English is a West Germanic language that was
first spoken in early
medieval England and is now a global lingua
franca. It
is an official language of almost
60 sovereign states, the most commonly spoken
language in the United
Kingdom, the United
States, Canada, Australia, Ireland, and New
Zealand, and a widely spoken language in countries
in the Caribbean, Africa, and southeast Asia. It is the third most common native
language in the world, after Mandarin
(Chinese language) and Spanish. It is
widely learned as a second
language and is an official
language of the United Nations, of the European Union, and of many other world and regional international
organizations. English has developed over the course of more than 1,400 years.
The earliest forms of English, a set of Anglo-Frisian
dialects brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon
settlers in the fifth century, are called Old English. Middle
English began in the late 11th century with the Norman conquest of England. Early
Modern English began in the late 15th century with the introduction of
the printing press to London and the Great
Vowel Shift. Through the worldwide influence of the British Empire, Modern English spread around the world from the 17th to
mid-20th centuries. Through newspapers, books, the telegraph, the telephone,
phonograph records, radio, satellite television, and the Internet, as well as
the emergence of the United States as a global superpower, English has become the leading language of international discourse and the lingua franca in many
regions and in professional contexts such as science. There is little
morphological inflection in Modern English, and the syntax is generally
isolating. English relies on auxiliary verbs and word order for the expression
of complex tenses, aspect and mood, as well as passive constructions,
interrogatives and negation. Despite noticeable variation between the forms of
English spoken in different world regions, English-speakers from around the
world can communicate with one another effectively. Different accents are
distinguished only by phonological differences from the standard language,
whereas dialects also display grammatical and lexical differences.
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