I did a little research about languages and found out that there are about 7,000 languages spoken in the world today but of course about 2,000 of them are the ones that are widely used, the rest of them have very few people that speak them and you will probably never hear some in your entire lifetime.
But just to think about how many languages there are surprises me. I'm a Ghanaian and living in the small region of West Africa, we speak over 80 different languages across just 16 regions.
We know that English is a widely spoken language, however while I was doing the research to set up this map, I was surprised to realize that English doesn't dominate the world in terms of language as I thought it did before. More people speak other languages compared to English.
If you observe the map, you'll realize that red regions are way more than the yellow regions.
Being yellow doesn't mean everyone speaks only English and being red doesn't mean no one speaks it at all.
So why is English so widespread even though there are thousands of other languages? Most of what we have today has its roots in historic events and English becoming widespread is no different.
For a few centuries, Britain was a major world power and they built their colonies in so many parts of the world. Places like North America, Australia, India and a large part of Africa. They built schools, governments and businesses in these parts of the world using English as the language and that's what made it the language of power and education.
It's quite funny because in my country, if you can't speak English that much, you're seen as an illiterate and unschooled. A foreign language is now a measure of how well educated you are in your own country. Yet it's not a local language.
Even when some of the colonized countries gained their independence, they decided to keep English as an official language because they had many different local languages and English could serve as a common language for everyone and besides, the schools were already teaching it. It's a core subject you can't afford to fail in.
It’s the same situation in places like Nigeria and well I've never been to India but I'm only guessing when an Indian speaks fluent English, the other locals get impressed.
It was not only what the British Empire did, there was another big event that helped in the spread of English even more. Let me make it more dramatic and title the event "The rise of the United States". It's not just the dollar, also the language.
The U.S. became a very powerful nation in the 20th century and it was not just with their military which they're very famous for. They grew their economy and their culture as well.
When I speak of culture, take Hollywood for example, how many of its movies do you watch? I watch more of that than my own country's movies. Also their popular music and the technology. From Apple to Google to Meta to Amazon. A huge portion of the Internet kind of came from them and English was the main language for all of these things.
So think about the transition we made without noticing, when people around the world wanted to watch American movies or use new technology, they had to learn English.
I can't count how many times old folks come to me and ask about a problem regarding their phone and I noticed it's because they didn't understand the English word for that feature. So they had to learn and get used to it.
Today, English has become the main language for science, technology and international business.
If your dream is to work for a big international company, you will likely need to learn English.
The map I made is quite simple compared to reality. I colored France and Germany but that doesn't mean people don't speak English there. A lot of people, especially the younger ones and those living in the big cities learn English in school and use it for work or travel. The country just doesn't use it as their main language for daily life.
When you visit a typical Ghanaian market, you might hear a mix of English and local languages, sometimes even in the same sentence. Most of us locals have gotten used to mixing our local languages with English. So if we don't remember how to mention something in our local language, we use the English name or word for it.
For formal places like schools and government offices, English is almost always mandatory, but for homes and small communities, local languages are more commonly used.
Another funny thing, our former president was so good at speaking English, it inspired or I would say influenced a lot of people to vote for him because they assumed he had to be super smart if he can speak with such an accent. Have you ever made the mistake to think someone who speaks English with an awesome accent in your country was smart and you found out later that you're smarter? Of course, I'm not talking about my former president, he was actually pretty smart and a great leader.
English became a global language because of history, power, technology and the way the world changed. One interesting thing about English is that it's a language that can easily mix with other languages to create unique local versions everywhere like in my home country Ghana.
Languages are always changing, even English has multiple versions of itself and new words are coming out everyday, especially from the Gen Zs. Gen Z words for you;
Rizz, It's giving, It's not clocking to you that I'm standing on business. (thanks to Justin Bieber).
Map designed by me using Mapchart Android app
