Around the year 1500, about five million people used the English language – less than the population of Britain at the time. Today, it is estimated that between 600 million and 1000 million people use English in everyday life – at least ten times the present population of Britain. Why has the use of English expanded so much in the last 500 years?
It’s not so hard to give an answer to that question because Britain had allot of colonies in the past 500 years.
It all started to become expand of the English language in 1707. When the Scottish parliament joined the parliament of England and Wales (the Act of Union). From here on the country was to be called the United Kingdom of Great Britain. So the UK started to create colonies in America, India and Africa. This means the Britain’s were practically all over the world. The reason why Britain started up this colonialism was because of the commodities from these countries.
The red parts on this map were colonies of Britain. This shows perfectly that the language must be spoken all over the world because of the British colonies.
Later on Ireland started to become more and more English because the Gaelic language was dying. This happened because of a high number of death and emigration in this country.
And off course Ireland wasn’t the only country, when so many British people moved to Australia, Canada and New Zealand these countries started to take over the British culture too. This also happened to India but the British language didn’t completely took over the native language because when you to India nowadays you will find that the Indian’s are Bilingual, they speak British but also still Hindi.
Antigua, Barbuda, Australia, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Botswana, Brunei, Cameroon, Canada, Dominica, Ethiopia, Fiji, Gambia, Ghana, Grenada, Guyana, India, Ireland, Israel, Jamaica, Kenya, Kiribati, Lesotho, Liberia, Malawi, Malta, Marshall, Islands, Mauritius, Micronesia, Namibia, Nauru, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, Palau, Papua, New Guinea, Philippines, Rwanda, Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint, Lucia Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Samoa
Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Solomon Islands, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Tuvalu, Uganda, United Kingdom, United States, Vanuatu, Zambia, Zimbabwe.
This is a map and a list of countries where the English language is spoken.
Quite a while ago I saw a documentary about students from China who desperately want to speak English because they believe (and I can’t say they’re wrong) that when you speak English the chance for a better future is much bigger. It was by the way pretty impressive to watch these Chinese students because they had to scream in English with thousands of other students, things like “I want a better future”
So the answer to the question “ Why has the use of English expanded so much in the last 500 years?” is because of the colonies Britain owned and because the idea of a better job and future when you speak English. That’s mainly what makes that there are so many people who speak English nowadays. And imagine the world without it.
