Music IndustryHow English music has influenced the world.

• “It’s a lost cause to try to fight against the tide,” said Jacques Lévy, who studies

globalism at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne and is a native

French-speaker. English, he added, is just the latest in a line of global tongues. “It

could have been another language; it was Greek, then Latin, French, now it is

English.”

• According to research by the British Council, "English has official or special status in at least seventy-five countries with a total population of over two billion. English is spoken as a native language by around 375 million and as a second language by around 375 million speakers in the world. Speakers of English as a second language will soon outnumber those who speak it as a first language. Around 750 million people are believed to speak English as a foreign language. One out of four of the world's population speak English to some level of competence. Demand from the other three-quarters is increasing."

"English is the main language of books, newspapers, airports and air-traffic control, international business and academic conferences, science, technology, diplomacy, sport, international competitions, pop music and advertising. Over two-thirds of the world's scientists read in English. Three quarters of the world's mail is written in English. Eighty per cent of the world's electronically stored information is in English. Of the estimated forty million users of the Internet, some eighty per cent communicate in English, but this is expected to decrease to forty per cent as speakers of other languages get online."

COUNTRIES WHERE ENGLISH IS SPOKEN

United States of America• With a number of 251,388,301 native speakers.

India• With 125,344,736 speakers

Nigeria• With 79,000,000 speakers

United Kingdom• 59,600,000 speakers

Phillipiness • 48,800,000 speakers

Canada• 25,246,220 speakers

Australia• 18,172,989 speakers

• Because English is so widely spoken, it has often been referred to as a ‘world language’ , the lingua franca of the modern era, and while it is not an official language in most countries, it is currently the language most often taught as a foreign language. Some linguists believe that it is no longer the exclusive cultural property of "native English speakers", but is rather a language that is absorbing aspects of cultures worldwide as it continues to grow. It is, by international treaty, the official language for aerial and maritime communications. English is an official language of the United Nations and many other international organizations, including the International Olympic Committee.

MUSIC AND ENGLISH LANGUAGE

According to the IFPI more than 95% of the total revenue from music in

2003 was derived from the 30 major countries in the proportions shown

above, organized roughly by geographic location. In the industry, it is commonly accepted that the three major music markets are the United

States, Japan and the United Kingdom.

• The following table shows album sales and market value in the world in the 1990s–2005.

# Country Album Sales Share Share of World Market Value

1 USA 37–40% 30–35%

2 Japan 9–12% 16–19%

3 UK 7–9% 6.4–9.1%

4 Germany 7–8% 5.3–6.4%

5 France 4.5–5.5% 5.4–6.3%

6 Canada 2.6–3.3% 1.9–2.8%

7 Australia 1.5–1.8% 1.5–2.0%

8 Brazil 2.0–3.8% 1.1–3.1%

9 Italy 1.7–2.0% 1.5–2.0%

10 Spain 1.7–2.3% 1.4–1.8%

11 Netherlands 1.2–1.8% 1.3–1.8%

12 Mexico 2.1–4.6% 0.8–1.8%

13 Belgium 0.7–0.8% 0.8–1.2%

14 Switzerland 0.75–0.9% 0.8–1.1%

15 Austria 0.5–0.7% 0.8–1.0%

• COHEM, Noam, So English Is Taking Over the World, So What. New York Times, 2006.

• DIEU, Barbara, English Speaking Countries, The English Speaking Department, 2011

• GRADDOL, David, The Future of English?, The British Council. 2007

• The Music Industry. The Economist, 2008. • Itunes store. • Billboard, hot 100.