Eli5: Why is the English language most common in this world?

Question

Eli5: Why is the English language most common in this world?

In: 41

Answer 1

I’m addition to the influence of the British Empire, English is—contrary to popular belief—much easier to learn than many other languages. There are 26 homophonic letters, not 3000 symbolic characters like in Mandarin. There is no gender to contend with, as in Romance languages like French
or Spanish. Despite being a Germanic language, there is no extended concatenation, as in German. And there are few—and relatively mild glottals, as in other languages like Hebrew.