English Language Development

A brief view on the historical development of English language is very important to language teachers, I think. This view would give us a peek on how the language we are using now differ from that of many years ago. It also would be helpful if we or our students are interested in reading some literature works that are not translated. Meanwhile, by reading the development of English, we can have a concept on how dialects of English have developed in many areas and how English language was influenced by other languages in the world, and how it adopted foreign words from many other languages. It's kind of interesting to see how languages in the world interact with each other. As far as I know, Japanese has borrowed words,Chinese does that, too. And so does English.

We have so many languages in the world, but why English become the global language? I also think it would be nice for the language teachers to know about the background on this. Giving students some insights on that may increase their motivation in learning English. This is what I found on that:
One of the more remarkable aspects of the spread of English around the world has been the extent to which Europeans are adopting it as their internal lingua franca. English is spreading from northern Europe to the south and is now firmly entrenched as a second language in countries such as Sweden, Norway, Netherlands and Denmark. Although not an official language in any of these countries if one visits any of them it would seem that almost everyone there can communicate with ease in English. Indeed, if one switches on a television in Holland one would find as many channels in English (albeit subtitled), as there are in Dutch.

As part of the European Year of Languages, a special survey of European attitudes towards and their use of languages has just published. The report confirms that at the beginning of 2001 English is the most widely known foreign or second language, with 43% of Europeans claiming they speak it in addition to their mother tongue. Sweden now heads the league table of English speakers, with over 89% of the population saying they can speak the language well or very well. However, in contrast, only 36% of Spanish and Portuguese nationals speak English. What's more, English is the language rated as most useful to know, with over 77% of Europeans who do not speak English as their first language, rating it as useful. French rated 38%, German 23% and Spanish 6%. English has without a doubt become the global language.