1.The rise of English is a remarkable tale as Professor David Crystal reminds us in his attractive,
short book "English has a Global language."
2. It is certainly quite a theme. When Julius Caesar landed in Britain more than 2,000 years ago, English did not exist. Five hundred years later, English, virtually incomprehensible to modern ears, was probably spoken by about as few people as currently speak Cherokee, the language of a small North American Indian tribe-and with little influence. About 1,000 years later, at the end of the 16th century, and after the Norman Conquest, the Reformation and the arrival of commercial printing technology, English was the native speech of between 5 million and 7 million people. And yet now look at it. As the second millennium approaches, English is more widely scattered, more widely spoken and written than any other language has never been. In the title of the book, it has become a truly global language. According to David Crystal, about 2.09 billion people, well over one-third of the world’s population are routinely exposed to it.
3. As he rightly points out, what is impressive about this staggering figure is: "not so much the grand total but the speed with which expansion has taken place since the 1950’s. In 1950, the case for English as a world language would have been no more than plausible. Fifty years on and the case is virtually won. "
4. So what happened?
5. Someone once said that a language is a dialect with an army and a navy. In other words, when the British navy set out to conquer the world, is set out an "army" of English speakers. As the British empire spread throughout the world, English became the basis of law, commerce and education. The British empire was succeed by another(the American), which shared virtually the same linguistic heritage. American English, which has become the rocket-fuel of the English language, has magically found its way into areas undreamed of 40, let alone 400 years ago.
