You may think that Chinese is the most-spoken language in the world given the country’s population size and rapid growth in recent decades, but you’d be wrong.
English, through a mix of overseas ambition and historical colonialism, trumps all other languages.
More native and non-natives speak and know at least some English than anything else, the figure thought to be somewhere around 1.5 billion speakers, though the real figure could be more.
A whopping 88 countries and territories count English as either an official, administrative, or cultural language.
Here, Express.co.uk looks at those regions, including those that couldn’t get any further from the language’s original country.
The first and most important reason for the spread of English is the British Empire.
Before almost a quarter of the world had been colonised by it, English was only spoken by the British.
The same can be said of the various other colonial powers, like Spain, Portugal, and France.
When the British forced themselves on the likes of Asia and Africa, those countries and their people began to pick up English, sometimes out of choice, more often because of force.
English would have mainly been used to conduct business, though it soon spread through science and technology, diplomacy, art, and formal education.
In many countries, people were punished for using their native tongue as opposed to English. In 19th century Wales, English settlers employed the ‘Welsh Not’ to discourage children from speaking Welsh in school to squeeze the language out of the culture.
Today, English is spoken all over the world, in almost every corner from Vanuatu in Oceania to Guyana in South America.
North America
The first sizeable group of native speakers of English to be successfully established outside the British Isles was the Jamestown settlement, in what was to become the United States of America.
Today, the language is official in:
- Anguilla
- Antigua and Barbuda
- Bahamas
- Barbados
- Belize
- Bermuda
- British Virgin Islands
- Canada
- Cayman Islands
- Curaçao
- Dominica
- Grenada
- Jamaica
- Montserrat
- Puerto Rico
- Saint Kitts and Nevis
- Saint Lucia
- Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
- Trinidad and Tobago
- Turks and Caicos Islands
- United States
- United States Virgin Islands.
South America
The South American continent has the fewest number of official English-speaking countries, mostly because the British Empire didn’t focus its efforts there, while Portugal and Spain divided the region between themselves.
However, it is spoken on:
Europe
But for one, everyone knows where English is spoken in Europe:
- Akrotiri and Dhekelia
- Gibraltar
- Guernsey
- Ireland
- Isle of Man
- Jersey
- Malta
- United Kingdom
Africa
Different types of colonial engagement brought English into the African continent. It has been maintained through education programmes and the knowledge that knowing English is beneficial to employment and business opportunities.
Today, it is spoken in:
- Botswana
- Cameroon
- Eswatini
- Gambia
- Ghana
- Kenya
- Lesotho
- Liberia
- Malawi
- Mauritius
- Namibia
- Nigeria
- Rwanda
- Saint Helena
- Ascension and Tristan da Cunha
- Sierra Leone
- South Africa
- South Sudan
- Sudan
- Tanzania
- Uganda
- Zambia
- Zimbabwe.
Asia
- Christmas Island
- Cocos (Keeling) Islands
- Hong Kong
- India
- Pakistan
- Philippines
- Singapore.
Oceania
- Australia
- American Samoa
- Cook Islands
- Fiji
- Guam
- Kiribati
- Marshall Islands
- Micronesia
- Nauru
- New Zealand
- Niue
- Norfolk Island
- Northern Mariana Islands
- Palau
- Papua New Guinea
- Pitcairn Islands
- Samoa
- Solomon Islands
- Tokelau
- Tuvalu
- Vanuatu.
There are a few other places where English isn’t an official language but is important and used in administration, like Brunei, Malaysia, and Sri Lanka.
And, because English is so widely spoken in other places who retain their native tongue, it is often described as a “world language” and the lingua franca of the modern era.
For example, most countries in things organisations like the United Nations were never colonised by the British Empire but used English for official proceedings.
Likewise, hearings at the EU in Brussels often use English to deliver official work even though the UK is no longer a member.
