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English language
West Germanic language / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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English is a West Germanic language in the Indo-European language family. Originating in early medieval England,[3][4][5] today English is both the most spoken language in the world[6] and the third most spoken native language, after Mandarin Chinese and Spanish.[7] English is the most widely learned second language and is either the official language or one of the official languages in 59 sovereign states. There are more people who have learned English as a second language than there are native speakers. As of 2005[update], it was estimated that there were over two billion speakers of English.[8]
English | |
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Pronunciation | /ˈɪŋɡlɪʃ/[1] |
Native to | United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, and other locations in the English-speaking world |
Speakers | L1: 372.9 million (2022)[2] L2: 1.08 billion (2022)[2] Total: 1.452 billion |
Early forms | |
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Manually coded English (multiple systems) | |
Official status | |
Official language in | Various organisations |
Recognised minority language in | |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-1 | en |
ISO 639-2 | eng |
ISO 639-3 | eng |
Glottolog | stan1293 |
Linguasphere | 52-ABA |
![]() 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 | |
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English is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the island of Great Britain, and its speakers are called Anglophones. The English language holds a special place in many nations of the world, whether as an official or joint-official language defined by law (such as in India, Ireland, or Canada), or as the sole or dominant language for historical reasons without being explicitly defined by law (such as in the US or UK).[9] It is a co-official language of the United Nations, the European Union, and many other international and regional organisations. English accounts for at least 70% of speakers of the Germanic language branch.
Old English began as a group of dialects emerging among the West Germanic-speaking Anglo-Saxons who settled Britain. The late Old English period absorbed some grammar and core vocabulary from Old Norse, a North Germanic language.[10][11][12] Then, the Middle English period borrowed words extensively from French dialects, which contributes approximately 28% to Modern English vocabulary, and from Latin, which also provides about 28%.[13] Thus, despite a majority of its vocabulary coming from the Romance branch of the Indo-European language family, Modern English is genealogically classified under the Germanic branch. It exists on a dialect continuum with Scots and then is most closely related to the Low Saxon and Frisian languages.