Dominance Of The English Language Cultural Studies Essay

In the world were over seven thousand languages have exisisted, one language had become dominate. This dominant language is English.” “In the majority of countries throughout the world speak English as their second or first language, no longer just America or England.” English has taken many forms, American English, the Queen’s English, Australian, Canadian English, and several others. Even American English has taken several types of English, Jersey English, East Coast English, West Coast English, Southern English, slang English, and Ebonics. All of these languages have major variants between them, but are all of them are still understood aboard. Without English the world couldn’t operate, because there would be no one language that could be understands all over the world.

Due to cultural and economic backgrounds English is slightly different in each area, therefore there no one exact English. American English is the most common and broad type of English. American English spreads widely throughout the world, because of the wide spread traveling that many American dos. American English itself breaks apart into almost fifty types of spoken English. Each type of spoken American English is changed depending on the type of music that area listens to, the life styles they live, and the background of that area. For example, southerners speak faster and more rapidly then most “Idahodians” do. “As A result of this, many southerners slur their words together so that they can speak faster, creating such words as Y’all, yunkto, and yes’um. Y’all is the two word you and all slurred together. Yunkto is three words slammed together. These words are you, want and to. It would be used in a sentence such as, “Y’all yunkto go to dinner? Meaning, do you all want to go to dinner? And yes’um is a combination of yes and ma’am.” All though, these words vary from what many other regions would use, most of other areas of English speaking people would understand what this person would have been saying.

This difference between American English and the Queen’s (British) English is much more dramatic. “Where American English vary in itself is just slurs, contractions, and different pronunciation of word, the difference between American and the Queen’s English is by entire words.” British English would use words like Bobby, flat, petrol, and lorry. Bobby is what the British call the police. Flat is their homes or apartments; petrol is the British word for gasoline. In addition, lorry is their word for a truck. While their words are greatly differently then American words people from both countries would understand what the other was saying.

While many of these of the types of English vary as much as American and British English, it is still understood around the world. Without there being English many of the Presidents, dictators, tyrants, and terrorist couldn’t understand each other. At all of their meeting there would have to be someone that spoke all of the languages that the members of the meeting spoke, or several translators which would make the it even more difficult.

Also, with all the types of ethnic groups that are in America, there was to be one common language that everybody can understand. If America didn’t speak English, everybody in America, and around the world, would have to find one common language for the entire world to learn to speak. English was merely the easiest for everybody to pick up. “English can be traced back as far as the early 1100’s B.C.” “The Anglo-Saxons in England spread their language as many different enemies tried to take over England, but failed. They would force their prisoners to learn their language, and inter-grade themselves into society.”

The language grew even more steadily as the criminals of England were being sailed all the way around the world to Australia. The criminals would be dropped off there and forced to learn to survive on their own. With an increasingly large number of criminals being put on this vacant island, they learned and continued to speak English. As technology and other advances were made, these former English citizens left the island and visited the other Asian countries; they spread English to more people and areas. This was also just the beginning of the spread of English throughout the world.

The major spread of English happened during World War I and World War II. After several years of fighting during World War I Germany finally decided to surrender. After they surrendered both Americans and British soldiers put to into Germany to help rebuild it as it paid the British and American debt from the war. Inter-grading English speaking citizens in with the Germans made it possible for Germans to pickup and accept more English words into their vocabulary. “Next, after World War II Americans were put into more countries that didn’t speak English. For example, American soldiers were put into Japan for six years after the war to help reconstruct the cities from the damage that the atomic bomb caused.” With Japanese being forced to work so closely with Americans, they, as well as the Germans did, learned words and the language that the American reconstructors were using.

With the Japanese and Germans picking up some of our language, they would have never understood half of what we were telling them. While they may have picked up some of what we were saying through osmosis, there wouldn’t have been anyway for the citizens of two different nations to understand each other. English was also being took back to Japan by the Japanese that came to America and wrote they families and visited them back in Japan.

While English has taken many forms and shapes, it is the most important language still in use. Without English, the world couldn’t operate properly.