“American English has been the world standard since the end of WW2, when Britain ceased being an empire and began her decline back into mediocrity. “British English” has long been little more than a quaint local dialect trotted out to beguile the tourists, along with double-decker buses and the Queen.”
Not entirely. Any Germans, French, Turks, Swedes, Greeks, whatever, who speak English have probably learned it from British instructors. Whatever American idioms they’ve picked up from our movies and TV shows, they spell according to U.K standards. That’s not even taking into account all those countries which, while no longer being part of the Commonwealth, use U.K. English as an official language (there are a billion people in India who, if they speak English, speak U.K. English).
And as our OWN Empire sinks into mediocrity, who’s to say Mandarin Chinese isn’t going to be the next lingua Franca? At the very least, whichever brand of English is being taught in China (and let us not forget the long-standing British presence there) may have an edge in decades to come.
“American English has been the world standard since the end of WW2, when Britain ceased being an empire and began her decline back into mediocrity. “British English” has long been little more than a quaint local dialect trotted out to beguile the tourists, along with double-decker buses and the Queen.”
Not entirely. Any Germans, French, Turks, Swedes, Greeks, whatever, who speak English have probably learned it from British instructors. Whatever American idioms they’ve picked up from our movies and TV shows, they spell according to U.K standards. That’s not even taking into account all those countries which, while no longer being part of the Commonwealth, use U.K. English as an official language (there are a billion people in India who, if they speak English, speak U.K. English).
And as our OWN Empire sinks into mediocrity, who’s to say Mandarin Chinese isn’t going to be the next lingua Franca? At the very least, whichever brand of English is being taught in China (and let us not forget the long-standing British presence there) may have an edge in decades to come.