Chapter 1, An English-Speaking World Summary and Analysis

English has an impressive history of success. English did not exist two thousand years ago and five hundred years, later the precursor tongue, Englisc, was spoken by as many people as Cherokee is today. A thousand years later, Shakespeare was in his prime and English was spoken by five to seven million. Four hundred years later, English is spoken by 750 million although only half of them speak it as their first language. English is undoubtedly the language of the planet. It has the richest vocabulary at about five hundred thousand words. English has few rivals such as Chinese, Spanish, Arabic, Russian, German, and Japanese, but no equals. English has become a vital alternative language in many countries, and in some cases like in India, often unifying them.

The story of English contains a conflict between...