ABSTRACT
During the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, the number of English speakers in the world is thought to have been between five and seven million. The historical process by which English has become the world's most prominent language can be traced back to Britain's imperial times. The colonial process brought English in contact with a variety of different indigenous tongues, but it significantly did so within particular relations of power. From the late eighteenth century onwards, the emergence of different forms of nationalistic movements within the British dominions signalled the beginning of the subsequent period of decolonisation. In considering the unprecedented transformation of English into a global linguistic phenomenon in modern times, two factors have been identified: firstly, the expansionism of the British Empire during the colonial period; and secondly, the elevation of the United States to the status of world's leading political and technological superpower in the twentieth century.
