Eli5: Why is the English language most common in this world?
In: 41
[Here is a map of every former British colony and Britain](https://th.bing.com/th/id/R.29ed26561e50a296a3ee0351b5c3bf63?rik=GUGmY5V71s%2bDSA&pid=ImgRaw&r=0). As you can kind of see… it’s the largest empire that has ever existed. It’s larger than Russia and China combined. Because of this trade in all of these areas moved towards English. And then Britain setup trade ports in most other countries and solidified English as an international language.
The dominance of American post-WW2 further solidified this as for a decade the US was the largest trading partner with every country in the world (except the Soviet Union and Communist China for obvious reasons). American banks for a while became the dominant banks and in order to get US funding, you needed to speak English.
In countries that rejected English in the past, now speaking English is regarded as a status symbol. It doesn’t matter if they need it, just being able to speak it makes you a higher class person.
Latest Answers