The English language, we know, till today has a history of about six hundred years. For half that time, English was just the language of the English living in England. The modern English language grew by about the year 1400. Many words were borrowed from French such as salon, madam and German such as wagon. As people from Europe traveled outside Europe, European languages began to be used in other parts of the world.
Today in the world, more than one billion of people speak English. Generally the English-speaking countries can be divided into three groups. The first group are those countries with English as their mother tongue, such as England, America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand. The second group are those bilingual countries or areas, with English as one of the two official languages, such as Hong Kong, Singapore, India, Nigeria. The third group are those which use English as a very important language in communication with other countries, such as China, Japan, Thailand. ii. Englishes with Local colors
So English is an international language. Its spread is followed with the expansion of English colonization since 300 or 400 years ago. When the English language was taken to the colonies, it would be influenced more or less by the native culture and society. It was changed and formed different Englishes. For example, in Australian English, there are some special vocabulary, such as paddock (草地), kangaroo, dingo (澳洲野狗). And there are the differences in pronunciations. For example, Australian English’s pronunciation of the sentence “Today is Friday” sounds like “To die is fry die”.
But at present the most popular Englishes are British English and American English. Till now there are one billion people speaking British English and 240 million people speak American English. Canada and America are both American-English-speaking countries.