English is commonly called the lingua franca of the modern age. Spoken as a first language by up to four hundred million people – mostly in the United States, the United Kingdom, and the ‘Western offshoots’ – and, as a second language by up to a billion others, including large numbers in India and China, it is a truly global language.
Originally spread across the British Empire, it has continued to grow with the rise to global pre-eminence of the United States in the last century. This is an official language at the United Nations, the European Union and Commonwealth and for many, while the global "for the first time, is speaking English. Measured in the media, rather than people, the feeling is even stronger. Most websites worldwide are in English. In some areas such as international scientific publishing, which is something like an English-language monopoly.
Unlike some other languages, English is not regulated or controlled by a central or single authority. Many of us look at something from time to time, in a good Dictionary (eg Oxford English Dictionary), but it is our choice as authors, speakers and readers. Naturally, we found a good dictionary or influential it may be, is also a matter of choice but do it with the force of tradition, convention and habit shoulders.
As in every language development> Language English is alive, there is no coordinated or controlled. The task of director of major English dictionaries are in the world to identify which are the words in the dictionary of currency, not to tell us what the used to be, or how it is used. It means English and varieties of English society depends on using the language.
It is not surprising that English-speaking population of large and distributed, it consists ofa huge number of diverse communities around the world should have produced a huge number of varieties of English. Some varieties are constructed, quite deliberately, with a purpose in mind. ‘Basic English‘, for example, is a cut-down version of the English language designed to be easier to learn, and to minimize the potential for misunderstanding between international speakers.
Most varieties however, have evolved according to the behavior of one English language community or other. Most people know American English (or US English) is different to British English (or UK English). Inside a nation, indeed a city, as visitors soon find out, the language used (though still English) can vary greatly from one location to the next. As well as geographies, different domains or fields make for language communities. Many professionals communicate in ways quite ‘native’ to their sphere, which, to the rest of us perhaps difficult to understand.
Thus in the twentieth century, we can be more English people live as there are human beings in this life marked the beginning of the last one. Each of us belongs to at least one and probably very different English community – and this is something that we think in our communication skills and writing.
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