Why English?

These days being able to master more than one language is a must. There are 6500 languages in the world and it is impossible for us to learn all of those language so we that we can communicate with others. Luckily there is a language that allow us to communicate with all people all over the world. One of the most important language to be mastered is the International language, English. English is a language that originally spoken by people in England.

 As time goes by, English developed and become the main language in several countries like Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and more than fifty other countries. English is the second most spoken language in the world, after Mandarin, with 400 million people use English as their first language and more than one billion people use English as their second language.

The development of English language started from the arrival of three Germanic tribes who invaded Britain during the 5^th Century AD. The three tribes are The Angles, The Saxons, and The Jutes, these tribes crossed the North Sea (now it is called Denmark and Northern Germany). At that time, Britain people spoke in Celtic language. Most of the Celtic speakers were pushed to west and north by the invaders, mainly into what is now Wales, Scotland and Ireland.

The Angles tribe came from Englaland and they spoke the language Englisc, that is how the words England and English were derived. There are four ages of English language, Old English, Middle English, Early Modern English, and Late Modern English.

Old English is spoken around 450-1100 AD. The invading Germanic Tribes spoke in almost the same language as Britain people at that time and it developed into Old English. If Old English is being compared with Late Modern English, it is very complex. Most of the words in Modern English is rooted from Old English, including the words water, house, earth, he, she, you and many more.  

In 1066, William the Conqueror, the Duke of Normandy, invaded and conquered England. This event leads the transition from Old English era to Middle English era. The Normans (the new conqueror) brought French into the country. For some time, there was a linguistic class division among the country. French is being spoken for the ‘upper class’, the Royal Court, the ruling, and business classes, meanwhile English is being spoken for the ‘lower class’. Starting from 14^th century, English became dominant in Britain again. In the 13^th century written works were popping up as the ‘weapon’ to opposed French. Middle English is being spoken around 1100-1500.

In the end of Middle English era, there was a sudden distinct changed in pronunciation, called The Great Vowel Shift. At that time vowels getting shorter and shorter. It gave rise to the anomaly of English pronunciation. There are some words that experiencing changes in spelling that reflect the change in pronunciation, for example, barn from bern, heart from herte, and many more. Another event that influenced the changes of innovation in English vocabulary is The Renaissance. Although the European Renaissance already begun in Italy in early 14^th century, the English Renaissance started in 16^th century. The development of English words is deliberately borrowed. At the time being, Latin is considered as the language of education and scholarship. There was a great enthusiasm for the classical language, it brought thousands new words into English (around 1600 words). As a result, there are many classical works that being translated to English and it also brought many new terms being introduced. Another event that is very important to the development of Modern English is the invention of printing. With the invention of printing, books become cheaper and more commonly available, literacy became a ‘thing’ at the time being and works in English became more popular than books in Latin. The first book that printed in English language is a work that being translated by William Caxton in 1476 called The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye. Printing also influence the standardization in English, spelling and grammar become fixed. Because most of publisher are located in London, the dialect of London became the standard. The first English dictionary also published, A Table Alphabeticall, written by Robert Cawdrey in 1604. The era of Early Modern English is occurred from 1500-1800.

Late Modern English era started from 1800 up to now, the difference between Late Modern English and Early Modern English is the vocabulary. Late Modern English got many new words from two main historical event, the Industrial Revolution and the rise of British Empire. The Industrial revolution, when it occurred, there was a need to create new words for things and ideas that have not existed before. Most of the innovations that created in Industrial revolution were British origin, including harnessing of steam to drive heavy machinery, the development of new materials, techniques and equipment in a range of manufacturing industries, and the emergence of new means of transportation, for example steamships and railways. Half of the influential scientific and technological output between 1750 and 1900 is written in English. USA, as another speaking country, also takes role of the English language dominance of new technology and innovation with some scientific inventions like electricity, telegraph, telephone, sewing machine, computer, and many more.

British Colonialism had begun from 16^th century, but they got momentum between 18^th up to 20^th century. In the end of 16^th century number of people who used English as their mother-tongue is 5-7 million people, most of them are in the British Isles. But in the next 350 years the number of speakers increased into 50 times from before and almost 80% of the speakers live outside Britain. British Empire is at its peak in the in late 19^th until early 20^th century. They ruled almost one quarter of the Earth’s surface, from Canada to Australia to India to the Caribbean to Egypt to South Africa to Singapore.

The discovery of New World also influences the spread of English world-widely. The English colonization of North America had begun in early 1600s. There were some area that are being colonialized including Jamestown, Virginia, Plymouth and Massachusetts. Meanwhile, another parts of the New World had been colonialized by French, Spanish and Dutch. English settlers like Pilgrim Fathers and the followers decided to stay in America to search for riches or trading opportunity. They also wanted to work the land, preserve their culture, religion and language, it became the significant part of the English development in North America.

The rise of English becoming international language is because of the two world wars and the rise of USA at that time being. Besides, English became the lingua franca in World War 2. USA has became one of the super-power countries. Due to that thing, cultural power also takes part of the influence. The country who have a great role in culture, academics, politics and business will influence another country to learn the language in the country who have great impact to the world.

Due to that, Hollywood movies and American music were spread all over the world and it became trend among young people. Not only American music, British bands also influenced the spread of English. The importance of American business and technological innovation also leads the door to the world to be able understand, speak, and mastering English language.

As time goes by, English become the International language and it has been used in many aspects in life. It is no surprise that in the 21^st century it is very important for people to be able understand, read, write and listen to English, especially for the younger generation that sooner or later will take part in leading the world. One out of five people at least understand English.

The younger generation, especially high school and college students need to be prepared themselves in the future. There might be changes that involve in business, science, culture and even technology in the world. For people who do not speak English as the mother language, it is important to learn English because it will help them to overcome the situation.

In Indonesia, English has been taught in formal education starting in elementary school. Since the grade of students increase, the knowledge of the language increased too. Slowly the students are being taught from the simplest thing starting from alphabets, vocabulary, grammar from the simplest form, speaking, listening also writing. English also become the measurement of students’ ability in Indonesia. Starting from secondary school, English subject is being tested for students in national examination for their graduation. It is also being tested when high school students need to enroll college.

In Indonesia, students not only learn English in the formal education, some of the students also learn English by joining courses outside school. There are some course sites that specifically teach English. There are several course sites that have big name in Indonesia, including English First (EF), Wall Street English, British Council, International Language Program (ILP), LBPP LIA, The British Institute (TBI), and English Today. Mostly, these course sites have some classes that offering TOEFL, TOEIC and IELTS preparation class for students who want to get the certification depending on their needs. English course is not only offered by joining course sites, now there are many private tutors for students that can help them to understand English better.

By learning English, of course the students will get some benefits. Because English is a foreign language, that is not in our mother-tongue language, we will get some benefits from learning a foreign language. First, learning a foreign language will boost our brain power. By learning a new language, it means that our brain has to cope with complexity of it. We have to connect new thing and absorbs new patterns in order to make it makes sense. When our brains work out the meaning and trying to communicate, we develop some learning skills such as cognitive thinking and problem-solving. Because our brain already being trained, our memory is getting also getting some improvement. Why? Because as we are learning, we trained our brain by using it more. The more we use our brain, the better it is. We were used to recall and apply the knowledge that we got previously.

We will also get another benefit that will be very useful in our daily life, enhances the ability to do multi-task. Multi-tasking is hard for some people that is not used to it and who do not do it well. But research show that multi-lingual people tend to do it well, because they have developed the ability of think in a language then move to another different language.

Learning English also will help students improve their performance in other academic areas. As we all know that English is an international language, there are some works like journals, articles, [BP14] books, that is written in English. By understanding English, it will help them understand more about their subject they are doing.

As students learning English, there will be the time they are mastering it. Mastering English will also give some benefits that is useful for their daily life. The first one, by mastering English students can get more networking skill. English as international language that is being used world-widely by people all over the world, when students learning a culture that is new to them, opening up to a new culture will make the students more flexible and appreciative towards people’s different perspective of opinion and actions.

The most important thing by mastering English is later, when the students are already graduate from school or college they will seek for job. People who is mastering a language more than their mother-tongue language  itself will have a higher chance to get the job. Multi-language people will help the communication between two companies or more that is in international scale.

Not only get their higher opportunity of getting a job, learning English will also help students to be an international student, where they get the opportunity to study abroad anywhere it is. By joining a student exchange or summer camp abroad.

It is undeniable that learning and mastering another language is very important, especially international language, English. It will have huge impacts towards their daily life.