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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

English

Pronunciation /ˈɪŋɡlɪʃ/[1]

Native to United Kingdom, Anglo-America, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand and other
locations in the English-speaking world

Speakers L1: 380 million (2023)[2]

L2: 1.077 billion (2023)[3]
Total: 1.457 billion

Language family Indo-European

  Germanic
o West Germanic
 North Sea Germanic
 Anglo-Frisian
 Anglic
 English

Early forms Proto-Indo-European

 Proto-Germanic
o Old English
 Middle English
 Early Modern English

Writing system  Latin (English alphabet)

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

Signed forms Manually coded English

(multiple systems)

Official status

Official language in  58 countries

 31 non-sovereign entities
show

Various organisations

Recognised minority  Malaysia

language in  Sri Lanka

Language codes

en
ISO 639-1

eng
ISO 639-2

eng
ISO 639-3

stan1293
Glottolog

52-ABA
Linguasphere

Countries and territories where English is the native language of the majority
 Countries and territories where English is an official or administrative language but not a majority
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-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

 American
 Anguillian
 Antarctic
 Antiguan and Barbudan
 Australian
 Bahamian
 Bajan
 Bangladeshi
 Bay Islands
 Belizean
 Bermudian
 British
 Brunei
 Cameroonian
 Canadian
  Caribbean
 Cornish
 England
 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
 Sierra Leonean
 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

 v
 t
 e
English is a West Germanic language in the Indo-European language family, whose
speakers, called Anglophones, originated in early medieval England.[4][5][6] 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[7] and the third-most spoken native language,
after Mandarin Chinese and Spanish.[8] 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 in 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 United Kingdom).[9] 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 language
of diplomacy, science, international trade, tourism, aviation, entertainment and
the internet.[10] 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.[11]

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.[12][13][14] Then, Middle English borrowed words
extensively from French dialects, which make up about 28% of Modern English
vocabulary, and from Latin, which also provides about 28%.[15] Thus, although most
of its total vocabulary now comes from Romance languages, its grammar,
phonology, and most commonly-used words keep it genealogically classified under
the Germanic branch. English exists on a dialect continuum with Scots and then is
most closely related to the Low Saxon and Frisian languages.

Classification

Anglic languages
English
Scots
within the Anglo-Frisian languages, which also include
Frisian (West, North, Saterland);
within the North Sea Germanic languages, which also include
Low German/Saxon;
within the West Germanic languages, which also include
Dutch in Europe and Afrikaans in Africa
...... German (High):
Central; in Lux.: Luxembourgish
Upper

...... Yiddish A family tree of the West

Germanic language family
English is an Indo-European language and belongs to the West Germanic group of
the Germanic languages.[16] Old English originated from a Germanic tribal
and linguistic continuum along the Frisian North Sea coast, whose languages
gradually evolved into the Anglic languages in the British Isles, and into the Frisian
languages and Low German/Low Saxon on the continent. The Frisian languages,
which together with the Anglic languages form the Anglo-Frisian languages, are the
closest living relatives of English. Low German/Low Saxon is also closely related,
and sometimes English, the Frisian languages, and Low German are grouped
together as the Ingvaeonic (North Sea Germanic) languages, though this grouping
remains debated.[13] Old English evolved into Middle English, which in turn evolved
into Modern English.[17] Particular dialects of Old and Middle English also developed
into a number of other Anglic languages, including Scots[18] and the
extinct Fingallian dialect and Yola language of Ireland.[19]

Like Icelandic and Faroese, the development of English in the British Isles isolated it
from the continental Germanic languages and influences, and it has since diverged
considerably. English is not mutually intelligible with any continental Germanic
language, differing in vocabulary, syntax, and phonology, although some of these,
such as Dutch or Frisian, do show strong affinities with English, especially with its
earlier stages.[20]

Unlike Icelandic and Faroese, which were isolated, the development of English was
influenced by a long series of invasions of the British Isles by other peoples and
languages, particularly Old Norse and Norman French. These left a profound mark of
their own on the language, so that English shows some similarities in vocabulary and
grammar with many languages outside its linguistic clades—but it is not mutually
intelligible with any of those languages either. Some scholars have argued that
English can be considered a mixed language or a creole—a theory called the Middle
English creole hypothesis. Although the great influence of these languages on the
vocabulary and grammar of Modern English is widely acknowledged, most
specialists in language contact do not consider English to be a true mixed
language.[21][22]

English is classified as a Germanic language because it shares innovations with

other Germanic languages such as Dutch, German, and Swedish.[23] These shared
innovations show that the languages have descended from a single common
ancestor called Proto-Germanic. Some shared features of Germanic languages
include the division of verbs into strong and weak classes, the use of modal verbs,
and the sound changes affecting Proto-Indo-European consonants, known
as Grimm's and Verner's laws. English is classified as an Anglo-Frisian language
because Frisian and English share other features, such as the palatalisation of
consonants that were velar consonants in Proto-Germanic (see Phonological history
of Old English § Palatalization).[24]