English language (origin etc..)
English
English is a West Germanic language in the Indo-European language family, whose speakers, called Anglophones, originated in early medieval England. The namesake of the language is the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the island of Great Britain. Modern English is both the most spoken language in the world and the third-most spoken native language, after Mandarin Chinese and Spanish. It is also the most widely learned second language in the world, with more second-language speakers than native speakers.
English is either the official language or one of the official languages in 59 sovereign states (such as India, Ireland, and Canada). In some other countries, it is the sole or dominant language for historical reasons without being explicitly defined by law (such as in the United States or the United Kingdom).
It is a co-official language of the United Nations, the European Union, and many other international and regional organizations. English accounts for at least 70% of total speakers of the Germanic language branch, and as of 2005, it was estimated that there were over two billion speakers worldwide.
Old English emerged from a group of West Germanic dialects spoken by the Anglo-Saxons who migrated to Britain. Late Old English borrowed some grammar and core vocabulary from Old Norse, a North Germanic language. Then, Middle English borrowed words extensively from French dialects, which make up about 28% of Modern English words, and from Latin, which also provides about 28%.
Thus, although most of its overall vocabulary comes from Romance languages, its grammar and most of its core vocabulary are Germanic, and it is genealogically still classified under the Germanic branch. It exists on a dialect continuum with Scots and then is most closely related to the Low Saxon and Frisian languages.
Overview of history
The earliest varieties of an English language, collectively known as Old English or "Anglo-Saxon", evolved from a group of North Sea Germanic dialects brought to Britain in the 5th century. Old English dialects were later influenced by Old Norse-speaking Viking settlers and invaders, starting in the 8th and 9th centuries. Middle English began in the late 11th century after the Norman Conquest of England, when considerable Old French, especially Old Norman French, and Latin-derived vocabulary were incorporated into English over some three hundred years.
Early Modern English began in the late 15th century with the start of the Great Vowel Shift and the Renaissance trend of borrowing further Latin and Greek words and roots, concurrent with the introduction of the printing press to London.
This era notably culminated in the King James Bible and the works of William Shakespeare. The printing press greatly standardized English spelling, which has remained largely unchanged since then, despite a wide variety of later sound shifts in English dialects.
Modern English has spread around the world since the 17th century as a consequence of the worldwide influence of the British Empire and the United States. Through all types of printed and electronic media in these countries, 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.
Its modern 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 and a fairly fixed subject–verb–-object word order. Modern English relies more on auxiliary verbs and word order for the expression of complex tenses, aspects, and moods, as well as passive constructions, interrogatives, and some negations.
