It is a truism that English is a world language, but what exactly does that mean? Clearly, you can’t go absolutely everywhere in the world and expect to communicate in English. On the other hand, there are some contexts, distributed across the globe, where you are very likely to find English – take airports, for instance, with signs and adverts in English, and employees of all sorts who can indeed use English. (In Bogota airport once, I was interrogated exclusively in Spanish by a very rough customs officer– but then I noticed that on the (apparently well-used) knuckles of one hand he had tattooed LOVE, and on the other HATE. So, some command of English there…) Overall, though, it is evident that the term ‘English speaking world’ covers huge variations and complexities.

One angle on the AngloWorld is provided in this site’s recently-published page  The power of projects , in which Joe O’Callaghan describes his project Anglophone Explorers. To support the students’ research into anglophone cultures, Joe provides a map showing the distribution of English world-wide according to its ‘official/unofficial’ status. Have a look at the Wikipedia page which is the source of this map.

The map shows, at first glance, that English is very widely spread across the globe, but then you notice two large voids – most of Asia, and Latin America. The explanation for this distribution is suggested by another map on the Wikipedia page, which shows countries across the world which once formed part of the British Empire (including the “13 Colonies”, which grew into what we now know as the US of A). Unsurprisingly, the distribution in the two maps is very similar – and also unsurprisingly, the voids correspond pretty closely with the former Russian Empire (Asia) and the former Spanish Empire (Latin America). Clearly, empires leave a legacy of language use.

Studied in more detail, the map indicates that the use of English has quite complex variations. It distinguishes, for instance, between the ‘Anglosphere’ (countries where English is the native language) and countries where English is ‘official’ or ‘co-official’ or unofficial’ – and then divides the term ‘official’ between ‘de jure’ and ‘de facto’. The Anglosphere countries (UK, US, AUS, and NZ) are de facto official and not de jure, because they have no national laws making English official – it is just taken for an obvious fact. That said, while the US has no national law making English official, 24 states have gone to the trouble of passing state laws giving English official status.

In fact, the Wikipedia page itself provides much detail which leaves the map looking somewhat superficial. The concept of ‘official/unofficial’ can be reliably and objectively researched, but the real use of English is much less easily ascertained. The notes on many countries listed as ‘unofficial’ mention that the legal status of English is often not the same as its true status. For instance, one of the footnotes has this to say about English in Israel :

English is not considered official but it plays a dominant role in the educational and public life of Israeli society. [...] It is the language most widely used in commerce, business, formal papers, academia, and public interactions, public signs, road directions, names of buildings, etc. English behaves 'as if' it were the second and official language in Israel.

Then there are the cases in which English is used as a lingua franca for everyday communication at the street level, particularly in countries with various languages, such as Nigeria. And what about pidgin… in its various forms across the world?

So the map gives an interesting graphic impression, but it is obviously seriously incomplete. Consider the use of English in the Internet: this must be truly global, but how could the facts be researched, and how could they then be graphically presented? I assume there must be Big Data experts with appropriate techniques, but has this been attempted?

Finally, this rich and varied tapestry of world-wide English use leaves us English B teachers with some tricky questions. Where does this leave the notion of ‘anglophone culture’? How many different ‘anglophone cultures’ are there, if English is used in so many different societies? If the forms of the language are assumed to be influenced by its social use, how do we keep track of all these different influences? Is there such a thing as an identifiable ‘AngloWorld’ … or can we only say that there are multiple parallel AngloUniverses?