English is a West Germanic language that developed in England and south-eastern

Scotland during the Anglo-Saxon era. As a result of the military, economic, scie
ntific, political, and cultural influence of the United Kingdom from the 18th ce
ntury, and of the United States since the mid 20th century,[7][8][9][10] it has
become the lingua franca in many parts of the world, and the most prominent lang
uage in international business and science.[11][12] It is used extensively as a
second language and as an official language in the European Union and many Commo
nwealth countries, as well as many international organisations.
Historically, English originated from several dialects, now collectively termed
Old English, which were brought to the eastern coast of the island of Great Brit
ain by Anglo-Saxon settlers beginning in the 5th century. English was further in
fluenced by the Old Norse language of Viking invaders.
After the time of the Norman conquest, Old English developed into Middle English
, borrowing heavily from the Norman-French vocabulary and spelling conventions.
The etymology of the word "English" is a derivation from the 12th century Old En
glish englisc or Engle, plural form Angles.[13]
Modern English developed with the Great Vowel Shift that began in 15th-century E
ngland, and continues to adopt foreign words from a variety of languages, as wel
l as coining new words. A significant number of English words, especially techni
cal words, have been constructed based on roots from Latin and Greek.
Modern English, sometimes described as the first global lingua franca,[14][15] i
s the dominant language or in some instances even the required international lan
guage of communications, science, business, aviation, entertainment, radio and d
iplomacy.[16] Its spread beyond the British Isles began with the growth of the B
ritish Empire, and by the late nineteenth century its reach was truly global.[17
] Following the British colonisation of North America, it became the dominant la
nguage in the United States and in Canada. The growing economic and cultural inf
luence of the United States and its status as a global superpower since World Wa
r II have significantly accelerated the language's spread across the planet.[15]
A working knowledge of English has become a requirement in a number of fields, o
ccupations and professions such as medicine and computing; as a consequence over
a billion people speak English to at least a basic level (see English language
learning and teaching). It is also one of six official languages of the United N
ations.
Linguists such as David Crystal recognise that one impact of this massive growth
of English, in common with other global languages, has been to reduce native li
nguistic diversity in many parts of the world, most particularly in Australasia
and North America, and its huge influence continues to play an important role in
language attrition.[18] Similarly, historical linguists, aware of the complex a
nd fluid dynamics of language change, are always aware of the potential English
contains through the vast size and spread of the communities that use it and its
natural internal variety, such as in its creoles and pidgins, to produce a new
family of distinct languages over time.[19]
Approximately 375 million people speak English as their first language.[29] Engl
ish today is probably the third largest language by number of native speakers, a
fter Mandarin Chinese and Spanish.[30][31] However, when combining native and no
n-native speakers it is probably the most commonly spoken language in the world,
though possibly second to a combination of the Chinese languages (depending on
whether or not distinctions in the latter are classified as "languages" or "dial
ects").[6][32]
Estimates that include second language speakers vary greatly from 470 million to
over a billion depending on how literacy or mastery is defined and measured.[33
][34] Linguistics professor David Crystal calculates that non-native speakers no
w outnumber native speakers by a ratio of 3 to 1.[35]
The countries with the highest populations of native English speakers are, in de
scending order: United States (215 million),[36] United Kingdom (61 million),[37
] Canada (18.2 million),[38] Australia (15.5 million),[39] Nigeria (4 million),[
40] Ireland (3.8 million),[37] South Africa (3.7 million),[41] and New Zealand (
3.6 million) 2006 Census.[42] No figure is given for the number of South African
native speakers, but it would be somewhere between the number of people who spo
ke English only (3,008,058) and the total number of English speakers (3,673,623)
, if one ignores the 197,187 people who did not provide a usable answer[citation
needed].
Countries such as the Philippines, Jamaica and Nigeria also have millions of nat
ive speakers of dialect continua ranging from an English-based creole to a more
standard version of English. Of those nations where English is spoken as a secon
d language, India has the most such speakers ('Indian English'). Crystal claims
that, combining native and non-native speakers, India now has more people who sp
eak or understand English than any other country in the world.[43][44]

Because English is so widely spoken, it has often been referred to as a "world l

anguage", the lingua franca of the modern era.[15] While English is not an offic
ial language in most countries, it is currently the language most often taught a
s a foreign language around the world. Some linguists (such as David Graddol) be
lieve that it is no longer the exclusive cultural property of "native English sp
eakers", but is rather a language that is absorbing aspects of cultures worldwid
e as it continues to grow.[15] It is, by international treaty, the official lang
uage for aerial and maritime communications.[55] English is an official language
of the United Nations and many other international organisations, including the
International Olympic Committee.
English is the language most often studied as a foreign language in the European
Union (by 89% of schoolchildren), followed by French (32%), German (18%), Spani
sh (8%), and Russian; while the perception of the usefulness of foreign language
s amongst Europeans is 68% English, 25% French, 22% German, and 16% Spanish.[56]
Among non-English speaking EU countries, a large percentage of the population c
laimed to have been able to converse in English (note that the percentages are f
or the adult population, aged 15 and above): in Sweden (85%), Denmark (83%), the
Netherlands (79%), Luxembourg (66%), Finland (60%), Slovenia (56%), Austria (53
%), Belgium (52%), and Germany (51%).[57]
Books, magazines, and newspapers written in English are available in many countr
ies around the world. English is also the most commonly used language in the sci
ences.[15] In 1997, the Science Citation Index reported that 95% of its articles
were written in English, even though only half of them came from authors in Eng
lish-speaking countries.
Because the English language has become the new global lingua franca and has som
etimes had a large impact on other languages, it has been said to have an influe
nce on language shift and even language death to other languages as they are "no
t effectively being passed on to the next generation" (Crystal, 2000)[58]. Hence
, linguists gave rise to the term "English Language Imperialism" [59]. Regardles
s of some of its effects on other languages, the English language in itself has
been the victim of language shift, especially during the Norman conquest of Engl
and. Even today, the Englishes around the world are constantly influenced by the
ir regional counterparts.[59] For this reason, the 'English language is forever
evolving' [60].
Dialects and regional varieties
Main article: List of dialects of the English language
The expansion of the British Empire and since World War II the influence of the Unit
ed States have spread English throughout the globe.[15] Because of that global s
pread, English has developed a host of English dialects and English-based creole
languages and pidgins.
Two educated native dialects of English have wide acceptance as standards in muc
h of the world one based on educated southern British and the other based on educa
ted Midwestern American. The former is sometimes called BBC (or the Queen's) Eng
lish, and it may be noticeable by its preference for "Received Pronunciation"; i
t typifies the Cambridge model, which is the standard for the teaching of Englis
h to speakers of other languages in Europe, Africa, the Indian subcontinent, and
other areas influenced either by the British Commonwealth or by a desire not to
be identified with the United States.
The latter dialect, General American, which is spread over most of the United St
ates and much of Canada, is more typically the model for the American continents
and areas (such as the Philippines) which have had either close association wit
h the United States or desire to be so identified. Aside from those two major di
alects are numerous other varieties of English, which include, in most cases, se
veral subvarieties, such as Cockney, Scouse and Geordie within British English;
Newfoundland English within Canadian English; and African American Vernacular En
glish ("Ebonics") and Southern American English within American English. English
is a pluricentric language, without a central language authority like France's
Académie française; and therefore no one variety is considered "correct" or "inc
orrect" except in terms of the expectations of the particular audience to which
the language is directed.
Scots has its origins in early Northern Middle English[61] and developed and cha
nged during its history with influence from other sources, but following the Act
s of Union 1707 a process of language attrition began, whereby successive genera
tions adopted more and more features from Standard English, causing dialectalisa
tion. Whether it is now a separate language or a dialect of English better descr
ibed as Scottish English is in dispute, although the UK government now accepts S
cots as a regional language and has recognised it as such under the European Cha
rter for Regional or Minority Languages.[62] There are a number of regional dial
ects of Scots, and pronunciation, grammar and lexis of the traditional forms dif
fer, sometimes substantially, from other varieties of English.
English speakers have many different accents, which often signal the speaker's n
ative dialect or language. For the more distinctive characteristics of regional
accents, see Regional accents of English, and for the more distinctive character
istics of regional dialects, see List of dialects of the English language. Withi
n England, variation is now largely confined to pronunciation rather than gramma
r or vocabulary. At the time of the Survey of English Dialects, grammar and voca
bulary differed across the country, but a process of lexical attrition has led m
ost of this variation to die out.[63]
Just as English itself has borrowed words from many different languages over its
history, English loanwords now appear in many languages around the world, indic
ative of the technological and cultural influence of its speakers. Several pidgi
ns and creole languages have been formed on an English base, such as Jamaican Pa
tois, Nigerian Pidgin, and Tok Pisin. There are many words in English coined to
describe forms of particular non-English languages that contain a very high prop
ortion of English words.
Constructed varieties of English
Basic English is simplified for easy international use. Manufacturers and other
international businesses tend to write manuals and communicate in Basic English.
Some English schools in Asia teach it as a practical subset of English for use
by beginners.
E-Prime excludes forms of the verb to be.
English reform is an attempt to improve collectively upon the English language.
Manually Coded English a variety of systems have been developed to represent the
English language with hand signals, designed primarily for use in deaf educatio
n. These should not be confused with true sign languages such as British Sign La
nguage and American Sign Language used in Anglophone countries, which are indepe
ndent and not based on English.
Seaspeak and the related Airspeak and Policespeak, all based on restricted vocab
ularies, were designed by Edward Johnson in the 1980s to aid international coope
ration and communication in specific areas. There is also a tunnelspeak for use
in the Channel Tunnel.
Special English is a simplified version of English used by the Voice of America.
It uses a vocabulary of only 1500 words.

As a result of such expansion, English is the most widely scattered of the great
speech communities. It is also the most commonly used auxiliary language in the
world. The United Nations uses English not only as one of its official language
s but also as one of its two working languages.