why english become a main language??
By adhyz82
@adhyz82 (36249)
Indonesia
29 responses
@repzkoopz (1895)
• Philippines
19 Jan 12
i wouldn't really think of english as the "main" language of the world. but it sure is a widely-used language simply because a lot of countries were colonized by english-speaking nations (british, americans, etc). most of these colonized countries included the english language in their studies to make communication easier.
@repzkoopz (1895)
• Philippines
19 Jan 12
i dunno about making english the #1 language, but it would surely be easier to communicate when your using the same language. 
1 person likes this
@xiaomo3644 (55)
• China
19 Jan 12
In my opinion,the reason is that the native speakers of english live in the most places of the earth.Though China has the largest population,but chineses live on the one continent. But people in different continents speak english,so in the world,most of the countries treat english as official language.It do good to communicate with other countries because they can understand english more easily than other languages.
2 people like this
@Yogesh2708 (454)
• India
19 Jan 12
Yes these languages had chance to become an international language. But these languages could not spread all over the world. As english language is simple in comparison to chinese, hindi and other languages, and it got chance to spread all over the world. The small country england colonized and dominated the whole world. People loved simplicity and lucidness of english. And after that english was declared to be international language.
1 person likes this
@Sanitary (3968)
• Singapore
25 Jan 12
IT's understandable and it's simple to pronounce. What's more, it's a universal language started by them. I'm not sure if British or American started it, but way back into the past, western powers are considered powerful countries and that's how, where it started. Maybe deep into the past, we chinese, Indians, only sees all foreigners to be the same since they look so different from us. We can't even differentiate if they are Germans, French or whatever. From there, we just want to follow their culture and be equally powerful, so we just follow whatever is there.
@Zer0Stats (1147)
• India
30 Jan 12
Hmm..not sure about the culture(we already have gazillions...lol)but sure we Indians want their money....
1 person likes this
@Lhenni (1242)
• Philippines
20 Jan 12
*LOL... I just wrote it! I just don't know how it started why English been the universal language in the world.
Seriously, English been the normal language in our country eversince I remember and some Spanish. And in our early school and even at home, we speak and had taught English.
Normally Filipinos fond using "Tag-Lish". It means speaking not purely English nor our own dialect which is Tagalog. It's a combination. I even wonder why we, here in our country more used the English than Tagalog. Maybe because we have barrier too in speaking and understanding our own language. I noticed it's more difficult than English. My daughter much understand the English than pure Tagalog. My 2 sons know counting numbers in English than Tagalog. Teaching and speaking English is common in the Philippines. Though we're not that fluent in speaking, we do understand it, and in constant practice, we can be fluent in speaking too *sigh!
@ravisivan (14079)
• India
19 Jan 12
English language changes itself or people in positions influence its change to suit changing times.
Words like kichri are included in oxford dictionary and vocabulary expands.
A friend told me that the word "kolaveri" is included as an English word.
Further only 26 letters are there in the language. another reason -- Britain had their colonies throughout the world.
2 people like this
@zandi458 (28102)
• Malaysia
20 Jan 12
I am not very sure why English has become the common language in all countries of the world. It is probably because the British empire was powerful in those days and their success in colonizing many countries in the far East has forced people to learn the English language in order to communicate with them.
1 person likes this
@Yogesh2708 (454)
• India
19 Jan 12
The reason is very simple. First english was only being spoken in england. But english peoples increased their land and faught all over the world. English peoples lived at every corner in the world. Thats why english became more famous language.
1 person likes this
@microengineer (587)
• Indonesia
19 Jan 12
agree with you. Many English spoken people go to many places in this world. And they make so many community. It is not like that English is easy to learn. The pronunciation is difficult for me. But let we see Chinese language, as they currently spread over the world.
1 person likes this
@surfer222 (1714)
• Indonesia
19 Jan 12
i don't know why exactly, but here's my guess...
Our country was colonized by dutch, and my grandparent can speak dutch fluently.
maybe because during colonial era british empire was the largest empire in the world (if i'm reading it right) and those who were colonized by british learn english language and as the result the language become main language in the world.
At least that's my guess... i don't really know the answer...
1 person likes this
@surfer222 (1714)
• Indonesia
19 Jan 12
colonize thing is just my guess, i don't know for sure what the real reason, but i think it's not the only way for people to speak our language, we can do other things too... like China for instance, now people learning to speak Chinise, not because they're colonize, but because they're the leader of world economics today.
1 person likes this
@Bluedoll (16773)
• Canada
19 Jan 12
I agree it is history that did this. If we study history we can learn how things came about. As for the future who can say? I think perhaps in history the greatest asset was the ability or desire to trade. Since trade is aspect that will allow for exchange then it stands that language will follow.
I am not sure English is a main language but it was certainly a common one employed. Regardless of the lanquage there needs to be one or it can be very confusing. With the application of better electronic translators this could change? Who knows?
1 person likes this
@Lannielui (83)
• United States
20 Jan 12
I think there are a lot of good answers here as to why English has become a main language across the world. With that said, I wont repeat some of the main points that have been made. I would like to say however, that it is not an easy language to learn. It is extremely difficult and I admire anyone who learns this language, when it is not their first language or native tongue.
1 person likes this
@Kalebtheman (530)
• India
19 Jan 12
Its just that english is easy to learn comparing to other language.the world needed a common language. so chose english as its easy and simple
1 person likes this
@Asylum (47893)
• Manchester, England
17 Nov 12
I would not have considered English to be a particularly easy language to learn. There must be quite a few easier ones, such as Spanish. The problem with English is that the language is not phonetic, surely it has to be far easier to learn a phonetic language.
@Asylum (47893)
• Manchester, England
16 Nov 12
English has spread across the planet mainly due to the British expanding across the globe. As a combined result of colonisation and occupation the British Empire spread over every continent. This may not be a part of our history that we are proud of, but it did spread the language to all areas.
Nowadays it is the native language in England, Canada, USA and Australia along with many more. It naturally followed that it was accepted as the business language for international trade, so for example a Japanese businessman would converse with a Swedish businessman in English. Obviously it is not possible to learn all languages so a common denominator had to be chosen and English was the obvious choice due to it being so widely used.
@Hatley (163776)
• Garden Grove, California
20 Jan 12
hi adhyz why not as English is spoken in many places all over the world and it should be the universal language as its much easier to learn than Chinese or Japanese or so many other tough languages.
I vote for English as our universal language.
@Zer0Stats (1147)
• India
23 Jan 12
Hmm well the influence of the United States of America on the world since the 19th century is a major factor on the way the English Language has become so hugely prominent on a global scale.It would be ridiculous to believe otherwise....a huge country gazillions times larger in size than the original home and birthplace of the Language and with a population some six or seven times greater.However,it also cannot be denied that the spread of the British Empire between the 16th and 19th centuries(using that period as a core) went a long way to globalise the Language in quite a big way.
@Asylum (47893)
• Manchester, England
17 Nov 12
I fail to see how you can attribute this to the USA, because English was introduced to Australia a long time before the USA existed. America is a relatively young country, and English was spread to a vast number of countries while the Americans were speaking Sioux and Navajo.
The current dominance of America will certainly have helped to maintain the popularity of English, but it certainly did not spread the language.
@erricgunawan (611)
• Indonesia
20 Jan 12
I think it has been told in the others' responds, that English become international language, because they have colonized so many countries back then in the past.
I agree with that aspect from history.
As for simple, i don't really agree with that.
People start to say English is simple because they have been used to it. Say for examples, if Spain or French, or maybe even Chinese or Japanese language was used instead of English back then in the colonial era, I dare to think that one of those languages will become the international language, and even people would say they were 'simple'! (Despite their actual complexity as we know now :)
@erricgunawan (611)
• Indonesia
24 Jan 12
Yes, of course!
Don't you think Indonesian, or many say 'Bahasa Indonesia', is a "simple" and easy language to study? hahaha... ^_^
@francesca5 (1344)
•
16 Nov 12
i think its because the US speaks english, because so many people went there from the uk, including scotland and ireland, which were originally celtic countries, but english had become the main language by the time of the mass emigration.
the mass emigration was caused by land clearances, as people were pushed off the land, because the very rich enclosed the land for sheep grazing.
so i would argue it was the success of america culturally, through films and music, that has then made english the language people want to learn. because loads of people listen to american music, they learn to speak english.
@Asylum (47893)
• Manchester, England
17 Nov 12
As adhyz82 says, English was introduced to a vast number of countries across the globe before the American land mass was colonised. You are right that it was due to the English colonising America that the language was introduced there, which also explains why there are French areas and a few other languages. America was colonised by a wide variety of European countries.
@francesca5 (1344)
•
17 Nov 12
yes, the english language was exported to other countries as well, but its hard to go into the full details in the space of a mylot comment, but i think we shouldn't underestimate the importance of the export of english to america as being a factor in making it so important as a language worldwide.
