The Spread of English across the Globe
The spread of English around the globe began from the 17th-century onwards.
It is first due to the colonization of North America and later due to the expansion of the British Empire in the 18th century.
The Pilgrims first arrived in 1620 at Plymouth, and a large number of British people moved to North America for religious, economic, and political reasons.
They established 13 colonies, which became the 13 original states after the Declaration of Independence in 1776.
After gaining political independence from Britain, America also wanted to achieve linguistic independence.
Noah Webster proposed a spelling reform and his proposals were contained in his dictionary published in 1828.
His new spellings were: -er for -re (e.g. theater/ theatre, center/centre), -or for -our (e.g. labor/labour, color/colour), -k for -que (e.g. check/cheque), single -l before a suffix (e.g. traveled/ travelled).
These changes became standard features of American English spelling, which explains why these words are spelled differently in British and American English.
Later, waves of immigrants from Europe arrived in America and the languages they spoke added many new words to English.
Examples of these words include: boss and cookie from Dutch; chowder and bureau from French; hamburger, kindergarten and allergy from German; and spaghetti and pizza from Italian.
From the 18th century, the British Empire had spread English through its colonies around the world.
The Empire expanded from North America to include colonies in Africa, Asia and Australia.
English continued to accept words from other languages.
For example, words like shampoo and pajamas came from India, kangaroo and boomerang from the Aboriginal languages of Australia, and safari and gorilla from Africa.
At its height, it was the largest empire in history and became the leading global power.
By the early 20th century, the Empire held sway over 412 million people (23 percent of the world population).
Commerce, science, technology, and education all contributed to English becoming the global language.
At the peak of its power, the British Empire was described as “the empire on which the sun never sets.”