English as a World Language

1. Then there is the even thornier problem of deciding whether a person is speaking English

1.1. or something that is like English but is really a quite separate language

2. A second and rather harsher problem

2.1. is deciding whether a person speaks English or simply thinks he speaks it

3. So there are obvious problems in trying to put a figure to the number of English speakers in the world.

3.1. Most estimates put the number of native speakers at about 330 million,

3.2. as compared with 260 million for Spanish

4. The Economist. “Nearly half of all business deals in Europe are conducted in English,”

4.1. “More than seventy percent of the world’s mail is written and addressed in English,”

4.2. says The Story of English.

5. Usually English words

5.1. are taken just as they are, but sometimes they are adapted to local needs

6. It would be a mistake to presume that English is widely spoken in the world

6.1. because it has some overwhelming intrinsic appeal to foreigners

7. English

7.1. is the most global of languages

8. Products are deemed to be more exciting if they carry English messages

8.1. as often happens, the messages don’t make a lot of sense

9. No other language than English is spoken as an official language

9.1. in more countries

10. The teaching of English, according to The Economist,

10.1. is worth £6 billion a year globally. It is estimated to be Britain’s sixth-largest source of

10.2. invisible earnings, worth some £500 million a year.

11. The Economist assembled a list of English

11.1. terms that had become more or less universal