I wrote an essay in university about the “Cultural Legacy of the British Empire”, and this article in Foreign Policy comes to the same (largest) conclusion that I did, albeit from a different angle.
The English language (in various forms) is overtaking the other largest cultural artefact of the B.E., football (soccer). There are already far more Indians speaking English than there are Brits, full-stop, and the numbers continue to rise worldwide. I won’t rehash the linked article, but I wanted to make a point about it’s conclusions as to the cause of this.
The article mentions a linga franca, and English is certainly that for the foreseeable future. I contend, however, that the reason this is so is because of the historical accident that the two succeeding world-spanning empires both spoke English (or near enough in the case of the Americans).
The 350 million or so Indians who speak English don’t do so because of America; neither do any of the Anglophone African countries, the former Dominions (Australia, Canada & New Zealand), or even the USA itself. The USA is itself a legacy of The British Empire 1.0, one which absorbed most of the potential of the U.K. and created a continental power that stepped into the colonial power vacuum after WW2.
If anyone can find a contrary example I’ll stand corrected, but I do not believe that there has ever before been two successive empires that spoke the same language, certainly not any big enough to have more than regional influence.
One million words (the number of them now supposedly in the the English language) is a hell of a lot, and that number goes a long way to explain the appeal of English. It’s a mongrel language which takes the best from other languages to cover new concepts. Just like biological mongrels, this hybridization keeps it strong and healthy. I don’t think any of my “words” have made it in yet, but there’s obviously room…
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