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Apr 19, 2024 · English language, a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family that is closely related to the Frisian, German, and Dutch languages. It originated in England and is the dominant language of the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Australia, Ireland, and New Zealand. It has become the world’s lingua franca.
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.
- Manually coded English, (multiple systems)
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English language, Language belonging to the Germanic languages branch of the Indo-European language family, widely spoken on six continents. The primary language of the U.S., Britain, Canada, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, and various Caribbean and Pacific island nations, it is also an official language of India, the Philippines, and many sub-Saharan African countries.
- Spoken Worldwide. A third of the world's population speaks English as a first or secondary language, over 2 billion people. Tony Reilly noted an earlier estimate in "English Changes Lives" in Britain's The Sunday Times, "There are now estimated to be 1.5 billion English speakers globally: 375 million who speak English as their first language, 375 million as a second language and 750 million who speak English as a foreign language."
- When English Was First Spoken. English derived from a Proto-Indo-European language spoken by nomads wandering Europe about 5,000 years ago. German also came from this language.
- Evolution of the English Language. In the Norman conquest in 1066, the Norman French dialect (which was French with a Germanic influence) arrived in Britain.
- Usage of Modern English. Many scholars consider the early Modern English period to have begun about 1500. During the Renaissance, English incorporated many words from Latin via French, from classical Latin (not just church Latin), and Greek.
The history of the English language is a complex tapestry of gradual developments and short, sharp shocks, of isolation and mutual influences, of borrowings and obsolescences. View All Articles. How English developed from a West German language that was brought to Britain in the mid-5th to 7th centuries AD by Anglo-Saxon migrants to the most ...
English language, a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family that is closely related to the Frisian, German, and Dutch languages. It originated in England and is the dominant language of the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Australia, Ireland, and New Zealand. It has become the world’s lingua franca.
The English language changed enormously during the Middle English period, in vocabulary, in pronunciation, and in grammar. While Old English is a heavily inflected language , the use of grammatical endings diminished in Middle English . Grammar distinctions were lost as many noun and adjective endings were levelled to -e.
