English language

Originally spoken by the residents of early mediaeval England, English is a Germanic language of the Indo-European language family that is related to German. It was given this name in honour of the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that moved from Anglia, a peninsula on the Baltic Sea (not to be confused with East Anglia), to the region of Great Britain that was subsequently given this name in honour of them. Scotland and Low Saxon, as well as the Frisian and Low Saxon languages, are the closest surviving cousins of English. Although English is a West Germanic language, its lexicon has been heavily impacted by Old Norman French and Latin, as well as by Old Norse, which is a Scandinavian language (a North Germanic language).

For more than 1,400 years, the English language has been evolving. Early forms of English, consisting of 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 beginning in the 8th and 9th centuries, are referred to as Old English. Old English is a dialect of the English language that originated in the West Germanic language family. When the Normans conquered England in the late 11th century, the beginning of Middle English started. It was during this era that English received a large amount of French and Latin vocabulary from Old French, particularly from the Old Norman dialect. The arrival of the printing press to London, the publishing of the King James Bible, and the beginning of the Great Vowel Shift marked the beginning of Early Modern English in the late 15th century.

Considering Chinese dialects and variations, English is the most spoken world language (after Standard Chinese & Spanish), and the third-most spoken native language in the world (after Standard Chinese and Spanish), according to the United Nations. Almost 60 sovereign nations speak it as their official language or as one of their official languages, making it one of the most extensively taught second languages on the planet. English as a second language is spoken by more individuals than native speakers, according to recent data. Approximately 2 billion people spoke English as a first language as of 2005, according to estimates. English is the majority native language in the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand (see Anglosphere), and the Republic of Ireland; it is also an official language and the main language of Singapore; and it is widespread spoken of in some areas of the Caribbean, Africa, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Oceania. It is a co-official language of the United Nations, the European Union, and a slew of other international organisations on a global and regional level. Approximately 70% of those speaking this Indo-European branch of language speak it, making it the most frequently spoken Germanic language. It is referred to as "Anglophones" when people speak English in their native language. Even though there is a great deal of variation among the many accents and dialects of English that are spoken in different countries and regions, there is no significant difference in phonetics and phonology (and occasionally also in vocabulary, idioms, grammar, and spelling), and this does not typically prevent understanding by speakers of other accents and dialects, although mutual constantly come can occur at extreme ends of the dialect continuum.