Since the British Empire’s dispersal of English to different parts of the world, the language has taken on many forms. With all of these existing varieties, what’s in store for this global language?

You don’t have to be a globetrotter to see that the English spoken in India doesn’t sound the same as the English spoken in England. And the English in Nairobi really doesn’t sound the same as the English in New York.

Where is the English language headed? To answer that, we must first look at where it came from.

Modern English, with origins in the 5th century as a Proto-Germanic language, began to spread around the globe in the 1600s.

“Historically, British adventurism, expansionism, as well as slave trade and Christian evangelism led to the global spread of the English language and its diverse forms,” Joseph Osoba, English Linguistics professor at the University of Lagos in Nigeria, tells the Monitor.

As the influence of the British empire recedes, English speakers around the globe are now left to find their own way. More.

See: The Christian Science Monitor

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