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
Names given to the Spanish language called "el idioma de Cervantes" in a book published in 1830, and in another one published in 1838. Occasionally the term refers to the language of Spanish Golden Age literature generally, rather than simply to that of Cervantes. "The language of Cervantes" in English—as a term for the Spanish language generally—comes into use in the 1840s. Examples appear in Janin (1841) and Campbell (1849). The poet Gonzalo de Berceo, writing in the 13th century, used the phrase "román paladino" to mean simple, straightforward language, the language spoken by the common people, as opposed to Latin. In the famous passage from