Not surprisingly, the answer to that question depends on who you ask.
While all speakers of English can generally carry on conversations with one another, differences do exists between the English that is spoken in different regions of the world. There are many other “English” speakers than those listed in the title of this article. The titled three: American, British, and Australian are how linguists categorize the dialects. There are many other countries where English is spoken with more variations in dialect than can be enumerated here.
Oh, Those Misunderstandings!
Comic relief is often associated with the misunderstandings that occur between English speakers who originate from different parts of the world. For example, an Australian referring to a cheap wine as a “plonk” wouldn’t even be allowing for a good guess at what was being said by a Brit. Likewise, an American would look askew at an Australian who referred to a pacifier as a “dummy”.
These examples illustrate some of the dissimilarities between the dialects, but the instances where different words like these would become an issue in commerce or more specifically in advertising were rare because advertising had always been regionalized. The Internet has changed that paradigm by forcing advertisers who want to communicate globally in English to take the path of least resistance by tending to use American English on their websites.
American English as Standard English
While researching this article, I came upon a couple of statistical claims that I found surprising.
“US English spelling is used in over 25% of all UK Web pages.”
- Translation Solutions ltd. http://www.your-translations.com/US-vs-UK_English.php
If true, this is a clear indication that a good number of marketers have concluded that US English is widely understood – even among locals. I suspect that by adopting US English on their websites these companies have offended the sensibilities of some local readers. It would be interesting to know if these companies have experienced any backlash over this decision.
“Language spoken by the greatest number of non-native speakers: English (250 million to 350 million non-native speakers)”
- Vistawide Languages & Cultures http://www.vistawide.com/languages/language_statistics.htm
This statistic caught my eye because the upper end of the estimate of non-native speakers is greater than the US population.
The Effects of Globalization on English
There will likely never be a definitive standard for international English, as expecting that kind of uniformity is to be dismissive of the varied influences that speakers of English around the world have had on the language. More productive than insisting on uniformity is to employ the English that will be understood by the most number of people.
Since the primary purpose of language is to communicate, the goal is to be understood. Avoiding words or phrases that are too regionalized to be recognized by non-locals is a good start. Another approach is to simplify the language that is use so as to make it more digestible to an international audience. We see this occurring all of the time, as web marketers suggest that the target reading level for web copy should be at about the 12TH grade or below.
Save the elaborate prose for that novel you’ve been writing. Write plainly for your international audience.