The US started as a group of English colonies. We spoke English because we were, by blood, English. We now are the descendants of a large group of Englishmen, still speaking the language of our forefathers. A lot of us, myself included, have English blood in our veins. Why do we have less claim to the language than anyone else? Does physical location invalidate our heritage or our genetics? We're now also the largest group of native English speakers in the world. So large, in fact, that there are twice as many native English speakers in the US than in the rest of the world combined. There are over 300 million of us here now, more than the combined populations of the UK, Jamaica, Ireland, Canada, Australia, Singapore and New Zealand. Forgive me if I've forgotten any other English speaking countries, but I don't think they'd add any appreciable numbers; definitely not enough to add up to the population of the US.
Since the English like to use the argument that it's their language (forgetting that we're an offshoot of them) and the only possible point they may have is that they live in England (weak), they apparently believe that geographic location means something. Continuing in that spirit, it's time for us to stake claim to our language and rename it to "American". Since location is apparently so important, and most native speakers of this common language are in America, it's a very sensible answer.
For those of you who don't get the numbers, I've broken it all down below. My thanks to the CIA World Factbook. I came to these numbers by starting with total population and factoring in native speakers of English American when it was provided. You can find all this under the People section on each country's page. Before you complain about me adjusting the numbers, keep in mind that we took the biggest hit and lost over 50 million.
Australia - 16,295,277
Canada - 19,695,128
Ireland - 4,156,119
Jamaica - 2,804,332
New Zealand - 4,173,460
Singapore - 4,608,167
U.K. - 60,943,912
Grand Total = 112,676,395
U.S.A. - 249,440,034
Look at that, of a total of 362,116,429 speakers, we have 68.8% of them. Feel free to suggest any other native American speaking countries I may have forgotten. I can factor them in here, but don't believe you'll find the missing 136,763,640 speakers required to knock us off the throne.
Before anyone mentions India, I left them out on purpose. Yes, it is an official language there and the CIA Factbook says it "enjoys associate status" but is not learned until school age, and the amount of native speakers are negligible. There are also 40 or so other countries who list English as an official language, but I omitted them all for the same reason.
EDIT: I didn't realize people would be so passionate about this. We all know this will never happen. Let's have a friendly discussion.
Since the English like to use the argument that it's their language (forgetting that we're an offshoot of them) and the only possible point they may have is that they live in England (weak), they apparently believe that geographic location means something. Continuing in that spirit, it's time for us to stake claim to our language and rename it to "American". Since location is apparently so important, and most native speakers of this common language are in America, it's a very sensible answer.
For those of you who don't get the numbers, I've broken it all down below. My thanks to the CIA World Factbook. I came to these numbers by starting with total population and factoring in native speakers of English American when it was provided. You can find all this under the People section on each country's page. Before you complain about me adjusting the numbers, keep in mind that we took the biggest hit and lost over 50 million.
Australia - 16,295,277
Canada - 19,695,128
Ireland - 4,156,119
Jamaica - 2,804,332
New Zealand - 4,173,460
Singapore - 4,608,167
U.K. - 60,943,912
Grand Total = 112,676,395
U.S.A. - 249,440,034
Look at that, of a total of 362,116,429 speakers, we have 68.8% of them. Feel free to suggest any other native American speaking countries I may have forgotten. I can factor them in here, but don't believe you'll find the missing 136,763,640 speakers required to knock us off the throne.
Before anyone mentions India, I left them out on purpose. Yes, it is an official language there and the CIA Factbook says it "enjoys associate status" but is not learned until school age, and the amount of native speakers are negligible. There are also 40 or so other countries who list English as an official language, but I omitted them all for the same reason.
EDIT: I didn't realize people would be so passionate about this. We all know this will never happen. Let's have a friendly discussion.
Last edited by chittydog (2008-08-19 09:33:09)