Why is English The Most Spoken Language in the World? As L2

Why is English the most popular and studied language in the world? The answer is more complex than you might think.

A lingua franca (/ˌlɪŋɡwə ˈfræŋkə/; lit. 'Frankish tongue'; for plurals see § Usage notes),[1] also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, vehicular language, or link language, is a language systematically used to make communication possible between groups of people who do not share a native language or dialect, particularly when it is a third language that is distinct from both of the speakers' native languages.[2]

Lingua francas have developed around the world throughout human history, sometimes for commercial reasons (so-called "trade languages" facilitated trade), but also for cultural, religious, diplomatic and administrative convenience, and as a means of exchanging information between scientists and other scholars of different nationalities.[3][4] The term is taken from the medieval Mediterranean Lingua Franca, a Romance-based pidgin language used especially by traders in the Mediterranean Basin from the 11th to the 19th centuries.[5] A world language—a language spoken internationally and by many people—is a language that may function as a global lingua franca.[citation needed]

Characteristics
Any language regularly used for communication between people who do not share a native language is a lingua franca.[6] Lingua franca is a functional term, independent of any linguistic history or language structure.[7]

Pidgins are therefore lingua francas; creoles and arguably mixed languages may similarly be used for communication between language groups. But lingua franca is equally applicable to a non-creole language native to one nation (often a colonial power) learned as a second language and used for communication between diverse language communities in a colony or former colony.[8]

Lingua francas are often pre-existing languages with native speakers, but they can also be pidgin or creole languages developed for that specific region or context. Pidgin languages are rapidly developed and simplified combinations of two or more established languages, while creoles are generally viewed as pidgins that have evolved into fully complex languages in the course of adaptation by subsequent generations.[9] Pre-existing lingua francas such as French are used to facilitate intercommunication in large-scale trade or political matters, while pidgins and creoles often arise out of colonial situations and a specific need for communication between colonists and indigenous peoples.[10] Pre-existing lingua francas are generally widespread, highly developed languages with many native speakers.[citation needed] Conversely, pidgin languages are very simplified means of communication, containing loose structuring, few grammatical rules, and possessing few or no native speakers. Creole languages are more developed than their ancestral pidgins, utilizing more complex structure, grammar, and vocabulary, as well as having substantial communities of native speakers.[11]

Whereas a vernacular language is the native language of a specific geographical community,[12] a lingua franca is used beyond the boundaries of its original community, for trade, religious, political, or academic reasons.[13] For example, English is a vernacular in the United Kingdom but it is used as a lingua franca in the Philippines, alongside Filipino. Likewise, Arabic, French, Mandarin Chinese, Russian and Spanish serve similar purposes as industrial and educational lingua francas across regional and national boundaries.

Even though they are used as bridge languages, international auxiliary languages such as Esperanto have not had a great degree of adoption, so they are not described as lingua francas.[14]

Etymology
The term lingua franca derives from Mediterranean Lingua Franca (also known as Sabir), the pidgin language that people around the Levant and the eastern Mediterranean Sea used as the main language of commerce and diplomacy from late medieval times to the 18th century, most notably during the Renaissance era.[15][8] During that period, a simplified version of mainly Italian in the eastern and Spanish in the western Mediterranean that incorporated many loan words from Greek, the Slavic languages, Arabic, and Turkish came to be widely used as the "lingua franca" of the region, although some scholars claim that the Mediterranean Lingua Franca was just poorly used Italian.[13]

#metatron #english #globallanguage

[Shijaru]

One thing that I greatly enjoy about English is the ridiculous amount of useful information on the Internet. No other language can offer such advantage. Nowadays, if you don't speak English, you're severely missing out on a gargantuan amount of useful information.

[LarryGarfieldCrell]

Another factor that helps English as a world language is that it's grammar is quite loosy-goosey. That means while learning "correct" English is hard, English is very easy to pidgin and still be intelligible.

[billr]

I was visiting Italy ten years ago and encountered a young restaurant waiter and a young bartender both of whom spoke excellent (almost native level) American English. I guessed in my own mind that they must have been exchange students in the US to have achieved such proficiency. When I asked them how they learned English, though, they both said they learned it by watching American TV shows. So, to the extent such shows are available via streaming services, YouTube, and the Internet, English seems to have become very accessible to motivated non-English speakers. And, such easy access may position English as the principal lingua franca for a long time.

[Lttlemoi]

I work in a small Belgian tech company, with most employees from Flanders and two from Brussels. Everyone had both French and Dutch in school and yet, English is how we communicate whenever there's a group with mixed mother tongue.

[MTerrance]

Don't forget that English is the official language of aviation. Foreign commercial pilots are required to be capable of speaking and understanding spoken English. When I was working on a project in Turkey in which Siemens had a lead role I was surprised to learn the official language of Siemens is English, including being required for all documents within Siemens. The decision to do this was because Siemens was determined to not have its global prospects limited by language. While working in India I was told that many Indians preferred to speak in English as opposed to Hindi because they considered Hindi a regional language, while English was without regional bias. The British occupation of India was clearly a factor because so many Indians learned English in school, but then you would have thought the sour taste of that occupation would have meant English would be refiled. In Budapest I was in a meeting in which a local engineer was asked if he read Russian, and his response was "Of course, I was educated in it, but I will never speak that damn language again." - apparently the memory of the Soviet Union was sufficient to insure he did not use his Russian language abilities.
Esperanto was an attempt at an artificial international language. It totally flopped. Proponents argued it would be preferable because it was logical, shared roots with many European languages, and did not confer any advantage to any other language. It never took off.

[seamussc]

One thing I've always found interesting about English is that so many other languages, even widely spoken ones, are concerned with linguistic purity or maintaining a specific type of vocabulary (French language authorities creating Latin/French rooted words to replace English borrowings comes to mind), where English historically has never really cared about that and has always absorbed words from other languages around it like a sponge.

While obviously the power of the British Empire and the USA afterwards are the main reaons for the proliferation of English, I always wondered if the adaptability of English is part of its success.

[WholesomeBookworm]

my native tongue is Western Armenian. I was born and raised in the Middle East so I also know Arabic, in a country where the second language was French, and yet still my English (especially reading and writing) is better than all three of those languages combined. its somewhat scary the more I think about it

[connorgaskill]

I really enjoy how English has so many duplicative words based on what language introduced a concept. For example, the word "dictator" is Latin, while "despot" is Greek; they mean the same thing, but introduced to the language separately. The same can be said about "easy" (Old French) and "facile" (Latin) or "right" (English/Germanic) and "correct" (Latin). Instead of getting rid of redundant words, English integrates them, adding cultural context and additional meaning as needed.

This is why English is quite easy to pick up since it shares cognates with both Germanic and Latin languages. Also the reason why it likely has the largest amount of words compared to any other language.

[MrRabiddogg]

I've been watching a podcast called the History of English, which started at the theories about the PIE and is up to Shakespeare right now. Its fascinating how the Proto-European language broke into German, Latin, Gallic, etc and all those branches have basically come back together in modern English.

[unshaken]

People think it will be replaced by Mandarin someday, but I believe English is so EASY for everyone to learn, that it being replaced as a lingua franca is extremely unlikely.

[kanrakucheese]

Another big advantage of English in growth is that computer code is heavily English based. Terms like else, if, for, while, color, fetch, obj (object), array, print, public, out (output), argument etc. are always going to be in English (as color shows, specifically American English), regardless of where the coder is from. (Does Boole count here? He was an Englishman, but it's used because it was his name rather than whatever his ancestor did to get that surname)

[andrewmathieson]

Great video which I can relate to. For us native English speakers, and for me personally as a 50-year-old, it’s amusing how much of the world now knows English (compared to when I was a little boy). It also makes us lazy not to learn any other second language unlike most of the world. I’m Australian which also means we’re not even geographically close to any other major other language too unlike English is to French, Spanish or German.

[jeromehorwitz]

As an American who has worked in various European countries I'm lucky that most people speak English. When asked (usually by a sarcastic Frenchman) how many languages I speak I am forced to admit I speak only the one, but refrain from pointing out that English has become the Lingua Franca because the British developed values that promote prosperity, invention, organization and success, and thus have deeded to their descendants wealth, power and world influence. Living in the cosmopolitan city of Los Angeles I frequently encounter people speaking fluent English one second and the next answer their phone in Hebrew, Farsi, Spanish, Armenian or whatever, a feat which I envy. I'm not too lazy to learn another language, I'm just not economically motivated because everyone speaks English.

[ravenkamalioneplus]

I learned English when I was fourteen and now it has replaced my mother tongue since the only language I have been speaking for the past forty years has been English. That does not mean, of course, that I do not encounter difficulties in expressing myself sometimes in English, particularly in writing as I am a writer.

[Kenruli]

One small correction that I want to make is that Im quite sure only Scandinavian reagion (more western and southern parts) speak germanic languages. The more northern regions are too but there is also finno-ugric languages most notably Sami.
So if we talk about Nordics it would be Germanic and Finno-Ugric languages.
In the end im not sure if Iceland is considered part of the Scandinavia or just Nordic so youre still correct. 8:43

[Forsthman]

Internet changed everything for Lingua Francas. French was very close, but we supplanted them just before internet took off, so French missed it. I don't think anything can stop English now, because it's just so widely used, and its usage is increasing as internet use is spreading across the world. I'd say the only threat is Spanish, since asian languages are so hard for the rest of the world, but English is still easier to learn, so English it is.

[ChanyeolsHaneul]

I think the influence of kpop and korean dramas made millions of young people (including me, even tho I'm not young) to desire to learn Korean. I doubt it will become as popular as English but it amazed me how fast it became one of the most wanted foreign languages by the new generation. It shows how the cultural part, that is so easy access though Internet, is much a bigger impact that politics or economics now days.

[fasteddie]

6:05 Quote of the day: "Lingua franca is always connected to power."

[Alan-lvrw]

No language steals words from other languages like English does. It’s adaptability is off the charts. Which will enable it to survive.

[Sandysand]

It is said: You can express yourself better in English than any other language! Maybe because of all the imported words from other languages? Not only do you find good music and movies in English, also, literature is very rich too. Hard to see English being replaced as the international language, can imagine more adoption of foreign words though, maybe even displacing some English ones.