For other uses, see 

English (disambiguation).

English
Pronunciati /ˈɪŋɡlɪʃ/[1]
on

Ethnicity English people (see also Anglophones)

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
 North Sea Germanic
 Anglo-Frisian
 Anglic
 English
Early forms Old English

 Middle English
o Early Modern English

Writing Latin (English alphabet)

system Anglo Saxon runes (historically)
English Braille, Unified English Braille
Signed Manually coded English
forms (multiple systems)

Official status
Official 59 countries
language in 27 non-sovereign entities
show
Various organisations

Recognised Worldwide, especially in

minority
language in Greenland
Malaysia
Sri Lanka
Bahrain

Language codes

ISO 639-1 en

ISO 639-2 eng

ISO 639-3 eng

Glottolog stan1293

Linguaspher 52-ABA

e
   Regions where English is a majority native language
   Regions where English is official or widely spoken, but
not as a primary native language
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without
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Part of a series on the

English language
Topics
 English-speaking world
 As a second language
 History

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

Phonology
 Phonology (History)

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
 Namibian
 Nepali
 New Zealand
 Nigerian
 Pakistani
 Philippine
 San Andrés–Providencia
 Scottish
 Singapore
 South African
 South Atlantic
 Sri Lankan
 Trinidadian and Tobagonian
 Ugandan
 Welsh
 Zimbabwean
 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, with

its earliest forms 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 island
of Great Britain. English is genealogically West Germanic, closest related to the Low
Saxon and Frisian languages; however, its vocabulary is also distinctively influenced
by dialects of French (about 29% of modern English words) and Latin (also about 29%),
plus some grammar and a small amount of core vocabulary influenced by Old
Norse (a North Germanic language).[6][7][8] Speakers of English are called Anglophones.
The earliest forms of English, collectively known as Old English, evolved from a group of
West Germanic (Ingvaeonic) dialects brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in
the 5th century and further mutated by Norse-speaking Viking settlers starting in the 8th
and 9th centuries. Middle English began in the late 11th century after the Norman
conquest of England, when considerable French (especially Old Norman) and Latin-
derived vocabulary was incorporated into English over some three hundred years. [9]
[10] 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
into English, concurrent with the introduction of the printing press to London. This era
notably culminated in the King James Bible and plays of William Shakespeare.[11][12]