{"id":791,"date":"2018-09-06T19:39:56","date_gmt":"2018-09-06T23:39:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/lmlc\/?p=791"},"modified":"2019-05-11T15:45:05","modified_gmt":"2019-05-11T19:45:05","slug":"english-a-global-language","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/lmlc\/2018\/09\/06\/english-a-global-language\/","title":{"rendered":"English: A Global Language"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One of the concepts learned in Linguistic Anthropology Fall 2017 was the idea of a <a href=\"https:\/\/englishlive.ef.com\/blog\/english-in-the-real-world\/english-became-global-language\/\">global language<\/a> which is a language spoken by many people across the world as it holds a significant weight to it in government, education, or other social areas. Currently, the global language is English, more specifically, <a href=\"http:\/\/autocww.colorado.edu\/~toldy3\/E64ContentFiles\/LinguisticsAndLanguages\/AmericanEnglish.html\">American English<\/a>, with hundreds of millions of speakers. It\u2019s not surprising as English is a common means of communication in\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/hbr.org\/2012\/05\/global-business-speaks-english\">business<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/science\/archive\/2015\/08\/english-universal-language-science-research\/400919\/\">scientific journals<\/a> but how did it become a global language?<\/p>\n<p>A mini history lesson needs to be said here as British English was the global language for a while. The phrase \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.quora.com\/What-does-The-sun-never-set-on-the-British-Empire-mean\">The empire on which the sun never sets<\/a>\u201d was absolutely true given the colonial reach of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vaguelyinteresting.co.uk\/tag\/greatest-extent-of-british-empire\/\">British Empire<\/a> on every continent. Such a global presence and vast amount of resources meant that they were not only a military power but a social power too. Through their own policies they instituted <a href=\"http:\/\/www.columbia.edu\/itc\/mealac\/pritchett\/00generallinks\/macaulay\/txt_minute_education_1835.html\">mandatory teaching of English<\/a> in some parts of the Empire.\u00a0Since they were also a regional power, people were in a way coerced to learn the language of those who were dominating them.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->As the years went by though, the British empire fell and so did the prevalence of British English but another dominant language, or dialect as is debated, arose; American English. After the Allies victory in World War 2, America rose in prominence due in part to its victory, <a href=\"https:\/\/lagunita.stanford.edu\/asset-v1:Engineering+NuclearBrink+Fall2016+type@asset+block\/Nuclear_Weapons_and_the_Escalation_of_the_Cold_War.pdf\">nuclear armament<\/a>, and a global presence in the reconstruction efforts of devastated Europe and Asia. America maintained built and maintained a global presence in politics, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.brookings.edu\/articles\/the-globalization-challenge-the-u-s-role-in-shaping-world-trade-and-investment\/\">trade<\/a>, and in conflict zones. Through the decades, America solidified its place as a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/2016\/11\/28\/13708364\/america-superpower-expansion-colony\">superpower<\/a> and as such, held and still holds an inexorable influence on culture and society throughout the world.<\/p>\n<p>Because of this, American English became to be an asset to many non-Americans as a way for themselves to succeed in a world become increasingly globalized and interactions with American affairs are commonplace. So, what started as language limited to American borders became globalized due to a series of historical events that enabled America to become a world superpower, making English, the American variety,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.csmonitor.com\/1996\/0904\/090496.intl.global.1.html\">very widespread<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the concepts learned in Linguistic Anthropology Fall 2017 was the idea of a global language which is a language spoken by many people across the world as it holds a significant weight to it in government, education, or<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3323,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[45,67,6,13],"class_list":["post-791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-blog","tag-global","tag-language","tag-language-clouds"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/lmlc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/lmlc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/lmlc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/lmlc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3323"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/lmlc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=791"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/lmlc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/791\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1088,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/lmlc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/791\/revisions\/1088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/lmlc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/lmlc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/lmlc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}