How English Took Over the World | Otherwords

How did English become the most spoken language on the planet, and why are there so many varieties of English?

Otherwords is a PBS web series on Storied that digs deep into this quintessential human trait of language and fınds the fascinating, thought-provoking, and funny stories behind the words and sounds we take for granted. Incorporating the fıelds of biology, history, cultural studies, literature, and more, linguistics has something for everyone and offers a unique perspective on what it means to be human.

Host: Erica Brozovsky, Ph.D.
Creator/Director: Andrew Matthews & Katie Graham
Writer: Erica Brozovsky, Ph.D.
Producer: Katie Graham
Editor/Animation: Andrew Matthews
Executive Producer: Amanda Fox
Fact Checker: Yvonne McGreevy

Executive in Charge for PBS: Maribel Lopez
Director of Programming for PBS: Gabrielle Ewing
Assistant Director of Programming for PBS: John Campbell

Stock Images from Shutterstock
Music from APM Music
Otherwords is produced by Spotzen for PBS.
© 2023 PBS. All rights reserved.

[SEAZNDragon]

Another thing to consider is in some former British colonies there are usually multiple native languages with English being the one common language among ethnic groups.

[TheBlahblahblahhh]

This honestly feels like it's missing a huge chapter. The British Empire & their being arguably the first WORLD power via their navy is something you barely even mentioned tangentially through colonialism.

[jimsbooksreadingandstuff]

The Internet is also a major reason why English is expanding so much at the moment. Around half of all the information on the Internet is in English, if you want a deep dive into almost any subject you will find more information in English than other languages.

[scottbutler]

Completely skipping over how English spread around the world between the 14th century and WW2 is quite a choice.

[conho]

It would've been great if you also touch on the fact that one of the major reasons is colonialism, not just in Singapore.

[graemehirstwood]

I think you will find that British colonialism had a lot more to do with the spreading of English than the US signing a couple of treaties. From Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, through Africa, Asia, and the Americas - the English language didn't just suddenly pop up in these places in the 1900's.

[victoriaeads]

I once lived in Russia, teaching English at a university level. I had a lecture series on English Speaking nations. The incredible variety of culture, geography, ethnicities, etc. was amazing! The world is such a cool place.
I also tried to make sure the students understood when a usage was generally considered correct/incorrect or whether a difference was because of more specific variances between types of English. For my students this was primarily a dissonance between British English textbooks and American English they heard in pop culture.

[ricdavid]

For a while people always used to joke about how "we'll all be speaking Chinese soon enough" but the reason Mandarin/Chinese will never eclipse English globally is that, despite all of English's inconsistencies and quirks, the barrier to a "good enough" level of literacy in English is magnitudes lower than Chinese.

[Sitharos]

Simple, the British conquered a LOT of the world and their language went with them.

[DGill]

I was in Cyprus once, trying to rent a boat. Ahead of me was an Arabic speaking man from Kuait. The owner was a Greek. As soon as they looked at each other they both began in English.

[Zenjohnny]

I have travelled a lot and stayed at many hostels. I find it amazing that a group of german, Argentinian, dutch, italian, and japanese will all be having a conversation in english. Its crucial to know English if you want to travel to speak to other people. Even in japan there are english menus and the trains will announce in english.

[Hallows]

I work in a public library system, and I cannot emphasize how important ESOL classes are for our customers. Arguably one of our most widely used services.

[--Paws--]

Internet "English" has become common lately. It is an amalgamation of many versions of English. Platforms and websites have their own separate English also, not just jargon but due to the region specific of speech and language. It is another layer altogether.

[mekkio]

Honestly, I think the factor that English is far more forgiving than other languages is greatly overlooked. Unlike Mandarin or Cantonese, it is not a tonal language which trip up most non-speakers of those language dialects up because most global languages aren't tonal to begin with. So, you don't need to learn an entirely new skill to speak English. In English there is more often than not more than one way to say something. For example, "The cat is here, " and "Here is the cat." Means the same thing. Heck, toss in, "Here be the cat, " and "The cat be here, " onto the pile. It's all the same thing. You can play around in English in all sorts of ways and still be understood. It's also adaptable. It's a very mutt language. Toss in some words in any language and it still works. It never strives to be "pure." As a freely spoken language, it's an extremely user friendly language.

[anomanderrake]

How can you make such a video about English and mention colonialism just couple of times off handedly.

Major reason india, Pakistan, many African nations speak English is because of colonialism. Ofcourse as you said, the reasons of power, money, jobs keeps the English train moving, but it started because of colonialism. USA was a Colony of British too.

Just feels like the video didn't do enough to fully capture the message

[jkgh]

no real mention of colonialism and british empire which is the reason most countries in asia, africa, oceania, americas have English as an official language.

[Andrea-rwtf]

I love AAEV in the south one of my coworkers is from SC and to hear her code switch from her Gullah accented English to her “proper” English is amazing to me. Same with Sumncheaux, I almost feel like I’ve lost something along the way, really have a longing for it. My family came from SC both mom and dad’s side. And almost all Black folks came through the port of Charleston, where it is spoken.

[YoungGandalf]

English is even spoken in other galaxies. It really is the universal language.

[ajzorger]

I think this series has gotten me to want to become a linguist even more

[mattkuhn]

In my personal opinion as a linguist, albeit not one specialized in diachronic linguistics, I expect what matters most for the future of English is the internet. Unless another country supplants the US culturally enough to unseat English as the dominant world language within the next 20-30 years, and as long as the ways we communicate don't fundamentally change from what it is right now, I believe we will see a new form of English develop out of the online discourse, as I believe we will see the contact between many different dialectical forms of English online eventually result in the formation of a new dialect, which I think will likely eventually eclipse GAE as the dominant variant of English and as the dominant world language. I'm not sure if it will decouple enough to become its own language though, and even if it does it's still likely to take much longer than 20-30 years.