How English Took Over the World | Otherwords

How did English become the most spoken language on the planet, and why are there so many varieties of English?
Otherwords is a PBS web series on Storied that digs deep into this quintessential human trait of language and fınds the fascinating, thought-provoking, and funny stories behind the words and sounds we take for granted. Incorporating the fıelds of biology, history, cultural studies, literature, and more, linguistics has something for everyone and offers a unique perspective on what it means to be human.
Host: Erica Brozovsky, Ph.D.
Creator/Director: Andrew Matthews & Katie Graham
Writer: Erica Brozovsky, Ph.D.
Producer: Katie Graham
Editor/Animation: Andrew Matthews
Executive Producer: Amanda Fox
Fact Checker: Yvonne McGreevy
Executive in Charge for PBS: Maribel Lopez
Director of Programming for PBS: Gabrielle Ewing
Assistant Director of Programming for PBS: John Campbell
Stock Images from Shutterstock
Music from APM Music
Otherwords is produced by Spotzen for PBS.
© 2023 PBS. All rights reserved.

[@SEAZNDragon]

Another thing to consider is in some former British colonies there are usually multiple native languages with English being the one common language among ethnic groups.

[@MakhalanyaneMotaung]

I would say this is the main reason😂😂. Most countries I’ve visited were previously British colonies

[@maticlogy208]

i agree my country has at least 70 languages it would be impossible to learn all

[@allanrichardson1468]

The same is true of other colonial languages. In Latin America, isolated tribes had multiple languages, but they had to learn some kind of Spanish or Portuguese to communicate with the colonizers.

[@williswameyo5737]

This is true

[@the-thane]

5:25 This was covered in the video. It accounts for 150-300m speakers. That's a far cry from the 100m-1b estimate for the third circle, which I suppose is due to influences described earlier in the video

[@jimsbooksreadingandstuff]

The Internet is also a major reason why English is expanding so much at the moment. Around half of all the information on the Internet is in English, if you want a deep dive into almost any subject you will find more information in English than other languages.

[@artugert]

I’ve heard that there is more content on the internet in Chinese than in English. Not sure where I heard it, though, so may not be true.

[@hannahk1306]

​@@artugert A lot of the Chinese internet is segregated from the rest of the internet and is only from a small part of the world, so probably not comparable to English usage online. Also, there are several Chinese languages - Cantonese, Mandarin, etc - so grouping them together is a bit like grouping all latin languages together and counting them as one.

[@artugert]

​@@hannahk1306 I was referring to Mandarin. It is customary to refer to Mandarin as "the Chinese language", and when someone mentions a language called "Chinese", one is almost always referring to Mandarin. It's true that the influence the Chinese internet has on the world is not at all comparable to the English internet. I was merely stating something interesting relevant to the previous comment, and didn't mean anything else by it.

[@echelon2k8]

@@artugert Mandarin is 'a' Chinese language, not "the Chinese language. It's just the Chinese (adjective) language that is spoken the most because it is the official national language of mainland China. In reality, "the Chinese language" describes a group of languages, not just one.

[@artugert]

@@echelon2k8 Nope, if you say "the Chinese language", in the singular, it can only refer to one language. That's how English works. Nobody ever uses that term to refer to anything other than Mandarin, and it is by far the most common way to refer to Mandarin. I do agree that the word Mandarin should be used, rather than referring to the language as simply "Chinese", in order to avoid confusion. But according to normal usage in the English language, it is not incorrect to refer to it that way. As for referring to all the Sinitic languages of China, to refer to them as a whole, you would have to say "Chinese languages" in the plural. In fact, they are normally referred to as "dialects" or "varieties", but that is mostly for political reasons. I agree with you that they are separate languages that are part of the Sinitic language family.

[@TheBlahblahblahhh]

This honestly feels like it's missing a huge chapter. The British Empire & their being arguably the first WORLD power via their navy is something you barely even mentioned tangentially through colonialism.

[@markzsombor6059]

Ya, the video states that English became globally important because of WWI, which ignores the extent it had already spread globally via the British Empire.

[@renatocann5142]

Absolutely, got whiplash from that jump from the Francs to the 20th century, figured that would have been like half the video 😅

[@shwee1855]

I was waiting for this too.... but she totally skipped it

[@benmaharaj6854]

Came looking for this comment. That was a huge factor to ignore

[@gabrielsatter]

Indeed. Just made the same comment. 2 sentences about colonialism is a tad whitewashed.

[@conho4898]

It would've been great if you also touch on the fact that one of the major reasons is colonialism, not just in Singapore.

[@VioletFem]

She mentioned colonialism several times in the video

[@jmhorange]

I think because it's a video about language. Colonialism was also mentioned in the 3 circle paradigm. But colonialism isn't the point of the video. If you are from a colonialized country like I am in the US, you should be well aware of British colonial history already. You might not know things like French once being a international language before English and other language facts, which this video shares.

[@susannicolasheehan]

I agree here. Power and money were mentioned but this show as much as I like it, only tends to touch lightly on stuff like that, I think. Probably better to go elsewhere for more depth and breadth.

[@Ziorac]

Agreed. Just because Western Europe was using French, doesn't mean the rest of the (colonised by Britain) world was using it. I assume the British Empire was using English and that stuck around. Sure, empowered by what happened after WWII, but the roots for going English were already there.

[@voiceineheadphones]

@@jmhorange Sounds like you’re running apologetics for settler colonialism…

[@victoriaeads6126]

I once lived in Russia, teaching English at a university level. I had a lecture series on English Speaking nations. The incredible variety of culture, geography, ethnicities, etc. was amazing! The world is such a cool place. I also tried to make sure the students understood when a usage was generally considered correct/incorrect or whether a difference was because of more specific variances between types of English. For my students this was primarily a dissonance between British English textbooks and American English they heard in pop culture.

[@sirlight-ljij]

As an Ukrainian citizen, thank you very-very much for leaving. There are no places for civilized people under that kind of murderous genocidal dictatorship

[@JuanManuel-dk2hd]

English speakers have no idea how easy English is to learn.

[@zoeygeorge2403]

​@@sirlight-ljij this reminds me of a ukranian friend who walked out of a restaurant when she heard a nearby child speaking Russian. insane paranoia

[@sirlight-ljij]

@@zoeygeorge2403 It is not paranoia, it is hatred. Russians have launched a genocide against us, commited and are commiting right now innumerable crimes against humanity and our people. The pretense for this atrocities is simple -- Ukraine doesn't exist, people who call themselves Ukrainians are just russians who under outside influence have "forgotten their true identity". The current war is in many ways a war of cultures, a war of ways of life -- freedom against tyrany. Under this circumstances, I see why any Ukrainian who've seen the horrors of war, who felt the missle exploding in their backyard, are very suspicious when they hear language of the enemy. Because sadly, even more than a year into a full-scale invasion, there still are many more putin apologisers and war enablers abroad

[@chingizzhylkybayev8575]

Russians also have the same centralized approach to their language as the French. There is only one way to properly speak Russian. Dialects are almost never spoken of, only "accents", which are seen as deviations from the "normal" Russian and are at best made fun of and at worst heavily discouraged. That's why many people in the Russian speaking world are surprised by the way Native English speakers view other dialects or accents of English and how they don't mind when someone is saying English words differently from them.

[@graemehirstwood670]

I think you will find that British colonialism had a lot more to do with the spreading of English than the US signing a couple of treaties. From Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, through Africa, Asia, and the Americas - the English language didn't just suddenly pop up in these places in the 1900's.

[@MorketIndenforMusic]

Coudn't agree more. British Empire was the largest in the world for quite a while there.

[@sofieselene]

It's sad to see this level of whitewashing in a PBS channel. They're not exactly perfect, but they'll usually at least acknowledge that this kind of thing happened.

[@peteowe]

​@@graemehirstwood670 The video is about the factors the English language surplanted French as the leading language of international diplomacy. The British upper class fully supported the use of French. The use of French was always a means of suppressing the lower classes by restricting upwards mobility to those with the means of obtaining a well rounded education.

[@UniDocs_Mahapushpa_Cyavana]

@@graemehirstwood670 Not to a whole lot of humans within those countries though. 😕

[@graemehirstwood670]

@@peteowe The very title is “How English Took Over The World” It was not a US-centric revolution, rather the colonial influence bestowed upon the world by the British. The upper class were the ones who instilled the use of English as the bureaucratic language across its empire. To say otherwise is to ignore centuries of colonial intrusion on peoples including those in the Americas.

[@ricdavid]

For a while people always used to joke about how "we'll all be speaking Chinese soon enough" but the reason Mandarin/Chinese will never eclipse English globally is that, despite all of English's inconsistencies and quirks, the barrier to a "good enough" level of literacy in English is magnitudes lower than Chinese.

[@jayc1139]

Don't forget...the Chinese haven't been able to spread their language. I think people confuse 'number of speakers' being more important than 'geographical spread of said language'. Chinese and its dialects are spoken in such a small confined area of the entire planet, and it's only useful there. On top of it, their writing system certainly doesn't help, as usually alphabets are easier anyway.

[@chickenstrangler3826]

All this is true. To add, Chinese is spreading amongst Asian countries due to increasing economic reasons. In no way will Chinese surpass English. We may see an increase in bilingualism inside Japan, Korea, Singapore, etc for English and Chinese.

[@user-NoomieGaion]

​@@chickenstrangler3826 Anime alone beat ccp culture! How in the world tiananmens lover fight that?

[@dingus42]

@@jayc1139sigh, not dialects… they are hundreds of different languages

[@cynthiachengmintz672]

To be honest, I’m more worried about Mandarin wiping out other Chinese languages/dialects. Hong Kong still uses Canto as its official language, but my mom said she heard more Mandarin in her last trip (2022). I also have a Chinese/English bilingual children’s book on numbers that takes place in HK but the pronunciation is clearly Mandarin. If the book takes place in Beijing or Taipei, yeah, sure, use Mandarin, but it’s not Beijing or Taipei, but HK!

[@scottbutler5]

Completely skipping over how English spread around the world between the 14th century and WW2 is quite a choice.

[@chingizzhylkybayev8575]

Because it wasn't the driving factor for English becoming the world language. French is spoken all over Africa, as well as across the Carribean and the Pacific and in Quebec. Spanish is the single most predominant language in all of Central and Southern America. None of them is a global language, though. If not for the way the US established itself as the predominant global power after the war, English would have remained the language of former or remaining British colonies and that would be that.

[@Hjernespreng]

@@chingizzhylkybayev8575 "None of them is a global language, though." But they are ALL as widespread as they are BECAUSE of colonialism, and they have only failed to become "global" because their respective empires never managed to achieve the SHEER SCOPE of the British empire!

[@stephaniehendricks3537]

Needs a part 2 episode

[@noco7243]

@@chingizzhylkybayev8575 French is not spoken across the Caribbean. It's only spoken in Haiti (although not as common as Haitian creole) and in some parts of rural Louisiana (although not as common as Louisiana creole). In Africa its only spoken in parts of West Africa and in North Africa (mainly in Algeria, Tunisia, and Morroco as a 2nd language).

[@chingizzhylkybayev8575]

@@Hjernespreng they failed to become global because there were no events that would make them global. Again, being widespread geographically is not the same as being a global language, those things are pretty much unrelated.

[@Sitharos]

Simple, the British conquered a LOT of the world and their language went with them.

[@philippebrehier7386]

Yup. Which she summed up, too fast, by: money and power.

[@yyy67win]

Was English the lingua franca at 19c where British was the global power?

[@DGill48]

I was in Cyprus once, trying to rent a boat. Ahead of me was an Arabic speaking man from Kuait. The owner was a Greek. As soon as they looked at each other they both began in English.

[@nermosh]

Arabic and Greek are mutually non-undersandable. But know what? Russian and Serbian speakers also communicate with each other in English, while both languages belong to the Slavic group and we can understand general idea of message

[@danielzhang1916]

that's the reason why English will continue to dominate, everyone speaks or at least understands it

[@Hallows4]

I work in a public library system, and I cannot emphasize how important ESOL classes are for our customers. Arguably one of our most widely used services.

[@jkgh374]

no real mention of colonialism and british empire which is the reason most countries in asia, africa, oceania, americas have English as an official language.

[@YoungGandalf2325]

English is even spoken in other galaxies. It really is the universal language.

[@imveryangryitsnotbutter]

And then you've got those weird situations where the aliens speak their native tongue, the humans speak English, and somehow both conversants are mutually intelligible. (Looking at you, Star Wars.)

[@user-NoomieGaion]

​@@imveryangryitsnotbutter Thanos speak english tho

[@imveryangryitsnotbutter]

@@user-NoomieGaion What are you talking about?

[@Mrpotato-gs2ur]

Yep Thor too😂😂😂​@@user-NoomieGaion

[@Andrea-rw9tf]

I love AAEV in the south one of my coworkers is from SC and to hear her code switch from her Gullah accented English to her “proper” English is amazing to me. Same with Sumncheaux, I almost feel like I’ve lost something along the way, really have a longing for it. My family came from SC both mom and dad’s side. And almost all Black folks came through the port of Charleston, where it is spoken.

[@juanjoperez7537]

I've seen it first hand in the Latino community in the USA. I remember I was at a Baptism party, the mom was from Mexican and Nicaraguan parents, and as she was going around the place greeting people, she would code switch based on the people she was meeting... in a heartbeat she was switching from Mexican slang to Nicaraguan slang. There are a lot of differences in the two, the second person is different, the way you conjugate verbs, all the cuss words are different, etc.

[@beagruy2386]

@@juanjoperez7537es! this happens with my filipino family as well. tagalog with the elders, english with the youngins. hahaha.

[@danielzhang1916]

people talk differently based on who it is, we all do it in everyday life without realizing it

[@anomanderrake5434]

How can you make such a video about English and mention colonialism just couple of times off handedly. Major reason india, Pakistan, many African nations speak English is because of colonialism. Ofcourse as you said, the reasons of power, money, jobs keeps the English train moving, but it started because of colonialism. USA was a Colony of British too. Just feels like the video didn't do enough to fully capture the message

[@sirlight-ljij]

Spain had dozens of colonies as well, so did Dutch and aforementioned French. Colonialism was a reason of a spread, but not the reason why English specifically became currently dominant

[@hopsiepike]

Yes. Much to the chagrin of France, in particular, pop culture in English (music, movies, websites and apps) dominates and plays an outsized role. I wonder how it will play out in the future. Will a form of Mandarin be a global player? Look to the past to see how fast it changes. 1300 years ago, Arabic was the most dominant language.

[@stellangios]

@@sirlight-ljij Don't forget Belgium, lol! I think the main reason they didn't dig deep into colonialism is exactly all this-- because it's a huge subject for a shortform channel and so many other languages were involved besides English. We came quite close to French being the big one, so why not just talk about why English and not French?

[@gota7738]

@@sirlight-ljij Spanish, French and Dutch are still widely spoken today more so than others, and often in the lands that where colonised. English coming into the forefront over those in the last century can certainly be due to the two World Wars, which itself is not untied to imperialism, but that all those languages where in competition for domination before the War and made acts to enforce their own linguistic supremism in the territories they controlled.

[@JustAnotherPerson4U]

Because colonialism was not the main topic of the video. Sure it contributed to the spread of english and that's why she mentioned it a few times BUT colonialism is a whole topic in and of itself. To delve into it too much and not explore certain themes would be doing it a disservice. She'd also have to mention about other colonising nations like Spain and even Japan. And how Spain didn't dominate the world like english even if it got a sizable chunk to speak spanish as well. And how Japan basically failed to leave their own languages behind in their past colonised countries. (Well, there's probably more to that. But what i mean is from what I understand, they didn't leave it to the point where Japanese is a taught second labguage is former japanese colonies) She was trying to streamline why ENGLISH appeared to rise above all the others not just from colonialism because other countries including France and Spain colonised and they didn't become a leading force in language.

[@hannahk1306]

To say that the English nobility spoke French post Norman conquest is a bit of a simplification. The new royals spoke Old Norman French (a distinct dialect from Old French and quite different from modern French). The English upper classes mixed these new words into their existing Saxon language, whilst the lower classes continued using their own language. These differences became part of the modern English language and can still be seen today: beef/cow, pork/pig, mutton/sheep. Even a lot of English swear words are just the old Saxon words, whereas their "polite" versions were absorbed into the language from Old Norman French.

[@mattkuhn6634]

In my personal opinion as a linguist, albeit not one specialized in diachronic linguistics, I expect what matters most for the future of English is the internet. Unless another country supplants the US culturally enough to unseat English as the dominant world language within the next 20-30 years, and as long as the ways we communicate don't fundamentally change from what it is right now, I believe we will see a new form of English develop out of the online discourse, as I believe we will see the contact between many different dialectical forms of English online eventually result in the formation of a new dialect, which I think will likely eventually eclipse GAE as the dominant variant of English and as the dominant world language. I'm not sure if it will decouple enough to become its own language though, and even if it does it's still likely to take much longer than 20-30 years.

[@danielzhang1916]

I think people underestimate the cultural impact of English, no other language or culture comes close to that, especially in today's interconnected world, English continues to grow and be spoken every day, that is the key

[@scottrick7321]

When I was in China I spoke with a local linguist who believed (possibly rightly) that China would eclipse the West economically- not just overtake, but drown - but that English would continue to dominate because its just easier for most people to learn than Putonghua/ Chinese (specifically) and other tonal languages (in general), to say nothing of the difficulty of written Chinese.

[@karlfimm]

I've always felt that it's very easy to speak English well enough to be understood, but exceedingly difficult to speak it so you sound like a native. As the saying goes "English is the language that came about from Norman men-at-arms chatting up Saxon barmaids." (New Zealander)

[@hannahk1306]

As a Brit, we can usually tell that English isn't your first language, but we don't typically mind if your English is a bit wonky (especially as many Brits are abysmal at other languages). If in doubt, point and mime and we'll probably get the gist eventually.

[@harrypadarri6349]

Although it’s not that important to sound like a native speaker. As long as your accent doesn’t interfere with intelligibility. Fluency is the most important aspect.

[@danielzhang1916]

because only natives have full command of English, the difference between using and knowing the language

[@blackveganarchist]

@@danielzhang1916 Lmao stop making stuff up and presenting it as fact. This is the bane of the Internet. There are extremely dedicated L2 speakers of English with more "command" than some natives. There's also no such thing as "full command", so I'm not sure what you meant by that. There are people with more or less command, but there's no such thing as having "full command" and then you're done.

[@danielzhang1916]

@@blackveganarchist ???

[@HomoCorrectus]

4:00 the Académie Française only rules the language on official documents and administrations, most French people don't care, or even despise the Académie. Just listen to conferences, read articles or tweets (more informal and spontaneous) by French people: they use tons of English loanwords and do a lot of mistakes.

[@danielzhang1916]

that always seemed ridiculous to me, how do you "police" a language spoken by everyday people, then we should all be speaking Latin today, considering French came from vulgar Latin anyway, it's not the proper form

[@ajzorger93]

I think this series has gotten me to want to become a linguist even more

[@theguy5898]

As a native English and Hindi speaker who can also speak Spanish, I feel amazing knowing I can speak to the majority of the world.

[@sjg4388]

You mean "I feel amazed", not "I feel amazing". This kind of grammar mistake is rare among native English speakers.

[@juanjoperez7537]

You sir can talk to the entire western hemisphere ... well, I'm sure you'll get by with English and Spanish in Brazil

[@blackveganarchist]

​@@sjg4388 You are loud and wrong. That's not a grammar mistake. It's just a less common construction. Not to mention they didn't ask, seeing as they said they are a native speaker.

[@admiralbrown9334]

​@@sjg4388 feel amazed and feel amazing are two different things. So your correction is unnecessary.

[@thelocalstumbler]

Dr. B is leagues ahead of the game that one could say she is playing the sequel!

[@ReynaSingh]

Would be nice to hear about how English borrows from other languages and the origins of english

[@agnosticmuslim6341]

I think there are other videos in this series regarding that?

[@Lucius1958]

To repeat the old joke: 'English doesn't borrow from other languages. English follows other languages into dark alleys, knocks them down, and goes through their pockets for loose grammar."

[@juanjoperez7537]

In this English guy's channel you'll find a lot of videos on exactly that: kzbin.info/www/bejne/b6jHYWt5pqp3Ztk

[@echelon2k8]

@hughjaanus6680 You mean all the words in between Introduction and Conclusion? Because I'm pretty sure both of those words come from Latin. ;)

[@allendracabal0819]

​@@Lucius1958Loose words, not loose grammar. Grammar is an underlying structure, and not typically borrowed from other languages.

[@antoniocjp5824]

As others stated, I don't think one can just ignore British influence through empire but also manufactured goods and therefore technology in givin English momentum to become the global language it currently is. Another aspect I missed was how English has a relatively simple grammar (anyone who had to conjugate verbs in a romance language or master the case system of East European languages will know what I'm talking about).

[@Firegen1]

As a native speaker, who is learning all the languages in her ethnic makeup. It's time for a shake up. Learning Zulu and German have taught me so much about efficiency and innovative ways to speak. I'm worried that English will achieve a full Babel and become the only. Or we get a Firefly and it's a smashcut of English and one other.

[@triciac.5078]

Why do Americans give distances in time? “Even though the two counties [in Great Britain] are only 2 1/2 hrs apart.” A German asked me this and I couldn’t give him a good answer.

[@sirlight-ljij]

To not embarass themselves when measuring distances with body parts

[@realINTERNETFRIEND]

Americans live in a country whose modern infrastructure is completely built around cars, roads, etc. Distance is a useful unit for sure, but time will also tell you something about speed limits of roads between Point A and Point B, etc.

[@bbartky]

INTERNETFRIEND’s answer is correct. For example, due to traffic it takes me more than twice as long to drive south as opposed to driving north. So, if my destination is 62 miles (~100 km 😉) away it’s a one-hour northbound or a little more than a two-hour trip southbound. In the US it’s almost always better to know the time instead of the distance.

[@knockeledup]

Depending on where you live, giving the answer in miles could be completely misleading. If you lived in a place with lots of traffic like Chicago, traveling 10 miles by car could take you an hour. If you live where I do in Iowa, it could take you 10 minutes. It’s all relative.

[@mariocovone498]

FYI, Yorkshire and Lancashire are literally next to each other. There is no 2 and a half hour distance.

[@allendracabal0819]

How about from the center of one to the center of the other? There must be a non-zero distance between centers, otherwise they would be identical.

[@mariocovone498]

@@allendracabal0819 If you were driving from York (the biggest city in Yorkshire and quite central) to Manchester (the equivalent in Lancashire) it would be a little over 90 minutes. You may have to drive for 2 and a half hours if you went from one coast to the other, but that's extreme and now what was implied at all.

[@philippebrehier7386]

3:58 French is still a living language, so it is evolving, regardless of what the Academie Française "wants".

[@hopsiepike]

Difficult to keep those English words out. The government of Quebec will fine you for using printed English words. France had conceded that it is a losing battle.

[@philippebrehier7386]

@@hopsiepike Not just English words, we also have words coming to France from regional languages ​​or from beyond the borders, even from the former colonies. Like many drops of water that end up digging paths in the landscape, it is the words used most frequently that become embedded in the language.

[@drbuddyjul]

Thank you for highlighting Guyanese English. I feel represented. As a doctor I've found that it is not possible to use the hospital translator phone services for Guyanese English or its sibling, Jamaican patois and as a result many patients are not as well understood as they could be, which impacts care.

[@Bananaontoasts]

i wish my native language could entirely disappear and english would take over! i love it so much

[@kimberlyterasaki4843]

I wish this video had gotten more into the colonization of other countries as a reason so many nations speak it. England, the US, and Canada conquered a hundred nations over the past two hundred years, of course that’s going to lead to a larger spread of their languages

[@skz5k2]

Not only. WW2 also caused English to be the language of Science. Before, most of the Science (especially Physics) was in German. But After the WW2 scientists were less favourable to use it, and USA managed to make English the Science language

[@Khyranleander]

Another aspect may add to our popularity: everyone hears a little bit of themselves in it, for we've made common words out of most of the world's languages & openly seek more. Or, famously & less favorably quipped: English doesn't just borrow from other languages, it hunts strangers down and mugs them in dark alleys!

[@Khyranleander]

That quip's supposedly from George Bernard Shaw, or a version thereof. Google says! 😳

[@AFrogInTheStars]

Yeah, good video! As someone who has a lot of international friends, it’s super cool to have connected primarily in English, but since i have picked up some more languages, we have a mutual language exchange. It’s so much fun and it’s even gotten to a point where i meet this Swiss dude who speaks French, Japanese, German, and primary Italian and English and i speak Russian, Spanish, and English and a bit of Portuguese and Sign and we can have a multilingual conversation so when the video mentioned about a Pidgin, it reminded me of this.

[@RossHall-UK]

Which language do you sign? I'm dabbling with JSL and it is way different to the bits of BSL I picked up!

[@kenhallermd8897]

Thank you for this. One thing that you touch on in the English vs. French primacy question is the reliance of the French on the Académie Française to sanction additions to their language. English, not having such a governing - one might say constipating - body, would naturally be more attractive to other nations wishing to increase their presence on the world stage since could tailor English to their own needs in ways that might be difficult with French or other languages. In this way, I think of English as being the Borg Collective of languages: "We are English. Your linguistic distinctiveness will be added to our own. Resistance is futile."

[@rachelelizabethmason18]

This got me thinking, I bet English also evolves faster than other languages now, maybe not losing words so much as gaining them. I imagine that with the vastly different cultures using the language and now especially with how interconnected we are, it’s probably very easy for new words to become accepted as officially English. At least it seems to me that would be the case

[@dalubwikaan161]

🇬🇧🇵🇭Just to share my opinion Countries that uses English on the middle circle should not forget to teach the subjects on their native tongue, academically I see my National Language (Filipino), is actually very progressive that has words for science stuff and math stuffs, however, Filipinos do not know those Filipino scientic and mathematical words because of not teaching them in school, and Filipinos keep speaking Taglish (English-Tagalog code switch) and rarely speaking Pure Filipino. I hope this will apply on our constitution, the Philippine constitution 🇵🇭

[@WTH1812]

Nice outtake. Would be fun to see this video switching between US, UK, and Aussie dialects. Or Southern slang.

[@cent178]

Love these shows, studied anthropology and it like mini lectures ☮️

[@geraldbruce886]

English truly started to spread after the Seven Years War ( French and Indian War) where France lost all their holdings in North America and India and then after the defeat of the Napoleonic wars and to the Royal Navy it really took off then. Also Henry V made English the official language of law and commerce in England after 300 years of French dominated the land after the Norman Conquest in 1066

[@mrcryptozoic817]

The most telling fact is that; No "guardians" of English words or construction exists. That means any other language can eat English and conversely English can eat any other. And the alphabet is nicely complex without being over-the-top complex.

[@dummie4guitars]

5:49 To live happily and peacefully we need to revive the only Common language of ours - _Old Homosapean._

[@tomekbozza]

Quick answer: colonialism and capitalism.

[@richardque4952]

Hollywood.

[@19-gorgeous.]

English became the most widely spoken language in the world since the Victorian era in the British Empire when the British Empire was the largest Empire in the entire world not because of the US and the World War II

[@williswameyo5737]

Due to certain countries being former British colonies, I am from Kenya, 🇰🇪 English is an official language of education and media-it was a former British colony

[@adrian_hook]

While I understand not making colonialism the entire focus of the video, it did seem a bit glossed over. Perhaps we could get a separate video about how colonialism has impacted language

[@GravesRWFiA]

I used to do Judo where the lessons were in Japanese. you got hip to the lingo or you developed a relationship with the matt. We had one guy who was from brazil. he spoke Portuguese, broken english and dojo japanese. I would speak english, french and dojo Japanese. between them we could get on quite well mixing all the languages freely in out conversations within the same sentence. I like to htink this is how traders got on in places like the middle east in the middle ages or indian traders in north americas in the 18th century

[@Joey-kd8lj]

Yeah, I had a similar experience with Taekwondo where you had to learn the Korean commands and numbers. "Taeguk yi" and "poomsae" are two that have stuck with me

[@hayabusa1329]

Ok

[@comeconcon569]

English became an international language because of the global influence of the United States of America. there are many people who can speak English in many other countries, but English is not necessarily their native tongue like India and the Philippines for example. English speaking countries are those countries that had ties and a history with Britain and the British Empire and where English is indeed the native language of their citizens.

[@pobelix5803]

I'd still like to know how many languages Dr. Brozovsky speaks. Obviously English... and what else? Taiwanese? French? Spanish? Vielleicht sogar Deutsch? :)

[@gabrielsatter]

She speaks only two, but she does learn how to pronounce certain phrases. Watch the outtakes.

[@grf15]

There's the old saw about how someone cold make reading the dictionary sound interesting. That's the way I feel about Dr. B. Every episode is such a treat. Wonderfully clear explanations. I'm not, and never will be, a language nerd. I am a fan of this channel, mainly because of Dr. B.

[@mds_main]

As an Italian, there is also the fact that English is just easy as a language (for better or for worse), at least when compared to other languages we have here. When you mentioned the influence of pop culture I also want to add how much the internet and its americanization also influenced the spread of English in a faster and easier way for foreigners.

[@eclecticautumn-tsia]

Was French also a global lingua franca, or just in Europe? I'm surprised that the widespread nature of English wasn't connected to the British Empire (where the sun never set because it colonised areas all around the world).

[@chingizzhylkybayev8575]

Basically, the British Empire made English the local language in A LOT of places, but that's not the same as a global language.

[@radman8321]

It was connected to it, it's just the video decided to make it all about America.

[@Sphinxgamingworld9942]

French was a language of diplomacy and aristocracy in Europe but it wasn’t anywhere as global as the English language is now. Simply put the economic, cultural, and technological influence of the United States have made the English language the de facto second language of most of the non native English speaking world.

[@blue_champignon5738]

I always found regional dialect so interesting, I took that NYT accent quiz and said I'm likely from Southern California, but I'm born and raised in the Midwest, My only hypothesis is that coming from an immigrant household my early english was heard through TV

[@hopsiepike]

Yes, a good example of how regional dialects are becoming homogenized.

[@allendracabal0819]

Those kinds of quizzes specifically target words whose pronunciations differ across regions. Your own pronunciation would have also been influenced by pronunciations you heard from teachers and classmates at schools. My guess is that the assessment in your case came down to how you pronounced just one or two specific words.

[@psicologiajoseh]

So, if you speak English and Mandarin you can speak with something like 30% of the world population. That's awesome. I can speak Spanish and English (mostly), so that's not that bad either.

[@bobgroves5777]

I am from Australia, and dialectical variations can be recognised between the States, therein. That is to say, the people of Perth Western Australia, speak differently from those living in Sydney, New South Wales.

[@adpirtle]

I think the British Empire had a big impact on the spread of English.

[@Steph-lc7hy]

The sun never set on the British empire. I don’t think any other empire can say that and it be true.

[@DJ_Force]

Another big factor is compatibility between English and technology. It may be just as easy to hand write Mandarin, but English lends itself better to printing presses and keyboards.

[@백인줄어든다]

England is located at the edge of the west with island. So at the competition of colonization against France and other countries, it was huge benefit and had america. And english became lingua franka

[@TheyCallMeNewb]

Tenuous English included, speakers must surely now tick passed a few billion on an upward trend.

[@pupm]

The makers of this video ignored the British Empire as if they were the UK Education System.

[@larisael-netanany488]

You overlooked a driving force in adoption of English - technology, like software and the internet. Unlike cultural content like movies and music, technology impacts significantly ones ability to function in an increasingly technological world, and their access to information in an increasingly self-taught world.

[@pedronagem6944]

I thought this video was going to be just a black screen with the words "Imperial War and Soft Power"

[@Omar_Hassan]

basically english is everywhere Because of War & Money

[@Pocketfarmer1]

English speaking pop culture was also spread by being at the forefront of technology. Records and radio used English content to grow their businesses. The combined might of RCA, Colombia , Motorola ,the Beatles , the Stones and countless others helped push English further around the world . Then television followed quickly in their footsteps

[@vincent412l7]

When different Englishes become mutually unintelligible, i imagine that's what happened with French-Italian-Spanish and they became separate languages. The language tree will grow a new branch for the English family of languages.

[@janesda]

Even if there no best English, there is one so good they named it twice, English English.

[@echelon2k8]

Thank you for learning the language of our ancestors, everyone else.

[@PokhrajRoy.]

I love the fact that we’ll get a video on pidgins and creoles.

[@antoniocasias5545]

0:47 Russia: *_Nyet!_*

[@Maya_Ruinz]

Yea this video glosses over numerous factors that lead to the rise of English, like British Colonialism and of course the US War for Independence that solidified English as the language of the west. The British Industrial Revolution and its global spread essentially sealed the deal, English was well on its way to becoming the dominant international language. Personally I think the future will be a battle between Mandarin and English, its a cliche at this point in scifi to be sure but I think it hits on a very real east vs west divide.

[@runajain5773]

I do not think mardrain will take global because never conquered the world like britain take and america but china did not I think english will be forced language

[@agnosticmuslim6341]

I absolutely LOVE this series!!! Please never stop making these videos. Etymology is so damn interesting.

[@skybluskyblueify]

So you are familiar with the YT channel Alliterative? I love etymology too.

[@agnosticmuslim6341]

@@skybluskyblueify Thank you! I'm more of a search on Google for certain words whenever my curiousity struck haha. Guess it's time to build on it even further.

[@antoinette22]

Great video! Although I'm fairly certain that Quebec only adheres to the linguistic standards set by the OLFQ, and not L'Académie Française

[@philippebrehier7386]

Yup. Even in France, l'Académie Française try to keep up with the evolutions of the uses of french, not the contrary.^^

[@PokhrajRoy.]

3:45 I grew up with American and British English based on Pop Culture. It was almost like an exercise in Play-Acting that’s amusing.

[@gabrielsatter]

Someone made a comment about how this video wasn't about the spread of various languages including English, which obviously was colonialism, it was more about why English became the de facto language of choice for business, etc instead of another language that may have been present. Given that, it does make sense that colonialism was barely mentioned, but the video should have explicitly stated that from the outset, and maybe even put it in the title, or description.

[@rifkinr4660]

“…[B]ecause of money and power” that’s a weird way of calling imperialism

[@sirlight-ljij]

Not all kinds of influence are imperialism. There is an honest, good-spirited mutually-beneficial assistance and there is invasion from the position of power and superiority

[@VioletFem]

Money & power are tenets of imperialism as well…

[@gota7738]

@@sirlight-ljij Funnily most invading forces are quite insistent that they have a moral duty to uplift their neighbours from the dirt and show them a better way of living...which is definitely theirs. Any legal agency, resources or important cultural artifacts that may removed in the process of this restructuring is a fair exchange for this guiding hand and can be put back in place when it's judged that the backwater peoples or nations have been sufficiently enlightened on how to take care of those matters. This judgement must be made by the invading nation of course.

[@swank8508]

@@gota7738 how does this relate to the comment its replying to

[@gota7738]

@@swank8508 I suppose that most invasions from positions of power and superiority will see and present themselves as honest, good-spirited mutually-beneficial assistance. I'd even go one step further and say that non "invasionary" influence, even like that of aid, are not free from the complications of power imbalance, spreading influence or allegations of neo-imperialism. It's difficult to remove these things from cultural or national exchange.

[@antoniocasias5545]

4:00 Office Québécois de la Langue Française est entré dans le clavardage

[@jimjimmy8990]

Thank you❤. We would appreciate this more if it were accompanied by references.

[@allendracabal0819]

This type of presentation is not academic, and therefore is not based heavily on referenced works. If you want references, read academic articles.

[@alanr4447a]

1:00 In an English-speaking culture, we are offered other languages to learn in school, usually Spanish, French, and German, with none as the "obvious choice" to take up first. But in other-language cultures, I should imagine that the overwhelming choice of "what other language should I learn?" is ENGLISH!

[@clivematthews95]

Love love this education ngl 😊💛🙏🏾

[@elaineandbiting]

To be fair, while British English indeed spread the language during the onset of colonization and imperialism period, it was the US' neo-colonialistic ideals of using English as medium of instruction in public schools especially to younger generation, expanding the second language speakers as people are now taught formally in schools, rather than learning English as necessity to converse with the colonizers.

[@RomanNardone]

I would also say that English is actually a very flexible language. It has the most words and often incorporates other languages into its sphere. English being a Germanic language has many ties to German, but also French as the Normans as England was conquered in 1066. Around that same time many other Nordic languages had been incorporated as they raided England. Later, when English began to fight of the French, English began to become more used in everyday parlance and even in writing. It was eventually named the official language of documents in the isle instead of French. Eventually the printing press and movable type spread across Britain like wild fire. With this uniformity of spelling occured, Greek and Latin were also incorporated in to vocabulary. Even today I see how languages such as Spanish and Chinese affect how English is seen. This flexibility allows it to maintain usefulness in the ever changing environment of the internet age.

[@lordrefrigeratorintercoole288]

as some one who speaks Slovenian, Croatian, Italian, and a bit of German and Spanish. English is like the easiest language ever, and everyone should learn it as their first language.

[@Beryllahawk]

This one made me think of two things... First being, that you could answer both questions with a single word: Colonialism. But, less depressing and much sillier - There was a movie (in the late 80s I think? Maybe early 90s) called Freejack, kind of a time travel story, and one of the big "shocking predictions about the Near Future!" had to do with every single corporate employee being required to learn Japanese, because supposedly Japan had taken over the world via electronics companies. Fascinating to think on that and how believable it seemed to teenage me. And what it reveals about the script writers of that decade... One last observation: English is a ridiculously adaptable language in some ways, borrowing freely from everybody else and blending wildly different languages with complete abandon. Add in the prevalence of "internet English" and we get REALLY FUN stuff like "if brains gonna brain" and other constructions that at first glance might seem like complete gibberish - but they actually work, and work WELL, in conversational context. Which makes me wanna tip my hat to every person learning English as a second or third language, because y'all are really taking on a challenge. I'm a native English speaker and this stuff can drive me bonkers, for other folks I can't even imagine how much more confusing English can be!

[@chingizzhylkybayev8575]

Yeah, one of the thing I love about English is how you can seamlessly verb pretty much any word.

[@chingizzhylkybayev8575]

Hard disagree on colonialism though. The US made English the global language, not the British Empire.

[@Beryllahawk]

@@chingizzhylkybayev8575 I can see arguments for that. Though I feel like us Americans acted VERY colonialist (and awful) for a really long time. (looks at current events) And we're still awful, clearly.

[@har8397]

Spanish English learning French and German

[@LittleSkepticalButStillSmart]

As a Russian who speaks English, I appreciate that I can communicate with ESL people as well.

[@davidk6264]

I am from NZ,I think English was spoken here before WW1.

[@candyts-sj7zh]

I am not a native English speaker, but I prefer speaking English more than my native language, because of its simplicity

[@dcrggreensheep]

I love this show, my first video I watched here was the R vowel video. Erica's the best pick for a host in my opinion btw.

[@richardjones2964]

I know the time limit and whatever but like you really glossed over the violence that occurred in forcing English to be dominant like native boarding schools and other similar examples.

[@Star-el7sp]

To add onto others commenting about colonialism, English started rapidly spreading way before the World Wars. After the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars, the UK was establish as the world's predominant global superpower; no other country or empire could rival its economy, navy, or hegemony. During the Pax Britannica and as a result of the Berlin Conference, the British Empire spread to all of the world's continents, and eventually controlled 1/4 of the world after WW1, not least of which include some of today's biggest English speaking countries such as India, Nigeria, and Pakistan. British hegemony over the English speaking world was not displaced until America's rise as a superpower after WW2

[@heronimousbrapson863]

Although English became most widely spread worldwide through colonialism, it was not the only language to proliferate in this manner. Spanish, Portuguese and French were also spread this way.

[@kritiandsiddharthaswedding]

Kinda convinient how you glossed over 400 years of colonialism. I highly recommend reading 'Aspects of Linguistic Colonialism' by SJ Greenblatt. Greenblatt tells us how English was the primary "export" of colonialism. And this is the reason why English is spoken in countries all over the world (like mine).

[@jervey123]

i learned most of my english from watching TV

[@TheSentinel909]

I know "Englishes" is correct, but it really grates on my ears

[@danielmalinen6337]

English is the universal language of trade, work, workers, media, universities and science and it is mandatory because if we don't know English, we wouldn't be able to trade, we wouldn't be able to do work, we would not be able to hire new employees, we wouldn't be able to utilize the media, we wouldn't be able to study in universities and we wouldn't be able to research sciences even in our own country.

[@Amcc38383]

I'm from Ireland and every 20 minute drive away has a different accent.

[@danidejaneiro8378]

She says that Lincolnshire and Yorkshire _”…are only two and a half hours apart…”_ Is “hours” a measurement of distance in American English?

[@ranimcalister5026]

Fascinating, I was thinking that British colonization was responsible, both for the world-wide spread of English, and its many varieties.

[@vaibhavcharan9069]

Let's break it down The key reasons why english is the most widely spoken language are as follows 1. British Empire (Controlled a quarter of the world) 2. Industrial revolution 3. Common population of British colonies adopting english as their second language 4. America becoming an industrial power-house 5. British and Americans winning both world wars 6. Internet 7. Almost all former british colonies kept english as an official language even after getting their independence, therefore, as these newly formed nation grew economically, they boosted the spread of english