International English the sphere of influence of English-speaking countries. Here English may serve as a useful lingua franca between ethnic and language groups. Higher education, the legislature and judiciary, national commerce, and so on, may all be carried out predominantly in English. The "expanding circle" refers to those countries where English has no official role, but is nonetheless important for certain functions, e.g. international business and tourism. By the twenty-first century, non-native English speakers have come to outnumber native speakers by a factor of three, according to the British Council. Darius Degher, a professor at Malmö University in Sweden, uses the term
Maldivian language which loan words are used varies between speakers, depending on their contacts with that language. Thus, those who have had an English education will tend to use a larger number of English words, while an average speaker with little or no contact with English will tend to use just a few. Some of these adopted words have now become so much part of the Maldivian language that there seem to be no other words that could replace them. There are different ways by which loan words are naturalised in Maldivian. This depends on whether the loan word refers to a