English language
| English | |
|---|---|
| Pronunciation | /ˈɪŋɡlɪʃ/ ING-lish[1] |
| Native to | The English-speaking world, including the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, Liberia, Guyana and others |
| Speakers | L1: 380 million (2021)[2] |
Indo-European
| |
| Dialects |
|
| |
Signed forms | Manually coded English (multiple systems) |
| Official status | |
Official language in | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-1 | en |
| ISO 639-2 | eng |
| ISO 639-3 | eng |
| Glottolog | stan1293 |
| Linguasphere | 52-ABA |
Regions where English is the native language of the majority
Regions where English is an official language, but not a majority native language | |
English is a West Germanic language that emerged in early medieval England and has since become a global lingua franca.[4][5][6] The namesake of the language is the Angles, one of the Germanic peoples who migrated to Britain after the end of Roman rule. English is the most spoken language in the world, primarily due to the global influences of the former British Empire (succeeded by the Commonwealth of Nations) and the United States. It is the most widely learned second language in the world, with more second-language speakers than native speakers. However, English is only the third-most spoken native language, after Mandarin Chinese and Spanish.[3]
English is either the official language, or one of the official languages, in 57 sovereign states and 30 dependent territories, making it the most geographically widespread language in the world. In the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, and New Zealand, it is the dominant language for historical reasons without being explicitly defined by law.[7] It is a co-official language of the United Nations, the European Union, and many other international and regional organisations. It has also become the de facto lingua franca of diplomacy, science, technology, international trade, logistics, tourism, aviation, entertainment, and the Internet.[8] Ethnologue estimated that there were over 1.4 billion speakers worldwide as of 2021.[3]
Old English emerged from a group of West Germanic dialects spoken by the Anglo-Saxons. Late Old English borrowed some grammar and core vocabulary from Old Norse, a North Germanic language.[9][10][11] Then, Middle English borrowed vocabulary extensively from French dialects, which are the source of approximately 28 percent of Modern English words, and from Latin, which is the source of an additional 28 percent.[12] While Latin and the Romance languages are thus the source for a majority of its lexicon taken as a whole, English grammar and phonology retain a family resemblance with the Germanic languages, and most of its basic everyday vocabulary remains Germanic in origin. English exists on a dialect continuum with Scots; it is next-most closely related to Low Saxon and Frisian.
- ^ Oxford Learner's Dictionary 2015, Entry: English – Pronunciation.
- ^ "What are the top 200 most spoken languages?". Ethnologue. 2023. Archived from the original on 18 June 2023. Retrieved 3 October 2023.
- ^ a b c English at Ethnologue (26th ed., 2023)
- ^ The Routes of English.
- ^ Crystal 2003a, p. 6.
- ^ Wardhaugh 2010, p. 55.
- ^ Crystal 2003b, pp. 108–109.
- ^ Chua, Amy (18 January 2022). "How the English Language Conquered the World". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 1 March 2022.
- ^ Finkenstaedt, Thomas; Dieter Wolff (1973). Ordered profusion; studies in dictionaries and the English lexicon. C. Winter. ISBN 978-3-533-02253-4.
- ^ Bammesberger 1992, p. 30.
- ^ Svartvik & Leech 2006, p. 39.
- ^ Burnley, David (1992). "Lexis and Semantics". In Blake, Norman (ed.). The Cambridge History of the English Language. pp. 409–499. doi:10.1017/chol9780521264754.006. ISBN 978-1-139-05553-6.
Latin and French each account for a little more than 28 per cent of the lexis recorded in the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (Finkenstaedt & Wolff 1973)