English is spoken today on all five continents as a result of colonial expansion in the last four centuries or so. The colonial era is now definitely over but its consequences are only too clearly to be seen in the presence of English as an official and often native language in many of the former colonies along with more or less strongly diverging varieties which arose in particular socio-political conditions, so-called pidgins which in some cases later developed into creoles. Another legacy of colonialism is where English fulfills the function of a lingua franca (a general means of communication) since there are many different and mutually unintelligible languages and a need for a supra regional means of communication.
English has also come to play a central role as an international language. There are a number of reasons for this, of which the economic status of the United States is certainly one of the most important nowadays. Internal reasons for the success of English in the international arena can also be given: a little bit of English goes a long way as the grammar is largely analytic in type so that it is suitable for those groups who do not wish to expand great effort on learning a foreign language.
Present day geographical distribution English is spoken on all five continents. With regard to numbers of speakers it is only exceeded by Chinese (in its various forms) and Spanish. But in terms of geographical spread it stands at the top of the league. The distribution is a direct consequence of English colonial policy, starting in Ireland in the late 12th century and continuing well into the 19th century, reaching its peak at the end of the reign of queen Victoria and embodied in the saying ’the sun never sets on the British empire’.