Is English a Global Language?

[Name of the Institute]

Is English a Global Language?

Introduction

The process through which English has become a global language reflects a 400-year-long history of power-struggle and negotiation. English today is used by close to 800 million people worldwide, and it is estimated that more than 80 percent of the world's information stored on computers is in English. Since it is the official language of aviation and shipping and the de facto language of science and international commerce, the Teaching of English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) is a global business in itself (Crystal, 2012). The history of English is marked by the waxing and waning of imperial forces and the emergence of new forms of the language. In this paper I will be discussing the significance of English in different areas of the world and its transformation into a global language.

Transformation into a Global Language

England's first great encounter with non-European languages began with the trading monopoly granted to the East India Company in the early seventeenth century. In their desire to establish and control the Indian spice trade and, later, the cloth export trade, English merchant traders became aware of the need to speak with local rulers and potentates in their own tongue. Thus the Bengali or Hindi lexicon became a standard element of communication for English traders, and words from the subcontinent progressively infiltrated the English language. Such consideration for the host languages of India, however based on the principles of self-interest, and however short-lived in the overall history of the British Raj, was rarely matched in the Anglo-Saxon colonial enterprises across the Atlantic.

The English linguistic hold on the New World began much more tenuously. In 1588, Sir Humphrey Gilbert established the seasonal colony of Newfoundland, off the coast of Labrador, with the language of the English administrators and shipbuilders vying with the Irish Gaelic and Irish-English of its servants and fishermen, whose language has left an indelible mark on Newfoundland English. But it was not until 1607, with the founding of Jamestown under Captain John Smith, that an English settlement took root long enough for its linguistic influence to spread over a large area (McKenzie, 2010). Two years after the Jamestown founding, the shipwreck of a supply vessel bound for Virginia led to the establishment of the Bermuda colony and the further invasion of English into the Americas; in 1648 the language spread further still, with religious dissenters who left Bermuda for the Bahamas.

The development of English in the Caribbean demonstrates the extent to which language was one of many facets of colonial power struggles. The first English presence in the Caribbean (commonly called “the Spanish Main”) was spawned out of belligerence and contest, with the soldier-pirates of Queen Elizabeth—John Hawkins, Francis Drake, Walter Raleigh—attempting to wrest the Atlantic trade from their great rivals, the Spanish, beginning in the early seventeenth century. Further imperial encounters and clashes in the New World were reflected in the development of American English. Spain, France, and The Netherlands all contested with ...