English is a West Germanic language that
was first spoken in early medieval England and is now a global lingua franca.
Named after the Angles, one of the Germanic tribes that migrated to England, it
ultimately derives its name from the Anglia peninsula in the Baltic Sea. It is
closely related to the Frisian languages, but its vocabulary has been
significantly influenced by other Germanic languages, particularly Norse (a North
Germanic language), as well as by Latin and Romance languages, especially French.
English
has developed over the course of more than 1,400 years. The earliest forms of
English, a set of Anglo-Frisian dialects brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon
settlers in the 5th century, are called Old English. Middle English began in
the late 11th century with the Norman conquest of England and was a period in
which the language was influenced by French. Early Modern English began in
the late 15th century with the introduction of the printing press to London,
the printing of the King James Bible and the start of the Great Vowel Shift.
Through
the worldwide influence of the British Empire, modern English spread around the
world from the 17th to mid-20th centuries. Through all types of printed and
electronic media, and spurred by the emergence of the United States as a global
superpower, English has become the leading language of international discourse
and the lingua franca in many regions and professional contexts such as
science, navigation and law.
English is
the third most spoken native language in the world, after Standard Chinese and Spanish.
It is the most widely learned second language and is either the official
language or one of the official languages in almost 60 sovereign states. There
are more people who have learned it as a second language than there are native
speakers. English is the most commonly spoken language in the United Kingdom,
the United States, Canada, Australia, Ireland and New Zealand, and it is widely
spoken in some areas of the Caribbean, Africa and South Asia. It is a co-official
language of the United Nations, the European Union and many other world and
regional international organizations. It is the most widely spoken Germanic
language, accounting for at least 70% of speakers of this Indo-European branch.
English has a vast vocabulary, though counting how many words any language has
is impossible.
Modern English
grammar is the result of a gradual change from a typical Indo-European
dependent marking pattern with a rich inflectional morphology and relatively
free word order to a mostly analytic pattern with little inflection, a fairly
fixed word order and a complex syntax. Modern English relies more on auxiliary
verbs and word order for the expression of complex tenses, aspect and mood, as
well as passive constructions, interrogatives and some negation. Despite
noticeable variation among the accents and dialects of English used in
different countries and regions – in terms of phonetics and phonology, and
sometimes also vocabulary, grammar and spelling – English-speakers from around
the world are able to communicate with one another with relative ease.
Why is English is so popular?
