ENGLISH-THE INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE
There are more than 3,000 languages in the world today, but only about six are major languages of the world. Two-thirds of the world's population speak those six languages
More than 300,000,000 people speak English as their first or native language. Another 300,000,000 speak it as a second language. No one knows how many people speak it as a foreign language. Chinese is the only language with more speakers than English. This is because of the huge population of China, more than one billion people
English is the native or official language on one-fifth of the land area of the world. It is spoken in North America, Great Britain, Australia, and New Zealand. In South Africa and India it is one of the official languages
More people study English than any other language. In many countries, the textbooks in universities are in English. Many university classes are taught in English even though the native language is not English
English is the language of international communication. It is the language of international business, research, and science. More than three-fifths of the world's radio stations use English. More than half of the scientific and research journals are in English. Most other languages have borrowed many English words
Why did English become the international language? In the middle of the nineteenth century, French was the international language. Then Britain became very powerful in the world. England started colonies in North America and India in the seventeenth century. By 1900 England also had colonies in other parts of Asia, Africa, and the South Pacific. The people in the colonies had to use English. Slowly it became more important than French internationally. After the Second World War, the United States became very powerful, and even more people began to learn English
Is English a good international language? It has more words than any other language. The grammar is simpler than in the other major languages. However, English spelling is difficult. Foreigners all have trouble spelling English. So do native speakers
Since 1880, people have invented over fifty artificial languages. No one speaks them as a native language. However, none of them has ever become popular. Some people don't want to study English, but it is the international language. There is no way to change that now
Source : Concepts and Comments