English Language Communities

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. It is an official language at the United Nations, in the European Union, and the Commonwealth, and, for many, seeing the face of ‘globalisation’ for the first time, it speaks in English. Measured in terms of media rather than people, the impression is stronger still. Most webpages, worldwide, are written in English. In certain areas, for example, international science publishing, there is currently something like an English language monopoly.

Unlike some other languages, English is not governed or regulated by a single or central authority. Many of us look something up, from time to time, in a good dictionary (e.g. the Oxford English Dictionary), but that is our choice as writers, speakers, and readers. Of course, what we consider to be a good or authoritative dictionary is also a matter of choice, though we make it with the force of tradition, convention, and habit behind us.

Like any evolving language, the English language is alive; it is not coordinated or controlled. The job of the editors at the major English language dictionaries around the world is to recognise which words in the lexicon have currency, not to tell us which should be used or how they should be used. This means English and varieties of English depend on those communities using the language.

It’s not surprising that such a vast, diffused English speaking population, made up of a 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 minimise the potential for misunderstanding between international speakers.

Most varieties however, have evolved according to the behaviour 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 might be hard to understand.

So, at the outset of the twenty first century, there could be more English language users alive than there were people alive at the beginning of the last one. Each of us belongs to at least one, and possibly many different English language communities – and this is something we have to think about in our writing and communication.