English language

English is  a  originating in, and the  for most people in , , the , , , the  and the  (also commonly known as the ). It is used extensively as a and as an  throughout the world, especially in  countries and in many s.

Modern English is sometimes described as the global. English is the  in s,, , , ,  and. The influence of the is the primary reason for the initial spread of the language far beyond the. Following World War II, the growing economic and cultural influence of the United States has significantly accelerated the adoption of English.

A working knowledge of English is required in certain fields, professions, and occupations. As a result over a billion people speak English at least at a basic level (see ). English is one of six official languages of the.

History
English is an. -speaking peoples from northwest Germany ( and ) and  invaded what is now known as Eastern England around the fifth century AD. It is a matter of debate whether the  spread by displacement of the original population, or the native  gradually adopted the language and culture of a new ruling class, or a combination of both of these processes (see ).

Whatever their origin, these Germanic dialects eventually coalesced to a degree (there remained geographical variation) and formed what is today called Old English. Old English loosely resembles some coastal dialects in what are now northwest Germany and the Netherlands (i.e., ). Throughout the history of written Old English, it retained a structure closer to that of, largely adopting  scribal conventions, while spoken Old English became increasingly  in nature, losing the more complex noun case system, relying more heavily on prepositions and fixed word order to convey meaning. This is evident in the Middle English period, when literature was to an increasing extent recorded with spoken dialectal variation intact, after written Old English lost its status as the literary language of the nobility. It is postulated that the early development of the language was influenced by a substratum. Later, it was influenced by the related language, spoken by the s who settled mainly in the north and the east coast down to London, the area known as the.

The in 1066 profoundly influenced the evolution of the language. For about 300 years after this, the Normans used, which was close to , as the language of the court, law and administration. By the fourteenth century, borrowings had contributed roughly 10,000 words to English, of which 75% remain in use. These include many words pertaining to the legal and administrative fields, but also include common words for food, such as and. The Norman influence gave rise to what is now referred to as. Later, during the, many words were borrowed directly from (giving rise to a number of ) and , leaving a parallel vocabulary that persists into modern times. By the seventeenth century there was a reaction in some circles against so-called .

During the fifteenth century, Middle English was transformed by the, the spread of a prestigious South Eastern-based dialect in the court, administration and academic life, and the standardising effect of. can be traced back to around the period.

Classification and related languages
The English language belongs to the western sub-branch of the of the  family of languages.

The question as to which is the nearest living relative of English is a matter of discussion. Apart from such English-lexified s such as, (spoken primarily in Scotland and parts of Northern Ireland) is not a Gaelic language, but is part of the English family of languages: both Scots and modern English are descended from Old English, also known as Anglo-Saxon. It is Scots' indefinite status as a language or a dialect of English which complicates definitely calling it the closest language to English. The closest relatives to English after Scots are the, which are spoken in the Northern Netherlands and Northwest Germany. Other less closely related living include, , , and. The of Scandinavia are less closely related to English than the West Germanic languages.

Many words are also intelligible to an English speaker (though pronunciations are often quite different) because English absorbed a large vocabulary from  and French, via  after the  and directly from French in subsequent centuries. As a result, a large portion of English vocabulary is derived from French, with some minor spelling differences (word endings, use of old French spellings, etc.), as well as occasional divergences in meaning, in so-called "faux amis", or.

Geographical distribution
Over 309 million people speak English as their first language, as of. English today is probably the third largest language by number of native speakers, after and. However, when combining native and non-native speakers it is probably the most commonly spoken language in the world, though possibly second to a combination of the, depending on whether or not distinctions in the latter are classified as "languages" or "dialects." Estimates that include speakers vary greatly from 470 million to over a billion depending on how  or mastery is defined. There are some who claim that non-native speakers now outnumber native speakers by a ratio of 3 to 1.

The countries with the highest populations of native English speakers are, in descending order: United States (215 million), United Kingdom (58 million), Canada (17.7 million), Australia (15 million),  (3.8 million), South Africa (3.7 million), and New Zealand (3.0-3.7 million). Countries such as and  also have millions of native speakers of s ranging from an  to a more standard version of English. Of those nations where English is spoken as a second language, India has the most such speakers ('') and linguistics professor claims that, combining native and non-native speakers, India now has more people who speak or understand English than any other country in the world. Following India is the.



English is the primary language in, , Australia , the , , , , the , the , Canada , the , , the , , , , , Ireland ,  , Jamaica , , , , New Zealand , , , , , , , , , the , the United Kingdom, the , and the United States (various forms of ).

In many other countries, where English is not the most spoken language, it is an official language; these countries include, , , the , , , , , , , , , , the , , , , , the , , , the , , , , , , , , , and. It is also one of the 11 official languages that are given equal status in South Africa (""). English is also an important language in several former or current  of the United Kingdom and the United States, such as in  and.

English is not an official language in either the United States or the United Kingdom. Although the United States federal government has no official languages, English has been given official status by 30 of the 50 state governments.

English as a global language
Because English is so widely spoken, it has often been referred to as a "", the  of the modern era. While English is not an official language in most countries, it is currently the language most often taught as a around the world. Some linguists believe that it is no longer the exclusive cultural sign of "native English speakers", but is rather a language that is absorbing aspects of cultures worldwide as it continues to grow. It is, by international treaty, the official language for aerial and maritime communications, as well as one of the official languages of the European Union, the United Nations, and most international athletic organisations, including the.

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%), and Spanish (8%). In the EU, a large fraction of the population reports being able to converse to some extent in English. Among non-English speaking countries, a large percentage of the population claimed to be able to converse in English in the (87%),  (85%),  (83%),  (66%),  (60%),  (56%),  (53%),  (52%), and  (51%). and also have a large majority of competent English-speakers. In addition, among the younger generations in the aforementioned countries, competence in English approaches 100%.

Books, magazines, and newspapers written in English are available in many countries around the world. English is also the most commonly used language in the sciences. In 1997, the reported that 95% of its articles were written in English, even though only half of them came from authors in English-speaking countries.

Dialects and regional varieties
The expansion of the British Empire and—since WWII—the primacy of the United States have spread English throughout the globe. Because of that global spread, English has developed a host of and English-based s and s.

The major of English include, in most cases, several subvarieties, such as  slang within ;  within ; and  ("") and  within. English is a, without a central language authority like France's ; and, although no variety is clearly considered the only standard, there are a number of accents considered to be more prestigious, such as in Britain.

developed — largely independently — from the same origins, but following the a process of  began, whereby successive generations adopted more and more features from English causing dialectalisation. Whether it is now a separate language or a of English better described as  is in dispute. The pronunciation, grammar and lexis of the traditional forms differ, sometimes substantially, from other varieties of English.

Because of the wide use of English as a second language, English speakers have many different s, which often signal the speaker's native dialect or language. For the more distinctive characteristics of regional accents, see, and for the more distinctive characteristics of regional dialects, see.

Just as English itself has borrowed words from many different languages over its history, English s now appear in a great many languages around the world, indicative of the technological and cultural influence of its speakers. Several s and s have formed using an English base, such as, , and. There are many words in English coined to describe forms of particular non-English languages that contain a very high proportion of English words. , for example, is used to describe French with a very high English word content; it is found on the. Another variant, spoken in the border bilingual regions of Québec in Canada, is called.

Constructed varieties of English

 * is simplified for easy international use. It is used by manufacturers and other international businesses to write manuals and communicate. Some English schools in Asia teach it as a practical subset of English for use by beginners.
 * is a simplified version of English used by the . It uses a vocabulary of only 1500 words.
 * is an attempt to improve collectively upon the English language.
 * and the related and Policespeak, all based on restricted vocabularies, were designed by  in the 1980s to aid international cooperation and communication in specific areas. There is also a  for use in the.
 * and are concepts of standardising English for use as a second language in continental Europe.
 * — a variety of systems have been developed to represent the English language with hand signals, designed primarily for use in deaf education. These should not be confused with true sign languages such as and  used in Anglophone countries, which are independent and not based on English.
 * excludes forms of the verb to be.

Euro-English (also EuroEnglish or Euro-English) terms are English translations of European concepts that are not native to English-speaking countries. Because of the United Kingdom's (and even the Republic of Ireland's) involvement in the European Union, the usage focuses on non-British concepts. This kind of Euro-English was parodied when English was "made" one of the constituent languages of.

Vowels
Notes:

It is the that differ most from region to region.

Where symbols appear in pairs, the first corresponds to American English, accent; the second corresponds to British English,.


 * 1) American English lacks this sound; words with this sound are pronounced with  or.
 * 2) Many dialects of North American English do not have this vowel. See.
 * 3) The North American variation of this sound is a.
 * 4) Many speakers of North American English do not distinguish between these two unstressed vowels. For them, roses and Rosa's are pronounced the same, and the symbol usually used is.
 * 5) This sound is often transcribed with  or with.
 * 6) The diphthongs  and  are monophthongal for many General American speakers, as  and.
 * 7) The letter  can represent either  or the  vowel . In BRP, if this iotated vowel  occurs after, ,  or , it often triggers palatalization of the preceding consonant, turning it to , ,  and  respectively, as in tune, during, sugar, and azure. In American English, palatalization does not generally happen unless the  is followed by r, with the result that  turn to , ,  and  respectively, as in nature, verdure, sure, and treasure.
 * 8)  plays a phonetic role in the majority of English dialects, and is said to be phonemic in a few dialects, such as  and . In certain dialects of the modern English language, for instance, there is allophonic vowel length: vowel phonemes are realized as long vowel allophones before voiced consonant phonemes in the coda of a syllable. Before the , vowel length was phonemically contrastive.
 * 9) This sound only occurs in non-rhotic accents. In some accents, this sound may be, instead of, . See.
 * 10) This sound only occurs in non-rhotic accents. In some accents, the schwa offglide of  may be dropped, monophthising and lengthening the sound to.

Consonants
This is the English Consonantal System using symbols from the (IPA).


 * 1) The   is a non-phonemic allophone of /n/ in some northerly British accents, appearing only before /k/ and /g/. In all other dialects it is a separate phoneme, although it only occurs in s.
 * 2) The   is an allophone of /t/ and /d/ in unstressed syllables in  and  . This is the sound of tt or dd in the words latter and ladder, which are homophones for many speakers of North American English. In some accents such as  and  it replaces . This is the same sound represented by single r in most varieties of.
 * 3) In some dialects, such as, the interdentals /θ/ and /ð/ are usually merged with /f/ and /v/, and in others, like , /ð/ is merged with dental /d/. In some Irish varieties, /θ/ and /ð/ become the corresponding dental plosives, which then contrast with the usual alveolar plosives.
 * 4) The sounds  are labialised in some dialects. Labialisation is never contrastive in initial position and therefore is sometimes not transcribed. Most speakers of  realize  (always rhoticized) as the , whereas the same is realized in , etc. as the.
 * 5) The  /ç/ is in most accents just an  of /h/ before /j/; for instance human /çjuːmən/.  However, in some accents (see ), the /j/ is dropped, but the initial consonant is the same.
 * 6) The  /x/ is used only by Scottish or Welsh speakers of English for Scots/Gaelic words such as loch  or by some speakers for loanwords from German and Hebrew like Bach  or Chanukah /xanuka/. In some dialects such as   either  or the   may be used as an  of /k/ in words such as docker . Most native speakers have a great deal of trouble pronouncing it correctly when learning a foreign language. Most speakers use the sounds [k] and [h] instead.
 * 7) Voiceless w  is found in Scottish and Irish English, as well as in some varieties of American, New Zealand, and English English. In most other dialects it is merged with /w/, in some dialects of Scots it is merged with /f/.

Voicing and aspiration
and of s in English depend on dialect and context, but a few general rules can be given:
 * s and s (//, //, //, and //) are aspirated when they are word-initial or begin a stressed syllable — compare pin and spin, crap  and scrap.
 * In some dialects, aspiration extends to unstressed syllables as well.
 * In other dialects, such as, all voiceless stops remain unaspirated.
 * Word-initial voiced plosives may be devoiced in some dialects.
 * Word-terminal voiceless plosives may be unreleased or accompanied by a glottal stop in some dialects (e.g. many varieties of ) — examples: tap [], sack [].
 * Word-terminal voiced plosives may be devoiced in some dialects (e.g. some varieties of ) — examples: sad [], bag []. In other dialects they are fully voiced in final position, but only partially voiced in initial position.

Tone groups
English is an. This means that the of the  is used, for example, to convey  and , or to change a  into a.

In English, intonation patterns are on groups of words, which are called tone groups, tone units, intonation groups or sense groups. Tone groups are said on a single breath and, as a consequence, are of limited length, more often being on average five words long or lasting roughly two seconds. For example:


 * - Do you need anything?
 * - I don't, no
 * - I don't know (contracted to, for example, - or I dunno in fast or colloquial speech that de-emphasises the pause between don't and know even further)

Characteristics of intonation
English is a strongly stressed language, in that certain syllables, both within words and within phrases, get a relative prominence/loudness during pronunciation while the others do not. The former kind of syllables are said to be accentuated/stressed and the latter are unaccentuated/unstressed. All good dictionaries of English mark the accentuated syllable(s) by either placing an apostrophe-like sign either before (as in, , or  dictionaries) or after (as in many other dictionaries) the syllable where the stress accent falls.

Hence in a sentence, each tone group can be subdivided into syllables, which can either be stressed (strong) or unstressed (weak). The stressed syllable is called the nuclear syllable. For example:


 * That | was | the | best | thing | you | could | have | done!

Here, all syllables are unstressed, except the syllables/words best and done, which are stressed. Best is stressed harder and, therefore, is the nuclear syllable.

The nuclear syllable carries the main point the speaker wishes to make. For example:


 * John hadn't stolen that money. (... Someone else had.)
 * John hadn't stolen that money. (... You said he had. or ... Not at that time, but later he did.)
 * John hadn't stolen that money. (... He acquired the money by some other means.)
 * John hadn't stolen that money. (... He had stolen some other money.)
 * John hadn't stolen that money. (... He stole something else.)

Also


 * I didn't tell her that. (... Someone else told her.)
 * I didn't tell her that. (... You said I did. or ... But now I will!)
 * I didn't tell her that. (... I didn't say it; she could have inferred it, etc.)
 * I didn't tell her that. (... I told someone else.)
 * I didn't tell her that. (... I told her something else.)

This can also be used to express emotion:


 * Oh really? (...I didn't know that)
 * Oh really? (...I disbelieve you)

The nuclear syllable is spoken more loudly than the others and has a characteristic change of pitch. The changes of pitch most commonly encountered in English are the rising pitch and the falling pitch, although the fall-rising pitch and/or the rise-falling pitch are sometimes used. In this opposition between falling and rising pitch, which plays a larger role in English than in most other languages, falling pitch conveys certainty and rising pitch uncertainty. This can have a crucial impact on meaning, specifically in relation to polarity, the positive–negative opposition; thus, falling pitch means "polarity known", while rising pitch means "polarity unknown". This underlies the rising pitch of yes/no questions. For example:


 * When do you want to be paid?
 * Now? (Rising pitch. In this case, it denotes a question: "Can I be paid now?" or "Do you desire to be paid now?")
 * Now. (Falling pitch. In this case, it denotes a statement: "I choose to be paid now.")

Grammar
English grammar has minimal compared with most other. For example, Modern English, unlike Modern German or Dutch and the, lacks and. marking has almost disappeared from the language and mainly survives in s. The patterning of (e.g. speak/spoke/spoken) versus  inherited from its Germanic origins has declined in importance in modern English, and the remnants of inflection (such as  marking) have become more regular.

At the same time, the language has become more, and has developed features such as s and as rich resources for conveying meaning. s mark constructions such as questions, negative polarity, the and progressive s.

Vocabulary
The English vocabulary has changed considerably over the centuries.

Germanic words (generally words of Old English or to a lesser extent Norse origin) which include all the basics such as s (I, my, you, it) and s (and, or, but) tend to be shorter than the Latinate words of English, and more common in ordinary speech. The longer Latinate words are often regarded as more elegant or educated. However, the excessive or superfluous use of Latinate words is considered at times to be either pretentious (as in the stereotypical policeman's talk of "apprehending the suspect") or an attempt to an issue. 's "" is critical of this, as well as other perceived abuses of the language.

An English speaker is in many cases able to choose between Germanic and Latinate s: come or arrive; sight or vision; freedom or liberty. In some cases there is a choice between a Germanic derived word (oversee), a Latin derived word (supervise), and a French word derived from the same Latin word (survey). The richness of the language arises from the variety of different meanings and nuances such synonyms harbour, enabling the speaker to express fine variations or shades of thought. Familiarity with the of groups of synonyms can give English speakers greater control over their. See:.

An exception to this and a peculiarity perhaps unique to English is that the nouns for meats are commonly different from, and unrelated to, those for the animals from which they are produced, the animal commonly having a Germanic name and the meat having a French-derived one. Examples include: ' and '; ' and '; '/' and ', or ' and . This is assumed to be a result of the aftermath of the Norman invasion, where a French-speaking elite were the consumers of the meat, produced by English-speaking lower classes.

In everyday speech, the majority of words will normally be Germanic. If a speaker wishes to make a forceful point in an argument in a very blunt way, Germanic words will usually be chosen. A majority of Latinate words (or at least a majority of content words) will normally be used in more formal speech and writing, such as a room or an article. However, there are other Latinate words that are used normally in everyday speech and do not sound formal; these are mainly words for concepts that no longer have Germanic words, and are generally assimilated better and in many cases do not appear Latinate. For instance, the words mountain, valley, river, aunt, uncle, move, use, push and stay are all Latinate.

English easily accepts technical terms into common usage and often imports new words and phrases. Examples of this phenomenon include: ', ' and ' (technical terms), as well as ', ', ' and amigo (imported words/phrases from French, German, modern Latin, and Spanish, respectively). In addition, often provides new meanings for old words and phrases. In fact, this fluidity is so pronounced that a distinction often needs to be made between formal forms of English and contemporary usage. See also:.

Number of words in English
English has an extraordinarily rich and willingness to absorb new words. As the General Explanations at the beginning of the Oxford English Dictionary states:

The Vocabulary of a widely diffused and highly cultivated living language is not a fixed quantity circumscribed by definite limits... there is absolutely no defining line in any direction: the circle of the English language has a well-defined centre but no discernible circumference.

The vocabulary of English is undoubtedly vast, but assigning a specific number to its size is more a matter of definition than of calculation. Unlike other languages, there is no to define officially accepted words. s are coined regularly in medicine, science and technology and other fields, and new is constantly developed. Some of these new words enter wide usage; others remain restricted to small circles. Foreign words used in immigrant communities often make their way into wider English usage. Archaic, dialectal, and regional words might or might not be widely considered as "English".

The , 2nd edition (OED2) includes over 600,000 definitions, following a rather inclusive policy:

It embraces not only the standard language of literature and conversation, whether current at the moment, or obsolete, or archaic, but also the main technical vocabulary, and a large measure of dialectal usage and slang (Supplement to the OED, 1933).

The editors of  (475,000 main headwords) in their preface, estimate the number to be much higher. It is estimated that about 25,000 words are added to the language each year.

Word origins


One of the consequences of the French influence is that the vocabulary of English is, to a certain extent, divided between those words which are (mostly ) and those which are "Latinate" (Latin-derived, either directly from Norman French or other Romance languages).

Numerous sets of statistics have been proposed to demonstrate the various origins of English vocabulary. None, as yet, are considered definitive by a majority of linguists.

A computerised survey of about 80,000 words in the old Shorter Oxford Dictionary (3rd ed.) was published in Ordered Profusion by Thomas Finkenstaedt and Dieter Wolff (1973) that estimated the origin of English words as follows:
 * , including French and :
 * Latin, including modern scientific and technical Latin: 28.24%
 * Other s (including words directly inherited from ): 25%
 * Greek: 5.32%
 * No etymology given: 4.03%
 * Derived from proper names: 3.28%
 * All other languages contributed less than 1% (e.g. )

A survey by in Origins of the English Language of 10,000 words taken from several thousand business letters gave this set of statistics:
 * French (langue d'oïl), 41%
 * "Native" English, 33%
 * Latin, 15%
 * Danish, 2%
 * Dutch, 1%
 * Other, 10%

However, 83% of the 1,000 most-common English words are Anglo-Saxon in origin.

Dutch origins
Words describing the navy, types of ships, and other objects or activities on the water are often from Dutch origin. Yacht (jacht) and cruiser (kruiser) are examples.

French origins
There are many, such as competition, art, table, publicity, police, role, routine, machine, force, and many others that have been and are being ; they are now pronounced according to English rules of , rather than French. A large portion of English vocabulary is of French or origin, most derived from, or transmitted via, the  spoken by the es in  for several hundred years after the.

Writing system
English has been written using the since around the ninth century. (Before that, Old English had been written using the .) The spelling system, or, is multilayered, with elements of French, Latin and Greek spelling on top of the native Germanic system; it has grown to vary significantly from the of the language. The spelling of words often diverges considerably from how they are spoken. See.

Basic sound-letter correspondence
Only the consonant letters are pronounced in a relatively regular way:

Written accents
Unlike most other Germanic languages, English has almost no s, except in foreign (like the  in café) and in the uncommon use of a  mark (often in formal writing) to indicate that two vowels are pronounced separately, rather than as one sound (e.g. naïve, Zoë). And in most cases it is acceptable to leave out the marks, especially in digital communications where the keyboard lacks any marked letters.

Formal written English
A version of the language almost universally agreed upon by educated English speakers around the world is called. It takes virtually the same form no matter where in the English-speaking world it is written. In spoken English, by contrast, there are a vast number of differences between, , and varieties of , colloquial and regional expressions. In spite of this, local variations in the formal written version of the language are quite limited, being restricted largely to the.

Basic and simplified versions
To make English easier to read, there are some simplified versions of the language. One basic version is named , a with a small number of words created by  and described in his book Basic English: A General Introduction with Rules and Grammar (1930). The language is based on a simplified version of English. Ogden said that it would take seven years to learn English, seven months for, and seven weeks for Basic English, comparable with. Thus Basic English is used by companies who need to make complex books for international use, and by language schools that need to give people some knowledge of English in a short time.

Ogden did not put any words into Basic English that could be said with a few other words and he worked to make the words work for speakers of any other language. He put his set of words through a large number of tests and adjustments. He also made the grammar simpler, but tried to keep the grammar normal for English users.

The concept gained its greatest publicity just after the as a tool for world peace. Although it was not built into a program, similar simplifications were devised for various international uses.

Another version,, exists, which is a originally developed for  industry maintenance manuals. It offers a carefully limited and standardised subset of English. Simplified English has a lexicon of approved words and those words can only be used in certain ways. For example, the word close can be used in the phrase "Close the door" but not "do not go close to the landing gear".

Dictionaries

 * Merriam-Webster's online dictionary
 * Oxford's online dictionary
 * dict.org
 * Collection of English bilingual dictionaries
 * Dictionary of American Regional English