CHAPTER 1: THE SPREAD OF ENGLISH-A Historical

Overview
This chapter shows how English spread from its original country,
England, to the rest of the world. It also particularly points out some
models of English spread from Streven’s model, Gorlach’s model,
McArthur’s, and Kachru’s model (in Jenkins, 2003). The historical
perspectives of the spread of English are taken from Jenkins’s accounts
on the issue in her book titled ‘World Englishes: A Resource Book for
Students” (2009) in the following sections.

The Historical Context of English Spread

In the period between the end of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I in 1603
and the later years of the reign of Queen Elizabeth II at the start of the
twenty-first century, the number of speakers of English increased from
a mere five to seven million to possibly as many as two billion.
Whereas the English language was spoken in the mid-sixteenth century
only by a relatively small group of mother-tongue speakers born and
bred within the shores of the British Isles, it is now spoken in almost
every country of the world, with is majority speakers being those for
whom it is not a first language.

Currently, there are approximately seventy-five territories where

English is spoken either as the first language (L1), or as an official (
i.e.insitutionalised ) second language (L.2) in fields such as government
, law , and education.

The total number of L2 speakers is still more remarkable than Crystal’s

figures suggest. For, as he explains, they take no account of one further,
and increasingly important group of L2 English speakers: those for
whom English has little or no official function within their own
countries. This group of English speakers, whose proficiency levels
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range from reasonable to bilingual competence, was originally
described as speakers of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) to
distinguish them from L2 speakers for whom English serves country-
internal functions, that is, speakers of English as a Second Language
(ESL). Since the mid 1990s ,how ever it has become increasingly
common to find alongside EFL, the use of English as a Lingua Franca
(ELF) or , less often, English as an International Language (EIL)
The new term, ELF reflects the growing trend for English users from,
for example Europe, China, and Brazil, to use English more frequently
as a contact language among themselves rather than with native English
speakers (the EFL situation). It is impossible to capture the current
number of EFL/ELF speakers precisely, because it is increasing all the
time as more and more people in these countries learn English
(particularly in China, partly as an outcome of its hosting of the 2008
Olympic Games . Current estimates tend to be around one billion ,
while Crystal (2008a) suggest that there may now be as many as two
billion English speakers in the world as a whole.

A theme which recurs throughout the book and which it will therefore
be useful to highlight from the start , is that of value judgements of
these different Englishes. The negative attitudes which persist today
towards certain varieties of English have their roots in the past and,
especially in the two dispersals of English .

The Two dispersals of English

We can speak of the two dispersals, or diasporas, of English. The first
diaspora, initially involved the migration of around 25.000 people from
the south and east of England primarily to America and Australia,
resulted in new mother tongue varieties of English. The second
diaspora , involving the colonization of Asia and Africa , led , on the
other hand, to the development of a number of second language
varieties , often referred to as ‘New Englishes’. This is to some extent
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a simplification for it is not always an easy matter to categorise the
world’s Englishes so neatly. As was noted above, the whole issue has
been further complicated since the twentieth century by the dramatic
increase in the use of English first as a foreign language and
subsequently as an international lingua franca ( respectively EFL and
ELF).

The first dispersal: English is Transported to the ‘New World’

The first diaspora involved relatively large-scale migrations of mother-
tongue English speakers from England , Scotland , and Ireland
predominantly to North America, Australia, and New Zealand. The
English dialects which travelled with them gradually developed into the
American and Antipodean Englishes we know today. The varieties of
English spoken in modern North America and Australasia are not
identical with the English of their early colonisers, but have altered in
response to the changed and changing sociolinguistic context in which
the migrants found themselves. For example , their vocabulary rapidly
expanded through contact with the indigenous Indian, aboriginal or
Maori populations in the lands which they colonized , to incorporate
words such as Amerindian papoose, moccasin, and igloo.

Walter Raleights expedition of of 1584 to America was the earliest

from the British Isles to the New World, though it did not result in a
permanent settlement.

The first Diaspora

The first diaspora marks the following spread of English:
• Migrations to North America, Australia, New Zealand – L1
varieties of English
• USA/ Canada: From early 17th century (English) , 18th century
(North Irish) to USA

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 • From 17th century, African slaves to South American atates and
Caribbean Islands.
• From 1776 ( American Independence) Some British settlers to
Canada.
• Australia: from 1770
• New Zealand: from 1790s (official colony in 1840)

The Second Diaspora

The second diaspora records the spread of English as follows:
• Migrations to Africa and Asia – L2 varieties of English
• South Africa: from 1795 . 3 groups of L2 English speakers
(Afrikaans/Blacks/from 1860s Indians)
• South Asia: India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal,
Bhutan, from 1600 (British East India Company). 1765-1947
British Sovereignty in India.
• SE Asia and South Pacific: Singapore , Malaysia, Hong kong,
Philippines, from late 18th century (Raffles founded Singapore
1819).
• Colonial Africa: West: Sierra Leone, Ghana , Gambia,
Nigeria, Cameroon, Liberia, from late 15th century (but no
major English emigrant settlements – pidgins/creoles).
• East: Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe,
from c.1850

The voyagers landed on the coast of North Carolina near Roanoke

Island, but fell into conflict with the native Indian population and then
mysteriously disappeared altogether, leaving behind only a palisade
and the letters CRO carved on a tree. In 1607 the first permanent
colonist arrived and settled in Jamestown , Virginia (named
respectively after James I and Elizabeth I, the Virgin Queen), to be
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followed in 1620 by a group of Puritans and others on the Mayflower.
The latter group landed further north, settling at what is now Plymouth,
Massachusetts, in New England. Both settlements spread rapidly and
attracted further migrants during the years that followed. Because of
their different linguistic backgrounds, there were immediately certain
differences in the accents of the two groups of settlers. Those in
Virginia came mainly from the west of England, brought with them
their characteristic rhotic /r/, and voiced /s/ sounds. On the other hand
those who settled in New England were mainly from the east of
England, where these features where not a part of the local accent.

During the seventeenth century English spread to southern parts of

America and the Caribbean as a result the slaves were transported from
West Africa. In addition, exchanged, on the American coast and in the
Caribbean for sugar and the Englishes which developed among the
slaves and between them, and their chapters were initially contact
pidgin languages but, with their mother tongues following the birth of
the next generation, they developed into creoles. Then in the eighteenth
century, there was large-scale immigration from Northern Ireland,
initially to the coastal area around Philadelphia, but quickly moving
south and west. After the declaration of American Independence in
1776, many loyalist (the British settlers who had supported the British
government ) left for Canada.

Meanwhile, comparable events were soon to take place in Australia ,

New Zealand and South Africa (see Gordon and Sudbury 2002 on all
three). James Cook ’discovered’ Australia in 1770, landing in modern
day Queensland and the first fleet landed in New south Wales in 1788.
From then until the ending of transportation in 1852, around 160.000
convicts were transported to Australia from Britain and Ireland, and
from the 1820s large numbers of free settlers also began to arrive. The
largest proportion of settlers come from London and the south-east ,

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although in the case of the convicts, they were not necessarily born
there. Others originated regions as widely dispersed as, for example,
south-west England , Lancashire, Scotland and Ireland. The result was
a situation of dialect mixing which was further influenced by the
indigenous aboriginal languages.

New Zealand was first settled by European traders in the 1790s ,

though there was no official colony until after the British- Maori Treaty
of Waitangi in 1840. Immigrants arrived in three stages: in the 1840s
and 1850s from Britain , in the 1860s from Australia and Ireland, and
from 1870, to 1885 from the UK, when their number included a
considerable proportion of Scots. As in Australia , there was a mixture
of dialects this time subjects to a strong Maori influence, especially in
terms of vocabulary.

Although South Africa was colonized by the Dutch from the 1650s,
the British did not arrive until 1795 when they annexed the Cape, and
did not begin to settle in large numbers until 1820. The majority of
Cape settlers originated in southern England, though there were also
sizeable groups from Ireland and Scotland. Further settlement occurred
in the 1850s in the Natal region, this time from the Midlands, Yorkshire
and Lancashire. From 1822, when English was declared the official
language, Indian immigrants to the territory also learned it as a second
language by blacks and Afrikaans speakers (many of whom were mixed
race) and, from the 1860s.

The second dispersal: English is transported to Asia and Africa

The second diaspora took place at various points during the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries in very different ways and with very different
results from those of the first diaspora.

The history of English in Colonial Africa has two distinct patterns

depending on whether we are talking about west or east Africa. English
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in West Africa is linked to the slave trade and the development of
pidgin and creole languages. From the late fifteenth century onwards.
British traders travelled at different times to and from the various
coastal territories of West Africa , primarily Gambia, Sierra Leone,
Ghana, Nigeria and Cameroon. However, there was no major British
settlement in the area and, instead, English was employed as a lingua
franca both among the indigenous populations (there being hundreds of
local languages) and between these people and the British traders
English has subsequently gained official status in the above five
countries and some of the pidgins and creoles which developed from
English contact , such as Krio ( Sierra Leone) and Cameroon, Pidgin
English, are now spoken by large numbers of people, especially as a
second language .

East Africa’s relationship with English followed a different path. The

countries of Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, and
Zimbabwe were extensively settled by British colonist from the 1850s
on, following the expeditions of a number of explorers, most famously,
those of David Livingstone. These six countries became British
protectorates or colonies at various points between the late nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries, with English playing an important role in
the major institutions such as governments, education and the law.
From the early 1960s, the six countries one after another achieved
independence. English remains the official language in Uganda,
Zambia, Zimbabwe and (along with Chewa) Malawi and has large
numbers of second language speakers in these places, although Swahili
is more likely than English to be used as a lingua franca in Uganda, as
it is in Kenya and Tanzania.

English was introduce to the sub-continent of South Asia (India,

Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Bhutan) during the second
half of the eighteenth century althoug, as McCrum, et al. (1992:356)

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point out , ‘the English have had a toehold on the Indian subcontinent
since the early 1600s , when newly formed East India Company
establish settlements in Madras, Calcutta, and later Bombay’. The
company’s influence increased during the eighteenth century and
culminated in a period of British sovereignty (known as ‘the Raj’) in
India lasting from 1765 to 1947. A key point was the Macaulay Minute
of 1835, which proposed the introduction in India of an English
educational system. From that time English became the language of the
Indian education system. Even today, when Hindi is the official
language of India, English is an ‘associate official language’ used
alongside Hindi as a neutral lingua franca , and has undergone a process
of Indianization in which it has developed a distinctive national
character comparable to that of American and Australian English.

British influence in South-East Asia, East Asia, and the South

Pacific began in the late eighteenth century as a result of the seafaring
expeditions of James Cook and others. The main territories involved
were Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, and the Philippines. Papua
New Guinea was also, for a shorth time , a British protectorate (1884
to 1920) , and provides one of the world’s best examples of an English-
based pidgin, TokPisin.

Stamford Raffles is the name most closely associated with British

colonialism in South-East Asia. An administrator of the British East
India Company , he played an important role in the founding of
Singapore as part of the British colonial empire in 1819. Other major
British Centres were founded around the same time in Malaysia (e.g
Penang, and Malacca) and Hong Kong was added I 1842. After the
Spanish American War at the end of the nineteenth century, the US was
granted sovereignty over the Philippines which, although gaining
independence in 1946, has retained a strong American English
influence.

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In recent years, the use of English has increased in Singapore and a
local varirty has begun to emerge. On the other hand , the use of English
has declined in Malaysia as a result of the adoption of the local
language, Bahasa Malaysia , as the national language and medium of
education when Malaysia gained independence in 1957. While still
obligatory as a subject of study at school, English was regarded as
useful only for international communication. However, there has
recently been a change of policy, with English-medium education being
reintroduced from 2003. And even before this development , the
situation was complex with, for example , radio stations, using English
and Bahasa together for a local audience (Sebba, personal
communication). Nowadays English is also learnt in other countries in
neighbouring areas, most notably Taiwan, Japan, and Korea , latter two
having recently begun to consider the possibility of making English an
official second language.

Between 1750 and 1900 the English-speaking settlements of the first

and second diasporas all underwent three similar and major changes.
Up until 1750, as Strevens (1992:29) has pointed out , the British
settlers thought of themselves as ‘English speakers from Britain who
happened to be living overseas. After this time, Strevens continues:

First, the populations of the overseas NS (native speaker) English

speaking settlements greatly increased in size and became states with
governments – albeit colonial governments – and with a growing sense
of separate identity , which soon extended to the English they used.
Second, in the United States first of all , but later in Australia and
elsewhere , the colonies began to take their independence from Britain,
which greatly reinforced the degree of linguistic difference. Third, as
the possessions stabilized and prospered, so quite large number of
people, being non-native speakers of English, had to learn to use the

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language in order to survive, or to find employment with the governing
class.

These Englishes have much in common, through their shared history

and their affinity with either British or American English. But there is
also much that is unique to each variety, particularly in terms of their
accents, but also in their idiomatic uses of vocabulary, their grammars
and their discourse strategies.

Since 1945 most of the remaining colonies have become independent

states, with English often being retained in order to provide various
internal function and/or to serve as a neutral lingua franca.

Models and description of the spread of English

The oldest model of the spread of English is that of Strevens. His world
map of English, first published in 1980, shows a map of the world on
which is superimposed an upside-down tree diagram demonstrating the
way in which, since American English became a separate variety from
British English, all subsequent Englishes have had affinities with either
one or the other.

Later in the 1980s, Kachru, McArthur and Gorlach all proposed circle
models of English: Kachru’s Three circle model of World Englishes’
(1985-1988), McArthur’s (1987) ‘ Circle of World English’ and
Gorlach’s (1988) ‘Circle model of English.’ McArthur‘s and Gorlach’s
models are similar in a number of ways. Gorlach’s circle (not shown
here) places ‘International English’ at the centre, followed by (moving
outwards): regional standard Englishes (African, Antipodean, British
Canadian, Caribbean, S. Asian, US), then semi-/sub-regional standard
Englishes such as Indian, Irish, Kenyan, Papua New Guinean, then non-
standard Englishes such as aboriginal English, Jamaican English,
Yorkshire dialect and, finally, beyond the outer rim, pidgins and creoles
such as Cameroon Pidgin English and Tok Pisin.
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McArthur’s circle has at its centre World Standard English Which, like
Gorlach’s International English, does not exist in an identifiable form
at present. Moving outwards comes next a band of regional varieties
including both standard and standardising forms. Beyond these, divided
by spokes separating the world into eight regions, is what McArthur
(1998:95) describes as ‘a crowded (even riotous) fringe of subvarities
such as Aboriginal English, Black English Vernacular [now known as
“ African American Vernacular English” or “Ebonics’], Gullah ,
Jamaican Nation Language, Singapore English and Ulster Scots’.

However, the most useful and influential, model of the spread of

English has undoubtedly been that of Kachru (1992: 356) (see Figure
A3.3). In accordance with the three-way categorisation described in the
previous section, Kachru divides World Englishes into three concentric
circles, the Inner Circle, the Outer Circle and the Expanding Circle.
The three circles ‘represent the types of spread, the patterns of
acquisition, and the functional allocation of English in diverse cultural
contexts’, as the language travelled from Britain, in the first diaspora to
the other ENL countries (together with the UK these constitute the inner
Circle), in the second diaspora to the ESL countries (the Outer Circle)
and, more recently, to the EFL countries (the Expanding Circle). The
English spoken in the inner circle) is said to be ‘norm-providing’, that
in the Outer Circle to be ‘norm-developing’ and that in the Expanding
Circle to be ‘norm-dependent’. In other words, while the ESL varieties
of English have become institutionalised and are developing their own
standards, the EFL varieties are regarded, in this model, as
'performance' varieties without any official status and therefore
dependent on the standards set by native speakers in the Inner Circle.
Kachru argues that the implications of this sociolinguistic reality of
English use around the world have gone unrecognized, and that
attitudes, power and economics have instead been allowed to dictate
English language policy.
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This situation, he considers has been facilitated by a number of fallacies
about the users and uses of English in different cultures around the
world. In B3 we will look further at this issue, which developed in the
early 1990s into a major debate carried out in the pages of the journal
English Today The three-circle model has been highly influential and
contributed greatly to our understanding of the sociolinguistic realities
of the spread of English. However despite its influence, with many
scholars, myself included, still using the three circle model as their
framework, over the past few years a number of World Englishes
scholars have identified imitations with the model in its current form.
Some of these limitations relate to recent changes in the use of English,
while others concern any attempt at a three-way categorization of
English uses and users. The main points that have been raised by
various scholars are the following:

• The model is based on geography and history rather than on the way
speakers currently identify with and use English. Yet some English
users in the Outer Circle speak it as their first language (occasionally
as their only language). Meanwhile an increasing number of speakers
in the Expanding Circle use English for a very wide range of purposes,
including social, with native speakers and even more frequently with
other non-native speakers from both their own and different L1s, and
both in their home country and abroad. As Mesthrie points out, ‘[t]he
German graduate students I taught in the cold Bavarian winter of 2005
seemed to be thoroughly at home in English’ (2008: 32, emphasis
added) In addition to this, English is increasingly being used as the
medium of instruction in both schools and universities in many
continental European countries, and more recently in Expanding Circle
Asian countries such as China.

• There is often a grey area between the Inner and Outer Circles: in
some Outer Circle countries, English may be the first language learnt

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for many people and may be spoken in the home rather than used purely
for official purposes such as education, law and government.

• There is also an increasingly grey area between the Outer and

Expanding Circles. Approximately twenty countries are in transition
from EFL to ESL status, including Argentina, Belgium, Costa Rica,
Denmark, Sudan, Switzerland (see Graddol 1997: 11 for others).

• Many World English speakers grow up bilingual or multilingual,

using different languages to fulfill different functions in their daily
lives. This makes it difficult to describe any language in their repertoire
as L1, L2, L3, and so on.

• There is a difficulty in using the model to define speakers in terms of

their proficiency in English. A native speaker may have limited
vocabulary and low grammatical competence while the reverse may be
true of a non-native speaker. The fact that English is somebody’s
second or third language does not of itself imply that their competence
is less than that of a native speaker.

(Adapted from Jenkins, 2009:2-24)

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Group Discussion 1

1. From its historical development, the number of English speakers

has jumped from 5-7 million people in 17th century to
approximately 2 billion people in 21st century. Why do you think it
is the case? Explain!
2. Explain the following types/terms:
a. English as a first language (EL1)
b. English as a second language (EL2/ESL)
c. English as a Foreign Language (EFL)
d. English as a Lingua Franca (ELF)
3. Mention some of the countries that use EL1, EL2, EFL, and ELF.
4. In Indonesia what type of English do we use?
5. What are the 2 dispersals of English? Explain them!
6. Explain models and descriptions of English spread according to:
a. Strevens (1992)
b. McArthur (1998)
c. Kachru (1992)
7. Explain the following concepts:
a. The three ‘circles’ of English
b. The Inner Circle
c. The Outer Circle
d. The Expanding Circle
8. Mention some of the countries that belong to the Inner Circle, the
Outer Circle, and the Expanding Circle.
9. Which circle does Australia belong to?
10. Which circle do you think Indonesia belongs to?

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