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"The English have no respect for their language, and will not teach their children to speak it." [1] — George Bernard Shaw

English is a West Germanic language, originating in England and is the first language for most people in the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and the Anglophone Caribbean. One of six official languages of the United Nations, it is used extensively as a second language and as an official language throughout the world, especially in Commonwealth countries and in many international organisations. Over a billion people speak English to at least a basic level. Because English is so widely spoken, it has often been referred to as a "world language", the lingua franca of the modern era.[1]

Countries where English is a majority language are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not a majority language are light blue. English is also one of the official languages of the European Union.
Learning English: Lesson 1
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2.   The initial reason for the enormous spread of the English language beyond the bounds of the British Isles was the British Empire and by the late 19th century, its influence had won a truly global reach.[1] English is the dominant language in the United States and the growing American economic and cultural influence and status as a global superpower since World War II has significantly accelerated the adoption of English as a language across the planet.[1]


3.   English originated from the Anglo-Frisian dialects brought to Britain by Germanic settlers and Roman auxiliary troops from what is now northwest Germany and the Northern Netherlands. Initially, Old English was a diverse group of dialects but the Late West Saxon dialect eventually came to dominate. The original Old English language was then influenced by two waves of invasion, the first by people of the Scandinavian branch of the Germanic family who colonized parts of the British Isles in the 8th and 9th centuries. The second was the Normans in the 11th century whose influence entered English largely through the courts and government. Thus, English developed into a "borrowing" language of great flexibility and with a huge vocabulary.


4.   An English speaker is in many cases able to choose between Germanic and Latinate synonyms: come or arrive; freedom or liberty. Such synonyms harbor a variety of different meanings and nuances, enabling the speaker to express fine variations or shades of thought. The vocabulary of English is undoubtedly vast, but assigning a specific number to its size is more a matter of definition than of calculation. The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition (OED2) includes over 600,000 definitions, following a rather inclusive policy. It is estimated that about 25,000 words are added to the language each year.[1] English grammar has minimal inflection, compared with most other Indo-European languages.


5.   English has been written using the Latin alphabet since around the 9th century. (Before that, Old English had been written using Anglo-Saxon runes.) In general, the English language, being the product of many other languages and having only been codified orthographically in the 16th century, has fewer consistent relationships between sounds and letters than many other languages. The consequence of this orthographic history is that reading can be challenging.[1] It takes longer for students to become completely fluent readers of English than of many other languages, including French, Greek, and Spanish.[1]   more... at Wikipedia

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