English belongs
to its users.

The figures behind the manifesto

LemonGrad’s English Language Statistics reports the following estimates, attributed to Ethnologue’s 25th edition released in 2022. The table preserves the date of those estimates rather than presenting the figures as a new count. The independent sources discussed below provide a broader basis for the manifesto’s argument about a shared audience.

Dividing 1.080 billion by 1.453 billion gives a non-native share of approximately 74.3%. Dividing 1,080 million by 373 million gives approximately 2.9 non-native speakers for every native speaker. These calculations use the figures reported by LemonGrad.

The estimates describe speaker populations. My conclusion concerns teaching and writing for that audience. Shared use should lead us to teach dependable ways of expressing meaning and making connections explicit.

Independent evidence and the scope of the figures

The historical LemonGrad table is a secondary account of figures attributed to Ethnologue. For a more recent research context, the 2026 Global Englishes research agenda locates most English users outside traditional native-speaker contexts and discusses communicative effectiveness as a teaching goal. That source supports the relevance of a shared international audience without providing a new global census. I use the dated table to illustrate the scale of the earlier estimates and the newer research to examine the implications for teaching.

The European Commission’s 2024 Eurobarometer publication reports that 47% of Europeans speak English as a foreign language. The survey concerns the European Union and records reported language ability, so the figure must not be treated as a global speaker share. In relation to my teaching in the Netherlands, the regional finding provides a further reason to prepare learners for communication across first languages. The point is the audience the writing serves, rather than the impression created by a large number.

1. Which native English should the world imitate?

The phrase “a native speaker” describes a relationship with a language, not a qualification in every use of that language. A native speaker may be an excellent storyteller and a poor technical writer. Another may write precise reports but struggle to explain those reports to an audience with different linguistic experience. We need to assess the actual communication rather than infer competence from the label.

Standard English does not mean one accent or one uniform way of speaking. In his account of Standard English, Peter Trudgill distinguishes the standard dialect from pronunciation and describes most native speakers as acquiring a nonstandard variety. A speaker can use standard grammar with a regional accent, and a regional dialect has grammatical patterns of its own. Everyday variation is not evidence that almost everyone speaks defective English. The problem is the claim that one undifferentiated native model can guide the whole world.

The word “standard” still does useful work. A recognised written variety can give a professional community dependable conventions. That usefulness does not turn every native speaker into a representative of the variety, or make every standard construction equally effective for every reader. I want a teacher to explain what a construction achieves, rather than end the discussion with the claim that native speakers use the construction.

Native speakers belong in the international conversation, with the same responsibility to make meaning accessible as every other participant. Familiarity with a local expression may conceal how much background knowledge the expression requires. A multilingual reader may understand the subject perfectly well while finding that expression obscure. The writer should adapt to the shared audience instead of treating the reader’s unfamiliarity as a deficiency.

2. A global language needs an explicit basis for agreement.

English already has a substantial grammatical inheritance. A reader can usually recognise familiar patterns across established varieties, and a professional field can maintain detailed conventions of its own. My concern is not an absence of grammar. The missing settlement is a universally accepted account of which choices should guide English specifically as a shared international language.

Barbara Seidlhofer’s 2001 paper on describing English as a lingua franca challenged the continued dependence of teaching targets on native-speaker norms. That paper called for research treating lingua franca users as language users in their own right. The subsequent 2026 Global Englishes research agenda emphasises adaptation to interlocutors and communicative effectiveness. My proposal for more explicit teaching conventions is a contribution to that debate, not a claim that the research has endorsed one universal rulebook.

A useful agreement should give the writer reasons for choosing a construction. A teacher should be able to show the relationship expressed by a word, the group selected by a clause or the action assigned to a subject. A learner should be able to apply that explanation to a new sentence. The standard I want is accountable to those practical tasks.

My proposed “non-native grammar” places the needs of additional-language users at the centre of those decisions. The name describes the audience shaping the teaching, not a single dialect spoken by all non-native users. A learner should not have to imitate one national community to participate confidently in a global exchange. A native speaker should learn the same discipline of making relationships explicit.

3. The majority must help shape the future.

A language used across different communities develops through use. The British Council’s Future of English discussion places English within a multilingual world and relates proficiency to particular contexts and tasks. That perspective changes whose experience deserves attention. Successful communication between additional-language users should inform teaching directly, rather than appear only as a departure from a native model.

A global majority does not share one first language, one cultural background or one set of communication needs. No single alternative dialect can represent that diversity automatically. The way forward requires explicit proposals, practical testing and a willingness to revise a recommendation that fails the audience. My principles must meet that test as well.

I use UK English on this website because a consistent written variety provides a useful working basis. That choice does not give British usage exclusive authority over international English. A proposed convention should earn acceptance through the meaning the convention makes available and the work the convention helps people complete. The future utility of English depends on a shared capacity to communicate, not on reproducing a birthplace.

4. Teach communication for the audience learners will meet.

The research agenda Global Englishes: Research agendas and tasks in English as a lingua franca (2026) discusses teaching directed towards communicative effectiveness in multilingual settings. My proposal builds on that communicative goal by emphasising shared conventions and explicit meaning. English teaching should prepare learners to communicate with people who bring different first languages to the exchange. The practical goal is to convey an intended meaning, understand another person’s meaning and recognise when further explanation is needed.

For writing, I begin with the sentence core and the paragraph’s purpose. Learners identify the subject and main verb, check the evidence behind a claim and explain the connection between consecutive sentences. A topic sentence should give the reader an accurate expectation of the paragraph.

Feedback should name the problem and explain the reason for a revision. A learner who understands why a sentence works can apply the principle to a new text. Correction without explanation gives the learner much less to use.

Assessment should also reflect the intended task. Can a reader identify the claim? Can the reader follow the sequence of ideas? Does the language distinguish an observation from an explanation? Does the text achieve the purpose? Teachers can teach variety, idiom and literary technique while explaining when each choice serves the audience. The basis for a choice should remain the reader’s needs and the effect the writer intends.

5. My writing principles follow from this foundation.

The practical essays on this website turn this manifesto into decisions a writer can examine. A grammatical distinction deserves attention when the distinction helps an international reader identify the intended meaning. The recommendations below connect particular choices with that responsibility, while keeping accepted usage separate from my stricter teaching preferences.

• Write a complete, purposeful sentence. Give the sentence a clear core and use full stops to mark complete sentences.
• Name the subject. Replace empty openings and unnamed references with the actor, event or claim that the reader needs.
• Name the reference. Follow a pointer with a useful shell noun so the reader knows which earlier idea the next sentence develops.
• Explain connections explicitly. Prefer a structure that names a cause, contrast or consequence over punctuation that leaves the relationship to inference.
• Avoid the em dash. Choose complete sentences and precise connections instead of a mark whose flexible functions can leave the intended relationship uncertain.
• Use full forms instead of contractions. Consistent, explicit wording supports the deliberate register I use in teaching and professional writing.
• Develop a real paragraph. Give the point a beginning, middle and end through at least three complete sentences.
• Choose a dependable comma practice. Make the grouping explicit rather than treating a publisher’s convention as a badge of sophistication.
• Let the ending carry the list. Establish a short subject and the main action before introducing the items.
• Build the list from short to long. Give the fullest item room at the ending while protecting the meaning and order of the information.
• Name the link between ideas. Use descriptive wording that identifies the relevant cause, comparison or obstacle.
• Keep the preposition beside “whom”. Present a relationship through a complete pairing such as “for whom” or “to whom”.
• Identify the group. Distinguish a clause that selects a group from a clause that adds information about an established group.
• Name the cause. Prefer “because” for a reason while retaining “since” for a starting point in time.
• Separate the condition from the question. Use “whether” to make an unresolved alternative explicit.
• Specify the requirement. State whether an instruction requires both options, permits either option or excludes a combination.
• Place the description beside the right subject. Give a modifying phrase a clear connection to the person, thing or action the phrase describes.

Some recommendations concern grammar. Other recommendations are stricter editorial choices that I make for effectiveness. Every recommendation should come with an explanation of the reader’s task and the change achieved by revision.

6. Creativity carries a responsibility to the reader.

Writers can be inventive in the ideas, examples, observations and arguments the writing brings to the reader. I want that invention to reach the audience through dependable language. Personal style should almost never outrank effective communication. A writer who bends or ignores a common convention asks the reader to recognise a new signal. The writer needs a compelling reason to place that additional demand on the audience.

Literary writing can pursue a particular voice or effect through an unusual structure. A deliberate technique still needs to achieve the intended effect for the intended reader. A claim of personal style does not explain why an unclear sentence deserves to remain unclear.

English has reached a unique historical position, but worldwide reach does not automatically produce a shared understanding of how the language should serve its users. A language used predominantly by additional-language speakers cannot sensibly make imitation of an unspecified native speaker its highest ambition. The teaching must answer to the people who need English to work. English belongs to its users, and the future of English must be built around that responsibility.