Global spread of English

The First dispersal

 

English is transported to the 'new world'

The first diaspora involved relatively large-scale migrations of mother-tongue English speakers from England, Scotland and Ireland predominantly to North America and the Caribbean, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand. Over time, their own English dialects developed into modern American, Canadian, West Indian, South African, Australian, and New Zealand Englishes. In contrast to the English of Great Britain, the varieties spoken in modern North America and Caribbean, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand have been modified in response to the changed and changing sociolinguistic contexts of the migrants, for example being in contact with indigenous Native American, Khoisan and Bantu, Aboriginal or Maori populations in the colonies.

The Second dispersal

 

English is transported to Asia and Africa

The second diaspora was the result of the colonization of Asia and Africa, which led to the development of 'New Englishes', the second-language varieties of English. In colonial Africa, the history of English is distinct between West and East Africa. English in West Africa began with trade. particularly the slave trade. English soon gained official status in what are today Gambia, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Nigeria and Cameroon, and some of the pidgin and creoles which developed from English contact, including Krio (Sierra Leone) and Cameroon Pidgin, have large numbers of speakers now.
As for East Africa, extensive British settlements were established in what are now Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe, where English became a crucial language of the government, education and the law. From the early 1960s, the six countries achieved independence in succession; but English remained the official language and had large numbers of second language speakers in Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Malawi (along with Chewa).
English was formally introduced to the sub-continent of South Asia (India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bhutan) during the second half of the eighteenth century. In India, English was given status through the implementation of Macaulay 'Minute' of 1835, which proposed the introduction of an English educational system in India. Over time, the process of 'Indianisation' led to the development of a distinctive national character of English in the Indian sub-continent.
British influence in South-East Asia and the South Pacific began in the late eighteenth century, involving primarily the territories now known as Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong. Papua New Guinea, also a British protectorate, exemplified the English-based pidgin - Tok Pisin.
The Americans came late in South-East Asia but their influence spread like wildfire as their reforms on education in the Philippines progressed in their less than half a century colonization of the islands. English has been taught since the American period and is one of the official languages of the Philippines. Ever since English became the official language, a localized variety gradually emerged - Philippine English. Lately, linguist Wilkinson Daniel Wong Gonzales argued that this variety has in itself more varieties, suggesting that we move towards Philippine Englishes  paradigm to progress further in Schneider's dynamic model after gathering evidences of such happening.
Nowadays, English is also learnt in other countries in neighbouring areas, most notably in Taiwan, Japan and Korea, with the latter two having begun to consider the possibility of making English their official second language.