How is it that english became an international language?

Question

How is it that english became an international language?

Answer 1

Well for one the Brits came to america and they speak english!

Answer 2

a bunch of people from england moved to america at the very beginning.america became totally powerful.

Answer 3

You had Britain's presence in countries across the globe and The USA having a strong influence.

English Speaking Countries

USA

CANADA

AUSTRALIA

NEW ZEALAND

GREAT BRITAIN

SOUTH AFRICA

A large portion of HONG KONG

loads of others that I'm too lazy to type

Answer 4

English was spoken across a huge number of countries but so was French and Spanish.

The reason it spread so fast into the internationally accepted common language of today is because most of the technical and scientific discoveries and inventions either came from English speaking countries or were developed by them.

Flying is an obvious example where it was developed and the vast majority of planes and airlines were all English speaking.

It is also helped that the vast majority of films and pop songs are in English.

Answer 5

Because the British Empire ruled over such a large part of the world. (There was a saying that "The sun never sets on the British Empire.") The people who lived under British rule found it to their advantage to learn English.

Also, English borrows words freely from other languages, so it has a huge vocabulary compared to other languages.  It is not so hung up on preserving itself in its old form compared to French or Spanish or German.  This makes it more suited to use in science and medicine.

Answer 6

Probably through Britain's colonization of foreign countries and forcing others to speak English, and more recently America's presence in pretty much every country in existence.

And there are a LOT of native English speakers, thanks to us Americans' scary ability to reproduce like rabbits.

Answer 7

America=Big

Australia=Big

Answer 8

when you have a language that dominates the most powerful nation in the world... everyone learns it

Answer 9

cuz american got a strong economic system