English (500- ) is the most widely understood language around the world. Chinese has more speakers but not so many beyond its homeland. English is the chief language of Britain and its fallen empire, including the United States of America. Like Latin five hundred years ago, it is the preferred language of Dutch intellectuals and books of higher learning. It is taught in schools all over the world, even in countries that were never under British or American rule, like Ethiopia, Indonesia and France.

Two hundred years ago English was a middling European language, like Polish. But then Britain came to rule the seas and a fourth of mankind. The empire went broke fighting Hitler, but its wealth and place in the world went to America, one of its daughter countries. So for the past two hundred years the top power has spoken English.

With the rise of China, that could all change. But sometimes imperial tongues outlast their rulers, like Latin and Aramaic and even English itself in India. English is too useful to disappear from the world stage quickly.

The numbers, soft and hard:

  • About 380 million speak English as their first language. We know that because we know how many live in Britain, America, Australia, Jamaica and so on.
  • David Crystal says that between 250 and 350 million are comfortable with it as a second language, chiefly in the Commonwealth countries of Asia and Africa.
  • Maybe another 500 million have learned enough English in school to make this out. Most of these live in Europe and China.

So maybe 1200 million have at least a working knowledge of English.

Words: The most common words are from ancient German with a few from the Vikings. Most new words from the past thousand years come from French and Latin. The French did rule England for a while, but the real reason is sadder than that: until at least 1600, new things did not start in London - they came there last! Most new things came from France and they came with French names.

And for most of its history, English was not considered a real language like Latin. Latin you learned in school, but English was just something you spoke at home.

Writing: like so many others, the English were taught to write by Christian missionaries. And since these missionaries spoke Latin, English to this day is written with Latin letters. A bad fit: English has far more sounds than Latin.

But it gets worse: English is written the way it was spoken in London five hundred years ago! That was before all those e’s at the ends of words became silent.

But the hardest thing about English are its idioms: strange ways of putting things that if taken word for word mean little. For example, give up does not mean to give anything to anybody. It means to lose all hope. Much to the despair of all those schoolchildren in Ethiopia.

See also: