Why English turned out to be the international language?

Question

I mean when you look populations of native speakers, English is not the most widely spoken language. Its Chinese. Hell English is not even the second! 2nd one is Spanish...
But somehow, English turned out to be most widely spoken.
Does anyone know why?

Dont get me wrong , I love this language! I spent a lot of time and money to learn it. Thank god now I can speak it!
But hell it wasnt easy!!...
To be honest, I am little bit jelaous you native speakers about that... you lucky bastards.... :)))

Answer 1

It's funny, eh? As languages go, English is clumsy, difficult to pronounce, poorly standardized, and has way too many words. And yet, it's being studied as a second language by around a billion people on this planet.

The two primary reasons English is the international language:
1) The British Empire, which colonized every continent in one way or another. Of course, the British Empire crumbled, which leads us to...
2) America's ascension to the status of sole world superpower, and subsequent global domination. Most likely, you learned American English, right?

English will continue to dominate the world language market for a long time to come as well, because it's the most common second language in the European Union. You can forget about learning Chinese for now - it's even harder. :)

Answer 2

Two main reasons:

- The British Empire. It was the largest empire ever. As a result many independent countries speak it, even where the native languages are different. This gave rise to English as a lingua franca.
- America's economic status. Even with America's image being less than favourable, and recent fall in the dollar, the superpower status is not going to change soon.

More recently, English dealt with other competitors, with some amount of historical luck. German used to have many second language speakers in Europe (especially eastern Europe), but they began to resent the language after WWII. This resentment has passed, but because the German speaking minorities have left, nobody relearned it. They learned Russian instead, and of course that came to be resented in 90's after communism had fallen. That resentment will pass too, but now they are learning the language of international commerce, namely English.

French was well set to become a world language too. It had more colonies in Africa than Britain, a sizeable influence in the Middle East and Pacific, and was widely used among the learned in Europe (including England). But in sheer numbers the French colonial subjects were fewer, and this started to show, while Americas economic power played an important role. As recently as five centuries ago, anybody in Europe who wanted to be taken seriously, would have had to writte in Latin. Where people struggled with the inflections of Latin, French was the next best thing.

None of the reasons, in other words, had to do, with an inherent easy-to-learn or expressive quality of the language itself.

There are many interesting "what if" scenarios. The Spanish at one time almost invaded England, but for once the weather actually came to England's rescue. Imagine the collective influence of Spanish and English, if they had been more similar, or one. Also, had the Norman French invasion of 1066 not ocurred, English would not have drifted as far away from Dutch and German. That would have been interesting too.

Do not be too jealous. We are lucky in many ways, in being able to speak more than one language natively, or near natively. The very reasons that make English a world language, makes this achievement almost impossible for most English speakers to achieve.

Answer 3

One of the sector's greatest Problem of Language and Education . Language is greater than some thing else makes us human... World demands a phonetic language for bigger schooling considering that... Today is an technology of cutthroat pageant. Therefore, we can not deny the swiftly growing value of the English language. At gift, English has emerge as a international language. In this hour of liberalization, privatization and globalization, the English language has its footing firmly rooted within the minds of every citizen of the sector. Unlike so much different languages English does not have a collection phonetic pronunciation for each and every phrase. Vocabulary Phrasal verbs - Phrasal verbs in English can purpose problems for lots of freshmen considering that they have got a few meanings and one-of-a-kind syntactic styles. There also are a quantity of phrasal verb variations among American and British English. Word derivation - Word derivation in English calls for plenty of rote finding out. For illustration, an adjective can also be negated via utilising the prefix un- (e.g. not able), in- (e.g. beside the point), dis- (e.g. cheating), or a- (e.g. amoral), or via the usage of one in every of a myriad of comparable however rarer prefixes, all converted models of the primary 4. Size of lexicon - The historical past of English has ended in an excessively tremendous vocabulary, nearly one movement from Old English and one from the Norman infusion of Latin-derived phrases. (Schmitt & Marsden declare that English has one of the most greatest vocabularies of any identified language.) This unavoidably calls for extra paintings for a learner to grasp the language. Differences among spoken and written English As with so much languages, written language has a tendency to make use of a extra formal sign up than spoken language. The acquisition of literacy takes big attempt in English.

Answer 4

because the English had a colony in every continent in the world and most of the 1st world a countries speak English as a 1st or 2nd language

Answer 5

Two main reasons come to mind.

1) The great British fleet ensured rapid colonisation bringing English with it . It's decendants, especially America, colonised economically and consequently culturally.

2) English is relatively simple and easy to learn.

Answer 6

Because English speaking countries have a lot of economic power.

Answer 7

Because English is so easy to learn

Answer 8

Mathematics is the true universal language.

Answer 9

Because Britannia ruled the waves.

Answer 10

The British were known for invading most of Asia and Africa and the Americas.

Plus Americans are loud and obnoxious and don't want to learn anyone else's language.