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A language becomes a global language because of the power of the people who speak it. It's

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nothing to do with the structure of the language. There's nothing about English grammar or vocabulary

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or pronunciation or spelling that makes English an appealing language at a global level. In fact,

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if you think about it, English spelling would put most people off, you'd think. So it's nothing to

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do with the structure of language. No, it's all to do with power. But power means different

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things at different times. English first became international because of political power,

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military power, the power of the British Empire, really. But it isn't just political that takes

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a language around the world. There have got to be other factors too. A century later,

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we're talking about the 16th, 17th century there, we had the power of science, of technology,

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the Industrial Revolution. English is the language of science. That started then as

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something like two-thirds of the people who invented all the things that make modern society

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what it is, did so through the medium of the English language. And then in the 19th century,

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economic power, money talks always, and the language it was talking in the 19th century was

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English, because America and Britain between them had the money markets of the world sewn up for

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the most part. And then in the 20th century, we have cultural power, with English being the language

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of the vast majority of the inventions that make modern society what it is. So it's English

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turning up in the, as it were, almost the right place at the right time during these

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last 400 years or so that has produced the enormous global status that it currently has.