Sampan Mehta Week 10: The Domination of the English Language Across the World
English was first spoken by Britishers, and several hundred years ago the number of people that spoke English was around five to seven million. Today, about 1.8 billion people speak English, and it has become one of the most spoken languages in the world. How has English gone from five million speakers initially, to over one billion speakers today? Hundreds of years of colonial expansion and increasingly dominant influence from the West has been the primary cause. In the previous centuries, the Britishers focused on expanding across the globe, and colonizing smaller countries which they could easily rule. One of their main practices was establishing schools in these regions that primarily taught and glorified English. In fact, many former colonies of the British have listed English as one of their national languages, which further proves how English was considered superior in these areas.
Slowly, the rest of the world followed, prioritizing the English language in daily lives, schools, and it has even become a major priority for employment. In today’s society, a strong understanding, speaking and listening, of the English language is incredibly valuable, and has become a necessity to contribute in the workforce, schools, and to participate in daily activities. The value of English is not just present in the United States, but several foreign countries have made it a requirement for employment, and students in schools have been required to learn English as a secondary or primary language. There have been mixed responses to the global domination of English. A majority of people think that English reduces the value of other foreign languages, and also diminishes the local culture that is present in many countries. Others believe that learning English as a secondary language is not enough to properly function in society, such as getting a job or completing higher levels of education, and that not everyone has the privilege of learning English. With all these ideas, it is important to understand just how much power the English language holds, and how society deems you as invaluable if you cannot comprehend it.
Ultimately, the global expansion of English has continued to progress, and with the hundreds of years of colonization, English has become a universal language that has been able to connect so many people from different backgrounds and various countries. It’s shocking to see how much a language can have an immense amount of dominance over people, but it has become one of the primary ways to communicate with others. An interesting point about the global knowledge of English is that in almost every country, you would be able to find an English speaker, which is necessarily not the case for other widespread and most spoken languages. To learn more about how English has become a dominant language in the world, read the articles linked below.
Links:
https://brownpoliticalreview.org/2017/04/linguistic-colonialism-english/
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/18/books/review/the-rise-of-english-rosemary-salomone.html
Image
Hi Sampan! Your blog was an interesting read and connects to the theme of “power” and “language” effectively. I like that you started the blog by providing the statistics of English speakers from the 5 million speakers several hundred years ago to 1.8 billion today. It’s amazing that there were less than a billion people worldwide in 1800, and it is logical that this increase in speakers can be attributed to the increased population size. However, it’s true that English is a dominant language because of the reasons you had provided in your blog, such as the expansion of the British Empire and the colonization of smaller countries. I also enjoy how you provided so many examples of ways English could spread across the globe and examples of how English is still relevant today. Additionally, it was great that you went so in depth to the “mixed responses” due to the global dominance of the English language before ending with how “English… has been able to connect so many people from different backgrounds and various countries.” This makes me appreciate the impact English has on the communities around the world and the benefits it brings by connecting us together. For instance, English allows me to clearly communicate with my cousins in China and Finland; despite not living in a country where the native language is English, they are still proficient in this shared language. Although it would be great to know a wide variety of languages, having one universal way of speaking is able to connect us in the way a scatter of various languages is unable to. This ability to connect so many people from different countries and cultures is a great example of the power of language and I really enjoyed reading your blog!
ReplyDeleteHi Sampan! I loved reading your analysis of how English’s prominence rose throughout the years. Personally, I did not know English was spoken by so few people just a few hundred years ago, and you utilized that fact as a powerful hook that demonstrates the exigence of your discussion. Nowadays, most people are aware that the rise of the English language is a reflection of the dominance of the US. Being able to interact with the US is seen as a necessity, as the nation has businesses in all ranges of services and goods. The newest scientific discoveries and technological innovations seem to center in the US, and English has become a necessary second language for many across the world. In fact, English is the most common second language in the world. I appreciate how thoroughly you analyzed various aspects that have helped English become so commonly spoken today. Its effects on employment, education, and culture are all clearly encapsulated in your discussion. I feel that another topic that would be interesting to explore is the effect of the English language’s dominance on Americans. They are commonly noted as ignorant and prideful, and I wonder about the extent to which English’s position as the most common second language enables this behavior.
ReplyDeleteHello Sampan! Thank you for sharing your detailed and thoughtful analysis on the spread of English through history and its prominence in our globalized world today. I appreciate how you provided a complete analysis of the growth of the English language and how you supplemented these ideas with statistics. To touch on some of the points you made, I too realized that English is a requirement for graduation in many schools around the world. This is in part because of how many opportunities one can access career and education-wise. For education, many of the most groundbreaking research is published in the English language and many of the biggest websites on the internet are only available in English. Therefore, knowing English opens a vast variety of opportunities. If a school's duty is to prepare a student for success in life, knowing English goes a long way to achieving that.
ReplyDeleteI also want to discuss the idea you shared about how the dominance of English can eradicate local culture. The reason why this is even a question is because of globalism, which has connected the world in ways that humans have never even considered before. With so many people connected, there has to be a central language so that people can easily and quickly share ideas. This is why many careers, most notably in corporations that operate worldwide, require the knowledge of English. However, as you mentioned, as more people learn English in school, the less they speak in their local language and lose touch with their roots. I believe that this is an important issue that should be addressed, but it is also not simple to adress.
Thank you for sharing this blog on an important subject. As we find careers and progress in life, we will all have the advantage of knowing English. Nevertheless, it will be extremely intriguing to see how the dominance of English evolves as the world becomes more and more connected with every passing year.