English language is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world. It is used as either a primary or secondary language in many countries.
During the 1500’s, fewer than 2 million people spoke English. All of them lived in what is now the United Kingdom. Through the centuries, as the result of various historical events, English spread throughout the world. Today, it is estimated that about 400 million people speak English as their native language. Most of them live in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United States.
Another 400 million people, chiefly living in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and many African countries, speak English in addition to their own language. An additional 750 million people probably speak English as a foreign language.
Characteristics of English
Vocabulary.
English has a larger vocabulary than any other language. There are more than 600,000 words in the largest dictionaries of the English language.
Some English words have been passed on from generation to generation as far back as scholars can trace. These words, such as woman, man, sun, hand, love, go, and eat, express basic ideas and feelings. Later, many words were borrowed from other languages, including Arabic, French, German, Greek, Italian, Latin, Russian, and Spanish. For example, algebra is from Arabic, fashion from French, piano from Italian, and canyon from Spanish.
A number of words, such as doghouse and splashdown, were formed by combining other words. New words are also created by blending words. For example, motor and hotel were blended into motel. Words can be shortened to form new words, as was done with history to form story. Words called acronyms are formed by using the first letter or letters of several words. The word radar is an acronym for radio detection and ranging.
Pronunciation and spelling
in English sometimes seem illogical or inconsistent. Many words are spelled similarly though pronounced differently. Examples include cough, though, and through. Other words, such as blue, crew, to, too, and shoe, have similar pronunciations but are spelled differently. Many of these variations show changes that occurred during the development of English. The spelling of some words remained the same through the centuries, though their pronunciation changed.
Grammar
is the set of principles used to create sentences. These principles define the elements used to assemble sentences and the relationships between the elements. The elements include parts of speech and inflections.
Parts of speech are the word categories of the English language. Scholars do not all agree on how to describe the parts of speech. The traditional description lists eight classes: nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections. The most important relationships of the parts of speech include subject and verb, verb and direct object, and modifier and the word modified.
Some modern scholars also divide the parts of speech into two categories, content words and function words. Content words are the main parts of speech—nouns, verbs, adverbs, and adjectives—and carry the basic vocabulary meanings. For example, dog, write, happy, and seldom are content words. These words are also called form classes. Function words express relationships between content words in a sentence. For example, in, because, the, very, and not are function words. They show the grammatical, or structural, meanings of the sentence and are also called structure classes. Function words include articles, prepositions, pronouns, and conjunctions. See Parts of speech.
English has fewer inflections than most other European languages. An inflection is a variation of the form of a word that gives the word a different meaning or function. An English noun has only two inflections, the plural and the possessive. Inflections are used to change the tense and number of a verb or the case of a pronoun. Inflections can change adjectives to the comparative or the superlative—for example, big, bigger, biggest.
Grammar also defines the order in which parts of speech may be used. The subject of a sentence usually comes first in the word order in English. It is generally followed by the verb and then the object. Single words that modify nouns are usually placed before the noun, but phrases that modify nouns are usually placed after the noun. Words that modify verbs can be put before or after the verb. For more information on word order and sentence patterns, see Sentence.
The development of English
Origins.
The earliest source of the English language was a prehistoric language that modern scholars call Proto-Indo-European (PIE). PIE was probably spoken about 5,000 years ago by people who lived in the region north of the Black Sea, in southeastern Europe. These people migrated through the centuries and gradually developed new languages.
One group of people who spoke PIE migrated west and divided into groups who spoke languages that were the ancestors of the Germanic, Greek, and Latin tongues. The Germanic languages developed into English, Danish, Dutch, German, Norwegian, and Swedish. The ancient Greek language became modern Greek, and early Latin grew into French, Italian, and Spanish.
The earliest known language in what is now Britain was spoken by a people called the Celts. The Romans started to conquer the Celts in A.D. 43 and ruled much of Britain until the early 400’s, when they returned to Rome. During the mid-400’s, Germanic people who lived along the North Sea invaded Britain. The invaders belonged to three main tribes—the Angles, the Jutes, and the Saxons. All three tribes spoke their own Germanic dialect, but they probably understood one another. The Angles settled in central Britain. The word England came from a word meaning the Angle folk or land of the Angles, which was used by the late 800’s to refer to all the Anglo-Saxon people and their lands. The language of the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes became known as English.
The history of the English language can be divided into three main periods. The language of the first period, which began about 500 and ended about 1100, is called Old English. During the next period, from about 1100 to 1485, the people spoke Middle English. The language of the period from about 1485 to the present is known as Modern English.
Old English
was mainly a mixture of the Germanic languages of the Angles, Jutes, and Saxons. Old English resembles modern German more than it does modern English. Old English had many inflections, as does modern German, and its word order and pronunciation resembled those of modern German.
The vocabulary of Old English was chiefly Germanic, though some words came from the language of the Celts. The Germanic people had learned some Latin words while they lived on the European continent. These people brought some of those words to England and added them to Old English. More Latin words were added during the 500’s and the 600’s, when Christianity spread in England.
During the late 800’s, Viking invaders from Denmark and Norway settled in northeast England. As a result, many words from Scandinavian languages became part of Old English. Gradually, many inflections of Old English were dropped. People also began to put words into a more regular order and to use more prepositions to indicate relationships between words.
Middle English.
In 1066, England was conquered by the Normans, a people from the area in France that is now called Normandy. Their leader, William the Conqueror, became king of England. The Normans took control of all English institutions, including the government and the church.
Most of the English people continued to speak English. However, many of the members of the upper class in England learned Norman French because they wanted influence and power. The use of French words eventually became fashionable in England. The English borrowed thousands of these words and made them part of their own language. The French-influenced language of England during this period is now called Middle English.
The Normans intermarried with the English and, through the years, became increasingly distant—socially, economically, and culturally—from France. The Normans began to speak English in daily life. By the end of the 1300’s, the French influence had declined sharply in England. English was used again in the courts and in business affairs, where French had replaced it.
Modern English.
By about 1485, English had lost most of its Old English inflections, and its pronunciation and word order closely resembled those of today. During this period, the vocabulary of English expanded by borrowing words from many other languages. Beginning in the 1600’s, the language spread throughout the world as the English explored and colonized Africa, Australia, India, and North America. Different dialects of the English language developed in these areas.
Today, English is the international language of science and technology. In addition, the English language is used throughout the world in business and diplomacy.
