English is spoken all over the world nowadays and it is the official language of many countries like Belize, Kenya or Zimbabwe. In the UK English is said to be the official language de facto but not de jure (which means it is a fact that everyone uses English but it is not a legal obligation). For example the official language in Wales is Welsh and in Scotland quite a few people speak Scots or Gaelic. If you have watched the series Outlander, you will have heard the Scottish characters speak Gaelic. In the USA there is no official language either, even though in 32 out of the 50 states English has become the official language. In Australia, like in the UK there is no official language but English is the de facto official language.
Any country wanting to join The Commonwealth has to accept the use of English "as the medium of inter-Commonwealth relations". In former British colonies, English remains widely spoken. In India for example, English is said to be the Associate official language along with Hindi. According to the Harvard Business Review, "English is now the global language of business". Business partners with no common language will readily use English to communicate.
The main UK institution in charge of teaching English abroad is the British Council. It is supposed to "build connections, understanding and trust between people in the UK and other countries through arts and culture, education and the English language." Some people even see it as a tool to increase Britain's soft power in the world. A 2018 article in The Guardian claimed that "No language in history has dominated the world quite like English."
However English is not a homogeneous language. There are wide regional differences in accent and vocabulary in the UK and according to The British Library "The UK is a rich landscape of regional accents and dialects". This linguistic landscape includes the Geordie dialect of Newcastle, Caribbean English but also The Queen's English, which was once considered to be typically English. In 2017, the BBC launched BBC Pidgin for its African audiences. Pidgin is defined as a mixture of English and local languages. It is primarily an oral language, used in places like Nigeria, Ghana or Equatorial Guinea. A Guardian journalist in 2017 pointed out that many people might wonder "why the world’s foremost exponent of the Queen’s English, the BBC World Service, is investing in what is often called “broken English”. However the journalist explains that "pidgin is so much more. It is the widely spoken (and wildly inventive) lingua franca of much of west and central Africa."
Needless to say there are also vast differences between British English and American English, and also regional differences in the US. The "southern drawl", for example, "outside the South is considered a serious speech impediment" (Chicago Tribune February 5, 2018). In the South, the writer of this article explains "ten" rhymes with "tin", or "can't" rhymes with "paint". Some people wonder how long English will still prevail in the US, which has a growing population of native speakers of Spanish. Since Trump was elected, some people have openly shown their resentment of Hispanics in the US by demanding that the use of Spanish be limited in the US. "This is a country where we speak English. It's English. You have to speak English!" Donald Trump repeated during his 2016 US presidential campaign.
