Greetings, intrepid followers!

I hope you’re all having a fantastic day!

I love studying languages. In fact, I took a linguistics course in college. In fact, I had also done months’ worth of research and study on the English, Spanish, French, German, Russian and Japanese languages!

Now, you might be wondering ‘why does this guy like languages so much?’

The answer is super simple: it’s a social thing. Language and all forms of expression are tied to the human experience. It is where we find our identity as we all communicate with each other. It also singles us out from other groups. Languages also build culture and history. Without language you wouldn’t be able to receive or respond to this post.

That being said, I am particularly biased towards English and its fellow Germanic languages. I discovered, through ample research, that several other nations speak English just like mine. In fact, I’ll list them now!

List of Countries with English as an official or de facto language:

• Antigua
• Australia
• Bahamas
• Barbados
• Barbuda
• Belize
• Botswana
• Burundi
• Cameroon
• Canada
• Dominica
• Federated States of Micronesia
• Fiji
• Ghana
  Grenada
• Guyana
• Ireland
• Jamaica
• Kenya
• Kiribati
• Lesotho
• Liberia
• Malawi
• Malta
• Marshall Islands
• Mauritius
• Namibia
• Nauru
• New Zealand
• Nigeria
• Palau
• Papua New Guinea
• Philippines
• Rwanda
• St Kitts
• St Lucius
• St Vincent and the Grenadines
• Samoa
• Sierra Leone
• Singapore
• Solomon Islands
• South Africa
• Swaziland
• Tanzania
• The Gambia
• Tonga
• Trinidad and Tobago
• Tuvalu
• Uganda
• United Kingdom
• United States
• Vanuatu
• Zambia
• Zimbabwe
  

Wow! I really wish I could have shrunk that list!

As you can see, the English language is spoken on every continent and this includes exotic places few have heard of. Much of these countries are former colonies of the British Empire and the United States.

What fascinates me the most about this is that there are yet more countries familiar with English though it is not official and the majority of the population doesn’t speak or write it.

List of countries with sizable English use:

• Bahrain
• Bangladesh
• Brunei
• Cyprus
• Egypt
• Eritrea
• Ethiopia
• India
• Israel
• Jordan
• Kuwait
• Malaysia

• Maldives
• Myanmar
• Niue
• Oman
• Pakistan
• Qatar
• Seychelles
• South Sudan
• Sri Lanka
• Sudan
• United Arab Emirates

This list is nothing short of astounding! I had no idea Kuwait and Seychelles had English as an official language or language of business. I thought they purely used Arabic and Seychellois respectively. As you can also tell from this list former British colonies known for strongly retaining their ethnic and linguistic identity like Myanmar and Sri Lanka have embraced the usage of English in education and business.

If you are reading this article and you’re writing from a country that widely uses English please share your thoughts. How has your experience been with the English language in your country? Do you enjoy practicing English? If not why not?

Thanks for reading.