<p>The English language spread throughout the world with the development of the&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Empire">British Empire</a>&nbsp;between the late 16th and early 18th centuries. At its height, it was the&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires">largest empire in history</a>.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_literature#cite_note-FOOTNOTEFerguson2004b-10">[10]</a>&nbsp;By 1913, the British Empire held sway over 412 million people,&nbsp;23% of the world population at the time,<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_literature#cite_note-11">[11]</a>&nbsp;During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries these colonies and the&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_literature">USA</a>&nbsp;started to produce their own significant literary traditions in English. Cumulatively, over the period of 1907 to the present, numerous writers from&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Britain">Great Britain</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_literature">both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland</a>, the US, and former British colonies have received the&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Prize_in_literature">Nobel Prize for works in the English language</a>, more than in any language.</p>