English language

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For other uses, see English (disambiguation).

English

Pronunciatio /ˈɪŋɡlɪʃ/[1]

Ethnicity English people

Anglo-Saxons (historically)

Native 360–400 million (2006)[2]
speakers L2 speakers: 750 million;
as a foreign language: 600–700 million[2]

Language Indo-European
family
 Germanic
o West Germanic
 Ingvaeonic
 Angl
o-
Frisia
n
 A
n
g
l
i
c


Early forms Old English

 Middle English
o Early Modern English

Writing  Latin script (English alphabet)

system  Anglo Saxon runes (historically)
 English Braille, Unified English Braille

Signed Manually coded English

forms (multiple systems)

Official status
Official  67 countries
language in  27 non-sovereign entities
show

Various organisations

Language codes
en
ISO 639-1
eng
ISO 639-2
eng
ISO 639-3
stan1293
Glottolog
52-ABA
Linguaspher

  Regions where English is a majority native language

  Regions where English is official but not as a primary native language
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without
proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or
other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory
guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

Part of a series on the

English language

Topics

 English language
 English-speaking world
 English as a second language
 History of English

Advanced topics
  English as a lingua franca
 European language
 Modern English
 Loanwords in English
 Linguistic purism in English

Phonology
 Phonological history of English
 English phonology

Dialects
 English
 American
 Anguillian
 Antiguan
 Australian
 Bahamian
 Bajan
 Bay Islands
 Belizean
 Bermudian
 Brunei
 Burmese
 Cameroonian
 Canadian
 Caribbean
 Falkland Islands
 Fijian
 Gambian
 Guyanese
 Ghanaian
 Indian
 Irish
 Jamaican
 Kenyan
 Liberian
 Malawian
 Malaysian
  Manx
 Myanmar
 Namlish
 Nepali
 New Zealand
 Nigerian
 Pakistani
 Philippine
 San Andrés–Providencia
 Scottish
 Singapore
 South African
 South Atlantic
 Sri Lankan
 Trinidadian and Tobagonian
 Ugandan
 Welsh
 Zimbabwe
 see also: List of dialects of English

Teaching
 Teaching English as a second language
 Category:English words and phrases

Higher category: Language

 v
 t
 e

English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, originally

spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England.[3][4][5] It is named after the Angles,
one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the area of Great Britain that later
took their name, England. Both names derive from Anglia, a peninsula on the Baltic
Sea which is not to be confused with East Anglia, the Eastern part of England which
comprises the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex. English is most closely related
to Frisian and Low Saxon, while its vocabulary has been significantly influenced by
other Germanic languages, particularly Old Norse (a North Germanic language), as well
as Latin and French.[6][7][8]
English has developed over the course of more than 1,400 years. The earliest forms of
English, a group of West Germanic (Ingvaeonic) dialects brought to Great Britain
by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the 5th century, are collectively called Old English. Middle
English began in the late 11th century with the Norman conquest of England; this was a
period in which English was influenced by Old French, in particular through its Old
Norman dialect.[9][10] 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.[11]
Modern English has been spreading around the world since the 17th century by the
worldwide influence of the British Empire and the United States. Through all types of
printed and electronic media of 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.[3] 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 subject–verb–object word order
and a complex syntax.[12] 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.
English is the most spoken language in the world[13] and the third-most spoken native
language in the world, after Standard Chinese and Spanish. [14] 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
English as a second language than there are native speakers. As of 2005, it was
estimated that there were over 2 billion speakers of English.[15] English is the majority
native language in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New
Zealand and Ireland, an official language and the main language of Singapore, and it is
widely spoken in some areas of the Caribbean, Africa, South Asia, Southeast Asia and
Oceania.[16] It is a co-official language of the United Nations, the European Union and
many other world and regional international organisations. It is the most widely spoken
Germanic language, accounting for at least 70% of speakers of this Indo-European
branch. English speakers are called "Anglophones". There is much variability among
the many accents and dialects of English used in different countries and regions in
terms of phonetics and phonology, and sometimes also vocabulary, idioms, grammar,
and spelling, but it does not typically prevent understanding by speakers of other
dialects and accents, although mutual unintelligibility can occur at extreme ends of
the dialect continuum.