Influence through Language

The Story Of English begins by making emphasis on the importance of the English language in the 21st century. Although it is not the most spoken language in the world, most international social, political, and economic affairs go on in English, making its importance extraordinary. And with the language comes culture. An educated Hindi girls stated that “we are still very much influenced by what the British left us with, it was always English represents class, weather it really is class or not, they left us with the impression that English represents class” (The Story of English), to which her friend adds: “the influence of the western culture, especially the British culture (comes) in the music, the dances, the books, the movies” (The Story of English). The popularity of English grows exponentially because as English becomes known by more, the usefulness of speaking English increases and more people are motivated to learn. Foreign English speakers are then brought closer to the western Anglo-American culture because the language has inextricable cultural ties and because they will be exposed to content in English, usually produced by native speakers. This is why language plays such an important role in acculturation. Language has become one of the major economical advantages for native and semi-native English speaking countries like the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, India and Pakistan because they have an educational advantage over the rest of the world and can play globalization to their advantage. J.K Rowling

might not have been so popular if her native language had been Tamil instead of English.

Native English speakers benefit from the global importance of their language, but so do foreigners. Universal tongues, which have been present throughout history accompanied by great empires, are an extremely useful tool that had an important effect on the development of humanity in freeing the flow of information. Now that information can be painlessly shared on the Internet, a lingua franca is more useful than ever.