From Hollywood to war: why we all surrendered to English proficiency

English is spreading like wildfire . Contacts between English speakers of different origins are discreetly multiplying with prodigious dynamism . Such rapid growth can be justified, but it's difficult to understand given the limited reach of other vehicular languages.

Four hundred million people living in wealthy countries have English as their mother tongue; another billion , and perhaps more, encounter the need to use it every day ; and according to British Council estimates, which don't seem unreasonable, some two billion are fluent, use, master, defend, or study English. In the next generation, these percentages will have multiplied. Never in history has a language been introduced with such intensity and admiration in so many corners. It should be added that humanity has never been so connected.

The boom began in the early 20th century in the United States thanks to industrial progress and a strong economy. These advances in regular commercial flights, telephony, radio, and television were to revolutionize the lives and customs of modern times. And to all this was added something absolutely exceptional that left its mark on the feelings and consciences of viewers in so many remote places: The film industry. Hollywood's leadership wasn't as significant in the silent era as it was when the voice first appeared on the screen. Its leadership was followed by the films of some European countries, but not many, and with less impact.

England and the United States knew how to create music with a universal language . Their lyrics, above and beyond trends, were hummed as their own in non-English-speaking countries. Their artists were received with enthusiasm almost everywhere in the world. From then on, the English language, so distant from its sister languages (German, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic) , fueled musical trends . Scientific texts began to be published in English, and other languages were relegated to less influential positions.

England and the United States knew how to make music with a universal language

Today, the language of the British enters unbidden through the cracks of culture and communication. Will it continue to spread? Countries like France and Russia tried to resist its influence, but have given up. It is no longer realistic to change because the systems maintain an inertia that is difficult to break. English speakers are the least likely to need to know another language, and English is the one that most supports other languages. The five continents are happy to speak English, and they do. We hardly find areas where it has not been introduced, although it is more difficult to establish itself among Spaniards, French, Russians, and Chinese because these languages have a widespread use and are also frequently used as universal languages.

World Wars, especially the Second World War , consolidated the language of the victors and of the leading nations in economic, military, and cultural power. The influence of the United States, along with globalization, technology, and the rise of multinational corporations, fueled its expansion, and it became established as a working language in international organizations such as the United Nations, the European Union, and NATO. The final impetus was the Internet, as it was the language that fueled its growth from its earliest stages.

The current unity is attested by a cohesion that allows speakers from Hawaii, Sweden, India, and the Philippines to understand each other. It seems normal, but it isn't. North and South Koreans, who broke off contact 70 years ago, show differences in grammar, pronunciation, and vocabulary, and these differences are so pronounced that they make understanding difficult.

The Latin alphabet , also known as the English alphabet, the language most widely spoken , is the most common among users who have another language as their own. The collection of graphemes that has become widespread was born in a corner of the Italian peninsula, inspired by that of their Etruscan neighbors, who in turn had borrowed it from Greek. The Roman Empire carried it through the territories bathed by the Mediterranean, it passed into the Neo-Latin languages, and was later adopted by the Germanic and many Slavic languages.

The second great expansion is due to three languages that continue Latin: Spanish , which lent it to the Amerindian languages; French, which spread it to Africa and Indochina; Portuguese, which spread it to Africa and Asia ; and above all, English, which spread it to North America, Africa, Asia, and Oceania.

The World Wars consolidated the language of the victors, and of the leading nations in economic, military and cultural power.

The Latin alphabet is the most widely used writing system . More than 4,000 languages use it in some way, either as a primary or secondary script. It is used to create modern orthographies in spoken languages. Not all languages use the same spellings. Many have added their own letters or symbols, such as ñ in Spanish or å in Swedish.

In Europe, it is the main one. Cyrillic, native to Russian and some Slavic languages, is in decline as languages like Serbian and Bosnian court the Latin alphabet. The other European alphabet is Greek, whose alphabet inspired Latin and Cyrillic. In America, it is native to the three major languages of the continent: Spanish, English, and Portuguese. Other indigenous languages such as Nahuatl, Quechua, Aymara, Guaraní, Mapuche, and Zapotec, among many others, have adopted it.

Major African languages that were written with the Arabic alphabet, such as Hausa of Nigeria, Niger, and Ghana; Wolof of Senegal and Gambia; Fulani and Mandinka of West Africa; Songhai of Mali and Niger; Kanuri of Nigeria and Chad; Yoruba of Nigeria; Swahili of Tanzania and Kenya ; Tamasheq of the central Sahara; Bambara of Mali; and Serer of Senegal, are now written in the Latin alphabet.

Most languages in Australia, Papua New Guinea, and Polynesia also use it, with local adaptations . In Asia, it is used by Vietnamese, Malay, Indonesian, Tagalog, and some minority languages in central Asia or the Caucasus. Azerbaijani, Uzbek, and Turkmen abandoned Cyrillic after the fall of the Soviet Union to write in Latin.

Chinese uses it as the basis for writing to establish pronunciation , as the pictographic characters are so numerous that they cannot be used as a reference. Pinyin is the Romance version of Chinese and is used, from the keyboard, to search for pictograms using predictive typing. It is also used on cell phones and computers. Japanese speakers are familiar with the Rōmaji or Latin script , which they use for highway information and for transcribing the names of people, places, companies, and trademarks.

Languages that use the Arabic alphabet or script switch to Latin when necessary. They call it Arabizi or Arabish, which could be written as 7abibi (حبيبي). This happens in a language as faithful to its religious convictions as the Urdu spoken in Pakistan. It is also borrowed from Russian and other Slavic languages that use the Cyrillic or Azbuka alphabet, such as Ukrainian or Bulgarian. Thus, we can see "Москва" written Moskva. Similarly, Korean uses "서울" written Seoul. Hindi and other languages that use Devanagari or other Brahmic alphabets or join the Latin alphabet. Namaste (नमस्ते) serves as an example. In Greek, we can see Athina for Aθήνα, meaning Athens. And we could add other examples from Thai, Burmese, Cambodian or Lao that use abugida alphabets, also known as alphasyllabaries or syllabic alphabets.

Keyboards and search engines are often limited to the Latin alphabet, which is also useful for language teaching.

The Internet is changing habits. Keyboards and search engines are often limited to the Latin alphabet, which is also useful for language teaching and transliteration on passports, technology, or simply to facilitate information. That's why some young people use the alphabet in chats, social networks, and SMS messages.

What humanity has needed to communicate in order to understand each other, it has achieved. The expansion of the English alphabet is an example . The fact is that today's languages are what they are, as great as they are insignificant. What has mattered to humanity is having the necessary ones, and this is guaranteed by the natural tendencies of speakers because languages are the heritage of those who freely use them.

* Rafael del Moral is a sociolinguist specializing in world languages and the author of the 'Encyclopedia of Languages', 'A Brief History of Languages', 'History of Hispanic Languages' and 'The Battles of the ñ', as well as numerous articles in specialized journals.