HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES ON THE DEVELOPMENT AND SPREAD OF ENGLISH

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Published: Nov 7, 2012
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5750/bjll.v5i0.213

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Graeme Davis

Abstract

There has never been a language like English. Mother tongue to around 375 million people and second language to many hundreds of millions more, the first language of business and the internet, English is truly a world-wide language. English has a unique position as the essential language skill for the world, for it is in English that the world is communicating. It is the prime beneficiary of the world-wide communications revolution and the only language ever to have achieved global status. In recorded history – in a little over one-thousand five-hundred years - it has grown from the local dialect of a minor Germanic tribe of a few thousand people living in the north of continental Europe to become the most widespread language ever. Never before has any language achieved the status now enjoyed by English, nor could this dominance have been predicted. How English has become the global language is a natural area for enquiry.

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Vol. 5 (2012)
Section
Articles
Author Biography

Graeme Davis

DR GRAEME DAVIS is lecturer in English and Applied Linguistics at the Open University. Previously Head of English as a Foreign Language and Head of Modern Languages at Northumbria University, his research is in dialectology, lexicography and both historical and applied linguistics with a focus on the Germanic North Atlantic region. He co-edits the monograph series Contemporary Studies in Descriptive Linguistics and Studies in Historical Linguistics, both published by Peter Lang, Oxford, and is an editor for the journals Literary and Cultural Studies (University of Zagreb) and Glossa (Universidad del Turabo), as well as a reviewer for The Linguist List.