The English language is influenced by different cultures, but why have English been the big language people all around the world learn as a second language?

“English is the global language”

A headline of this kind must have appeared in a thousand newspapers and magazines in recent years.

Millennial retrospectives and prognostications continued in the same vein, with several major newspapers and magazines finding in the subject of the English language an apt symbol for the themes of globalization, diversification, progress and identity addressed in their special editions.

These are the kinds of statement which seem so obvious that most people would give them hardly a second thought. Of course English is a global language, they would say. You can hear it on television spoken by politicians from all over the world. Wherever you travel, you see English signs and advertisements. Whenever you enter a hotel or restaurant in a foreign city, they will understand English, and there will be an English menu.

Understanding the complexity and diversity of English worldwide is becoming increasingly important. Native speakers publishing on the Internet, to take one obvious example, must realize that we are writing for readers whose English may be far from our standard Australian or standard American. The English Languages offers a wide-ranging and accessible guide to this diversity- and to different ways of approaching it.