Speakers of English

Why is it difficult to decide how many speakers of English there are around the world today?
Introduction
A language is a socio-cultural aspect of any given society. It is important to note that languages tend to evolve thereby making it impossible to establish their evolutionary paths and developments. As a result, there have been enormous challenges in the attempt to establish the historical path of such languages. With English language, the situation becomes even worse simply because it is widely spoken across the globe. With the introduction of colonialism across the globe, the language was promoted in different societies thereby becoming a critical part of global communication. This essay seeks to establish why it has become very difficult to decide how many speakers of English we have in the world today.
Deciding the Number of English Speakers Today
English is the language spoken by many people internationally. It is the means of communication for different people across the work. This has helped to remove the cultural aspects and foundations of the language as established in England where it originated (Seargeant & Swann, 2012, p. 3). According to different scholars, the use of the world ‘English’ seems misplaced because it does not significantly offer the root where it originated. However, this is never a major challenge. The main challenge arises from the need and idea to define who ought to be an original English speaker, and to what level that individual can be considered a native speaker (Crystal, 2003, p. 49).
The first approach to achieve this is to have a clear understanding that a language is a living entity and will significantly change over time. This means that English language has been changing over the years. In an attempt to disseminate the original speaker, there will definitely be various obstacles making it impossible to realize the challenges faced (Seargeant & Swann, 2012, p. 6). According to Chomsky, the first approach entails the use of linguistic rules to determine the original speakers of a language. The first thing is the issue of proficiency. In an attempt to define somebody as a user and speaker of a certain language, the important thing is to understand how an individual is fluent with a particular language. The proficiency with a language like English will be critical towards realizing the greatest gains.
With somebody’s proficiency, it becomes much easier to judge whether the individual can be considered a speaker of the specific language. However, for English language, the situation becomes rather hard bearing in mind that a set of varieties of the language have evolved and used differently in different societies across the world. The issue of standard remains critical for a given language (Seargeant & Swann, 2012, p. 36). The important thing is for an individual to be able to apply the laws of the language unconditionally if he/she is to be qualified a natural speaker. This will be a better approach towards ensuring the expectations are realized. However, it becomes much complicated when the different non-natives speak the language unconditionally. This makes it impossible to ascertain for sure who can be a speaker on non-speaker of the language.
The approach of using speech communities is another criterion that can be used to determine a set of people speaking a given language. According to linguists and expects, discourses communities existing in a given area can be a critical approach towards determining those individuals who seem to be the original speakers of the language (Crystal, 2003, p. 65). However, caution is necessary because what might be considered acceptable in one community might not be applied elsewhere. It would be necessary to have the necessary considerations and ensure the original speakers have been accurately identified. The approach can be criticized because it tends to appeal to the social structure other that the linguistic tests.
After observing the number of speakers in a given society, the next important thing is to establish those speakers who can be counted as English people. It therefore becomes impossible to decide when a given form of language exists because English is rather complex and different in our world today. There are various social and cultural aspects that have evolved with these languages thereby calling for the best approaches to ascertain when a language would be considered original (Crystal, 2003, p. 75). When this approach is identified and applied, it might be possible to adopt the best strategies and probably be able to ascertain the real speakers of the language.
English is one of the languages that has been observed to differ significantly when it comes to its phonological patterns, lexical approaches, grammar and semantically. This makes it impossible to ascertain when the original language is carefully understood. The use of the criterion might be relevant towards ensuring the greatest gains have been realized while trying to determine the possible number of English speakers in the world today. It is clearly notable that English language has developed differently with various dialects adopted for different societies. This makes the language complex to determine based on these mainstream differences and varieties (Fought, 2003, p. 84).
The use of dialects can be relevant towards the possible originality and semblance of a given language. During the process, the cultural and social aspects of any given language will definitely remain critical towards determining those individuals who can be considered speakers of English. English has emerged with various hybrid languages such as Manglish and Hinglish. This makes it impossible to determine the original structures of the languages. With various populations occupying different parts of the globe, it would be relevant to come up with new strategies and approaches through which the current language issue can be studied in details (Freeborn, 2006, p. 27).
With the language spoken in different regions across the world, the issue of influence and change has been faced because languages are living entities capable of changing over time. This makes it rather impossible to adopt the relevant mechanisms and strategies towards addressing some of the major challenges affecting the study of languages today. The best approach, therefore, would entail considering the lexical and sentimental aspects of the language and ascertain its originality accurately (Seargeant & Swann, 2012, p. 71). This will make it possible to identify the speakers of the language and determine the originality of the language among different speakers. With the language spoken widely across the world, it is impossible to decide who can count as a speaker of English. However, using some of the views and approaches identified above can be critical towards getting the right number of individuals who can be termed as English speakers across the world.
Conclusion
Towards successful study and analyses of a language like English, there is need to have a clear cultural, historical and political understanding to be in a position of determining how a given language can be deciphered as original. This will also look at the various numbers of speakers and their demographic patterns. The approach will make it easier to determine the number of people who can be termed as original English speakers. However, the challenges and obstacles are rather enormous simply because English language is a wide family of people across the globe. The trick is establishing the ‘Englishness’ of these speakers and thereby be able to determine the number of English speakers in our world today.

Bibliography
Crystal, D 2003. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of The English Language (2nd edn), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Fought, C 2003. Chicano English in Context, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke.
Freeborn, D 2006. From Old English to Standard English, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke.
Seargeant, P & Swann, J 2012. English in the World: History, Diversity, Change, Rutledge, New York.

Bibliography: Crystal, D 2003. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of The English Language (2nd edn), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Fought, C 2003. Chicano English in Context, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke. Freeborn, D 2006. From Old English to Standard English, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke. Seargeant, P & Swann, J 2012. English in the World: History, Diversity, Change, Rutledge, New York.