to have suddenly discovered our area and have started to invade here too as they will pop up at buvettes and restaurants when they were not there before, and it is causing most in service to panic and rush to start learning English and they all want to practice with us but we refuse because we must learn french! Ay chihuahua!

[johnstanton]

Melvyn Bragg wrote an excellent book on the history of the English Language, one point he made was the nobility had English speaking nannys and the youngsters grew up with a knowledge of English from an early age

[ronriesinger]

I have traveled to many remote locations: Cuba, Siberia, China, the Stans. I have never had a problem finding English speakers. Some language had to emerge for our fast-paced, interconnected world. English rose to the top

[TerryMcKennaFineArt]

My brother was an executive with a company that was headquartered in Germany (it had a US presence). Their board of directors meetings were conducted in English. And since he also travelled all over and interacted with buisness peers, he though much business is being conducted in English for businesses that involve international trade. And these business speakers are quite fluent - though joked elude them.

Love your channel.

[wacojones]

I tried learning German in the 1970's, I understand many German Military terms as I served in the US Army active and Reserve for 27 years. My Uncle spoke 12 languages he passed as a German worker at Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin as part of the US Army counterintelligence force. Part of our family came over on the Mayflower others before Ellis Island was establish. My dad traced our family back 73 generations with much of the depth coming from connections into the British royal family to those who founded Kiev and the trading route down the Dnipro River.
English as a trade language will continue to spread as others have noted programming with English as a base even with AI help will makes basic English understanding a must to ensure the point is made. Same as in all aircraft crews need to know English and use it for safety reasons. Even broken slurred English can be understood in most cases. My dad served in Papua New Guinea in WW II he used Pidgin English to recruit stretcher bearers in the Highlands working from Buna Gona area on the coast.
Great presentation.

[isabelatence]

It really is fascinating how the English language dominated the world, in Brazil it seems to me that 5% master the English language, I strive to advance. I believe that a new generation will increase this percentage, I'm here waiting for the doctor's appointment and enjoying your video, in the family there are 79-year-old English students, we have to improve... Gideon, Thanks a million, very interesting🤗🥰

[byoobyoo]

English's grammar is easy to learn when you compare it to other languages. To me not having to assign genders to every noun or pronoun is one of the best reasons for English being easy to learn. Of course there many reasons other than grammar that makes it easier to learn.