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A global language is a common language, that enables people who speak different mother languages to communicate on a more or less equitable basis. It has to be understandable in lots of different cultures, taught as a foreign language in schools and should be the official language of multinational organizations and companies. Considering these criteria, it can be said that English is the global language right now. It is understood by 20% of the world’s population, it iss taught in most schools around the world as a second language and is the language of science, business and air traffic control. But considering the number of native English speakers in the world, the question arises why English is the global language right now? Looking at the languages by number of native speakers, it is obvious that Chinese would be the best choice for a global language. Nearly 12% of the world population speaks Chinese as a first language, while only 5% are native English speakers. So why is English considered the global language today and not Chinese? One reason is because of the expansion of the Great British Empire during the 16th century. The wide-spread British empire introduced English nearly everywhere. It was the language of the oppressors and people usually learn the language of the oppressors. Later, after WWW I and II, the USA gained a lot of influence. People liked the American culture and American movies and took over a lot of their culture. Later, globalization further boosted the use of English to communicate all over the world. Although these reasons make clear why English is so popular as a global language, it has to be considered, that in Asia Mandarin Chinese is often the most common language used in business and in South America it is Spanish. So there have to be more reasons, why English is the global language, especially in business. An explanation would be, that Europe and USA both use English to communicate in business and these countries together form the strongest economic block in the world. Therefore all over the world English has been established as the language of business. But this shows also, that the global language could slowly shift to Chinese if the Chinese economy gets stronger. As history has shown, the global language wasn‘t always English. A long time ago, the global language was Latin in the Roman days and French during the days of Napoleon. So a global language is not fixed forever. As all things, it also can change. A last reason is, that languages benefit from the network effect. If nearly everyone can speak English today, it is the obvious language to learn for non-native speakers. And with lots of people learning English, there are plenty of people and resources devoted to teaching it. Moreover English is similar to other European languages, which is another benefit. And by a lucky coincidence, English is one of the simplest, easiest and most analytical natural languages in the world (Latin alphabet, easy verb conjugation and almost no inflections). This all shows why English is the global language these days and why it could shift to another language in the future.
