12/22/2020 English language - Wikipedia

English language
English is a West Germanic language first spoken in early medieval
England which eventually became the leading language of international English
discourse in today's world.[4][5][6] It is named after the Angles, one of Pronunciation /ˈɪŋɡlɪʃ/[1]
the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the area of Great Britain Region British Isles
that later took their name, England. Both names derive from Anglia, a (originally)
peninsula on the Baltic Sea. English is most closely related to Frisian English-speaking
and Low Saxon, while its vocabulary has been significantly influenced world
by other Germanic languages, particularly Old Norse (a North Ethnicity Anglo-Saxons
Germanic language), as well as Latin and French.[7][8][9] (historically)
Native speakers 360–
English has developed over the course of more than 1,400 years. The
400 million (2006)[2]
earliest forms of English, a group of West Germanic (Ingvaeonic) L2 speakers:
dialects brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the 5th 750 million;
century, are collectively called Old English. Middle English began in the as a foreign
late 11th century with the Norman conquest of England; this was a language: 600–
period in which English was influenced by Old French, in particular 700 million[2]
through its Old Norman dialect.[10][11] Early Modern English began in Language family Indo-European
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 Germanic
Vowel Shift.[12] West Germanic

Modern English has been spreading around the world since the 17th Ingvaeonic
century by the worldwide influence of the British Empire and the Anglo-Frisian
United States. Through all types of printed and electronic media of Anglic
these countries, English has become the leading language of
international discourse and the lingua franca in many regions and English
professional contexts such as science, navigation and law.[4] Modern
Early forms Old English
English grammar is the result of a gradual change from a typical Indo-
European dependent marking pattern, with a rich inflectional Middle English
morphology and relatively free word order, to a mostly analytic pattern Early Modern
with little inflection, a fairly fixed subject–verb–object word order and English
a complex syntax.[13] Modern English relies more on auxiliary verbs Writing system Latin script (English
and word order for the expression of complex tenses, aspect and mood, alphabet)
as well as passive constructions, interrogatives and some negation.
Anglo Saxon runes
(historically)
English is the largest language by number of speakers,[14] and the third
most-spoken native language in the world, after Standard Chinese and English Braille,
Unified English
Spanish.[15] It is the most widely learned second language and is either
Braille
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 Signed forms Manually coded
language than there are native speakers. As of 2005, it was estimated English
that there were over 2 billion speakers of English.[16] English is the (multiple systems)
majority native language in the United States, the United Kingdom, Official status
Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Ireland, and it is widely spoken in Official language in 67 countries
some areas of the Caribbean, Africa, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and
27 non-sovereign
Oceania.[17] It is a co-official language of the United Nations, the
entities
European Union and many other world and regional international
Various
organisations. It is the most widely spoken Germanic language,
accounting for at least 70% of speakers of this Indo-European branch. organisations

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