Classification

Anglic languages
English
Scots
Anglo-Frisian languages
Anglic and
Frisian (West, North, Saterland)
North Sea Germanic languages Anglo-Frisian and
Low German/Low Saxon
West Germanic languages
North Sea Germanic and
Dutch; in Africa: Afrikaans
...... German (High):
Central; in Lux.: Luxembourgish
Upper
...... Yiddish

The West Germanic languages

English is an Indo-European language and belongs to the West Germanic group of

the Germanic languages.[18] Old English originated from a Germanic tribal and linguistic
continuum along the Frisian North Sea coast, whose languages gradually evolved into
the Anglic languages in the British Isles, and into the Frisian languages and Low German/Low
Saxon on the continent. The Frisian languages, which together with the Anglic languages form
the Anglo-Frisian languages, are the closest living relatives of English. Low German/Low
Saxon is also closely related, and sometimes English, the Frisian languages, and Low
German are grouped together as the Ingvaeonic (North Sea Germanic) languages, though this
grouping remains debated.[7] Old English evolved into Middle English, which in turn evolved into
Modern English.[19] Particular dialects of Old and Middle English also developed into a number
of other Anglic languages, including Scots[20] and the extinct Fingallian and Forth and Bargy
(Yola) dialects of Ireland.[21]
Like Icelandic and Faroese, the development of English in the British Isles isolated it from the
continental Germanic languages and influences, and it has since diverged considerably.
English is not mutually intelligible with any continental Germanic language, differing
in vocabulary, syntax, and phonology, although some of these, such as Dutch or Frisian, do
show strong affinities with English, especially with its earlier stages.[22]
Unlike Icelandic and Faroese, which were isolated, the development of English was influenced
by a long series of invasions of the British Isles by other peoples and languages,
particularly Old Norse and Norman French. These left a profound mark of their own on the
language, so that English shows some similarities in vocabulary and grammar with many
languages outside its linguistic clades—but it is not mutually intelligible with any of those
languages either. Some scholars have argued that English can be considered a mixed
language or a creole—a theory called the Middle English creole hypothesis. Although the great
influence of these languages on the vocabulary and grammar of Modern English is widely
acknowledged, most specialists in language contact do not consider English to be a true mixed
language.[23][24]
English is classified as a Germanic language because it shares innovations with other
Germanic languages such as Dutch, German, and Swedish.[25] These shared innovations show
that the languages have descended from a single common ancestor called Proto-Germanic.
Some shared features of Germanic languages include the division of verbs
into strong and weak classes, the use of modal verbs, and the sound changes affecting Proto-
Indo-European consonants, known as Grimm's and Verner's laws. English is classified as an
Anglo-Frisian language because Frisian and English share other features, such as
the palatalisation of consonants that were velar consonants in Proto-
Germanic (see Phonological history of Old English § Palatalization).[26]

History
Main article: History of English

Proto-Germanic to Old English

Main article: Old English
The opening to the Old English epic poem Beowulf, handwritten in half-uncial script:
Hƿæt ƿē Gārde/na ingēar dagum þēod cyninga / þrym ge frunon...
"Listen! We of the Spear-Danes from days of yore have heard of the glory of the folk-kings..."

The earliest form of English is called Old English or Anglo-Saxon (c. year 550–1066). Old
English developed from a set of West Germanic dialects, often grouped as Anglo-
Frisian or North Sea Germanic, and originally spoken along the coasts of Frisia, Lower
Saxony and southern Jutland by Germanic peoples known to the historical record as
the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes.[27][28] From the 5th century, the Anglo-Saxons settled
Britain as the Roman economy and administration collapsed. By the 7th century, the Germanic
language of the Anglo-Saxons became dominant in Britain, replacing the languages of Roman
Britain (43–409): Common Brittonic, a Celtic language, and Latin, brought to Britain by
the Roman occupation.[29][30][31] England and English (originally Ænglaland and Ænglisc) are
named after the Angles.[32]
Old English was divided into four dialects: the Anglian dialects (Mercian and Northumbrian)
and the Saxon dialects, Kentish and West Saxon.[33] Through the educational reforms of King
Alfred in the 9th century and the influence of the kingdom of Wessex, the West Saxon dialect
became the standard written variety.[34] The epic poem Beowulf is written in West Saxon, and
the earliest English poem, Cædmon's Hymn, is written in Northumbrian.[35] Modern English
developed mainly from Mercian, but the Scots language developed from Northumbrian. A few
short inscriptions from the early period of Old English were written using a runic script.[36] By the
6th century, a Latin alphabet was adopted, written with half-uncial letterforms. It included the
runic letters wynn ⟨ƿ⟩ and thorn ⟨þ⟩, and the modified Latin letters eth ⟨ð⟩, and ash ⟨æ⟩.[36][37]
Old English is essentially a distinct language from Modern English and is virtually impossible
for 21st-century unstudied English-speakers to understand. Its grammar was similar to that of
modern German, and its closest relative is Old Frisian. Nouns, adjectives, pronouns, and
verbs had many more inflectional endings and forms, and word order was much freer than in
Modern English. Modern English has case forms in pronouns (he, him, his) and has a few verb
inflections (speak, speaks, speaking, spoke, spoken), but Old English had case endings in
nouns as well, and verbs had more person and number endings.[38][39][40]
The translation of Matthew 8:20 from 1000 shows examples of case endings
(nominative plural, accusative plural, genitive singular) and a verb ending (present plural):

• Foxas habbað holu and heofonan fuglas nest

• Fox-as habb-að hol-u and heofon-an fugl-as nest-∅
• fox-NOM.PL have-PRS.PL hole-ACC.PL and heaven-GEN.SG bird-NOM.PL nest-ACC.PL
• "Foxes have holes and the birds of heaven nests"[41]
Middle English
Main articles: Middle English and Influence of French on English
Englischmen þeyz hy hadde fram þe bygynnyng þre manner speche, Souþeron, Northeron, and Myddel speche in þe
myddel of þe lond, ... Noþeles by comyxstion and mellyng, furst wiþ Danes, and afterward wiþ Normans, in menye þe
contray longage ys asperyed, and som vseþ strange wlaffyng, chyteryng, harryng, and garryng grisbytting.

Although, from the beginning, Englishmen had three manners of speaking, southern, northern and midlands speech
in the middle of the country, ... Nevertheless, through intermingling and mixing, first with Danes and then with
Normans, amongst many the country language has arisen, and some use strange stammering, chattering, snarling,
and grating gnashing.
John of Trevisa, ca. 1385[42]

From the 8th to the 12th century, Old English gradually transformed through language
contact into Middle English. Middle English is often arbitrarily defined as beginning with
the conquest of England by William the Conqueror in 1066, but it developed further in the
period from 1200 to 1450.
First, the waves of Norse colonisation of northern parts of the British Isles in the 8th and 9th
centuries put Old English into intense contact with Old Norse, a North Germanic language.
Norse influence was strongest in the north-eastern varieties of Old English spoken in
the Danelaw area around York, which was the centre of Norse colonisation; today these
features are still particularly present in Scots and Northern English. However the centre of
norsified English seems to have been in the Midlands around Lindsey, and after 920 CE when
Lindsey was reincorporated into the Anglo-Saxon polity, Norse features spread from there into
English varieties that had not been in direct contact with Norse speakers. An element of Norse
influence that persists in all English varieties today is the group of pronouns beginning
with th- (they, them, their) which replaced the Anglo-Saxon pronouns with h- (hie, him, hera).[43]
With the Norman conquest of England in 1066, the now norsified Old English language was
subject to contact with Old French, in particular with the Old Norman dialect. The Norman
language in England eventually developed into Anglo-Norman.[9] Because Norman was spoken
primarily by the elites and nobles, while the lower classes continued speaking Anglo-Saxon
(English), the main influence of Norman was the introduction of a wide range
of loanwords related to politics, legislation and prestigious social domains.[8] Middle English
also greatly simplified the inflectional system, probably in order to reconcile Old Norse and Old
English, which were inflectionally different but morphologically similar. The distinction between
nominative and accusative cases was lost except in personal pronouns, the instrumental case
was dropped, and the use of the genitive case was limited to indicating possession. The
inflectional system regularised many irregular inflectional forms,[44] and gradually simplified the
system of agreement, making word order less flexible.[45] In the Wycliffe Bible of the 1380s, the
verse Matthew 8:20 was written: Foxis han dennes, and briddis of heuene han nestis[46] Here
the plural suffix -n on the verb have is still retained, but none of the case endings on the nouns
are present. By the 12th century Middle English was fully developed, integrating both Norse
and French features; it continued to be spoken until the transition to early Modern English
around 1500. Middle English literature includes Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales,
and Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur. In the Middle English period, the use of regional dialects in
writing proliferated, and dialect traits were even used for effect by authors such as Chaucer.[47]

Early Modern English

Main article: Early Modern English

Graphic representation of the Great Vowel Shift, showing how the pronunciation of the long vowels
gradually shifted, with the high vowels i: and u: breaking into diphthongs and the lower vowels each
shifting their pronunciation up one level

The next period in the history of English was Early Modern English (1500–1700). Early Modern
English was characterised by the Great Vowel Shift (1350–1700), inflectional simplification,
and linguistic standardisation.
The Great Vowel Shift affected the stressed long vowels of Middle English. It was a chain shift,
meaning that each shift triggered a subsequent shift in the vowel system. Mid and open
vowels were raised, and close vowels were broken into diphthongs. For example, the
word bite was originally pronounced as the word beet is today, and the second vowel in the
word about was pronounced as the word boot is today. The Great Vowel Shift explains many
irregularities in spelling since English retains many spellings from Middle English, and it also
explains why English vowel letters have very different pronunciations from the same letters in
other languages.[48][49]
English began to rise in prestige, relative to Norman French, during the reign of Henry V.
Around 1430, the Court of Chancery in Westminster began using English in its official
documents, and a new standard form of Middle English, known as Chancery Standard,
developed from the dialects of London and the East Midlands. In 1476, William
Caxton introduced the printing press to England and began publishing the first printed books in
London, expanding the influence of this form of English.[50] Literature from the Early Modern
period includes the works of William Shakespeare and the translation of the
Bible commissioned by King James I. Even after the vowel shift the language still sounded
different from Modern English: for example, the consonant clusters /kn ɡn sw/ in knight, gnat,
and sword were still pronounced. Many of the grammatical features that a modern reader of
Shakespeare might find quaint or archaic represent the distinct characteristics of Early Modern
English.[51]
In the 1611 King James Version of the Bible, written in Early Modern English, Matthew 8:20
says, "The Foxes haue holes and the birds of the ayre haue nests."[41] This exemplifies the loss
of case and its effects on sentence structure (replacement with subject–verb–object word
order, and the use of of instead of the non-possessive genitive), and the introduction of
loanwords from French (ayre) and word replacements (bird originally meaning "nestling" had
replaced OE fugol).[41]
Spread of Modern English
By the late 18th century, the British Empire had spread English through its colonies and
geopolitical dominance. Commerce, science and technology, diplomacy, art, and formal
education all contributed to English becoming the first truly global language. English also
facilitated worldwide international communication.[52][3] England continued to form new colonies,
and these later developed their own norms for speech and writing. English was adopted in
parts of North America, parts of Africa, Australasia, and many other regions. When they
obtained political independence, some of the newly independent nations that had
multiple indigenous languages opted to continue using English as the official language to avoid
the political and other difficulties inherent in promoting any one indigenous language above the
others.[53][54][55] In the 20th century the growing economic and cultural influence of the United
States and its status as a superpower following the Second World War has, along with
worldwide broadcasting in English by the BBC[56] and other broadcasters, caused the language
to spread across the planet much faster.[57][58] In the 21st century, English is more widely spoken
and written than any language has ever been.[59]
As Modern English developed, explicit norms for standard usage were published, and spread
through official media such as public education and state-sponsored publications. In
1755 Samuel Johnson published his A Dictionary of the English Language, which introduced
standard spellings of words and usage norms. In 1828, Noah Webster published the American
Dictionary of the English language to try to establish a norm for speaking and writing American
English that was independent of the British standard. Within Britain, non-standard or lower
class dialect features were increasingly stigmatised, leading to the quick spread of the prestige
varieties among the middle classes.[60]
In modern English, the loss of grammatical case is almost complete (it is now only found in
pronouns, such as he and him, she and her, who and whom), and SVO word order is mostly
fixed.[60] Some changes, such as the use of do-support, have become universalised. (Earlier
English did not use the word "do" as a general auxiliary as Modern English does; at first it was
only used in question constructions, and even then was not obligatory.[61] Now, do-support with
the verb have is becoming increasingly standardised.) The use of progressive forms in -ing,
appears to be spreading to new constructions, and forms such as had been being built are
becoming more common. Regularisation of irregular forms also slowly continues
(e.g. dreamed instead of dreamt), and analytical alternatives to inflectional forms are becoming
more common (e.g. more polite instead of politer). British English is also undergoing change
under the influence of American English, fuelled by the strong presence of American English in
the media and the prestige associated with the US as a world power.[62][63][64]

Geographical distribution
See also: List of territorial entities where English is an official language, List of countries by
English-speaking population, and English-speaking world
Percentage of English speakers by country and dependency as of 2014.

80–100% 40–60% 0.1–20%

60–80% 20–40% No data

Percentage of English native speakers (2017)

As of 2016, 400 million people spoke English as their first language, and 1.1 billion spoke it as
a secondary language.[65] English is the largest language by number of speakers. English is
spoken by communities on every continent and on islands in all the major oceans.[66]
The countries where English is spoken can be grouped into different categories according to
how English is used in each country. The "inner circle"[67] countries with many native speakers
of English share an international standard of written English and jointly influence speech norms
for English around the world. English does not belong to just one country, and it does not
belong solely to descendants of English settlers. English is an official language of countries
populated by few descendants of native speakers of English. It has also become by far the
most important language of international communication when people who share no native
language meet anywhere in the world.

Three circles of English-speaking countries

The Indian linguist Braj Kachru distinguished countries where English is spoken with a three
circles model.[67] In his model,

• the "inner circle" countries have large communities of native speakers of English,
• "outer circle" countries have small communities of native speakers of English but
widespread use of English as a second language in education or broadcasting or
for local official purposes, and
• "expanding circle" countries are countries where many people learn English as a
foreign language.
Kachru based his model on the history of how English spread in different countries, how users
acquire English, and the range of uses English has in each country. The three circles change
membership over time.[68]

Braj Kachru's Three Circles of English

Countries with large communities of native speakers of English (the inner circle) include Britain,
the United States, Australia, Canada, Ireland, and New Zealand, where the majority speaks
English, and South Africa, where a significant minority speaks English. The countries with the
most native English speakers are, in descending order, the United States (at least
231 million),[69] the United Kingdom (60 million),[70][71][72] Canada (19 million),[73] Australia (at least
17 million),[74] South Africa (4.8 million),[75] Ireland (4.2 million), and New Zealand
(3.7 million).[76] In these countries, children of native speakers learn English from their parents,
and local people who speak other languages and new immigrants learn English to
communicate in their neighbourhoods and workplaces.[77] The inner-circle countries provide the
base from which English spreads to other countries in the world.[68]
Estimates of the numbers of second language and foreign-language English speakers vary
greatly from 470 million to more than 1 billion, depending on how proficiency is
defined.[17] Linguist David Crystal estimates that non-native speakers now outnumber native
speakers by a ratio of 3 to 1.[78] In Kachru's three-circles model, the "outer circle" countries are
countries such as the Philippines,[79] Jamaica,[80] India, Pakistan,
Singapore,[81] Malaysia and Nigeria[82][83] with a much smaller proportion of native speakers of
English but much use of English as a second language for education, government, or domestic
business, and its routine use for school instruction and official interactions with the
government.[84]
Those countries have millions of native speakers of dialect continua ranging from an English-
based creole to a more standard version of English. They have many more speakers of English
who acquire English as they grow up through day-to-day use and listening to broadcasting,
especially if they attend schools where English is the medium of instruction. Varieties of
English learned by non-native speakers born to English-speaking parents may be influenced,
especially in their grammar, by the other languages spoken by those learners.[77] Most of those
varieties of English include words little used by native speakers of English in the inner-circle
countries,[77] and they may show grammatical and phonological differences from inner-circle
varieties as well. The standard English of the inner-circle countries is often taken as a norm for
use of English in the outer-circle countries.[77]
In the three-circles model, countries such as Poland, China, Brazil, Germany, Japan,
Indonesia, Egypt, and other countries where English is taught as a foreign language, make up
the "expanding circle".[85] The distinctions between English as a first language, as a second
language, and as a foreign language are often debatable and may change in particular
countries over time.[84] For example, in the Netherlands and some other countries of Europe,
knowledge of English as a second language is nearly universal, with over 80 percent of the
population able to use it,[86] and thus English is routinely used to communicate with foreigners
and often in higher education. In these countries, although English is not used for government
business, its widespread use puts them at the boundary between the "outer circle" and
"expanding circle". English is unusual among world languages in how many of its users are not
native speakers but speakers of English as a second or foreign language.[87]
Many users of English in the expanding circle use it to communicate with other people from the
expanding circle, so that interaction with native speakers of English plays no part in their
decision to use the language.[88] Non-native varieties of English are widely used for international
communication, and speakers of one such variety often encounter features of other
varieties.[89] Very often today a conversation in English anywhere in the world may include no
native speakers of English at all, even while including speakers from several different
countries. This is particularly true of the shared vocabulary of mathematics and the sciences.[90]

Pluricentric English
Pie chart showing the percentage of native English speakers living in "inner circle" English-speaking
countries. Native speakers are now substantially outnumbered worldwide by second-language speakers
of English (not counted in this chart).

US (64.3%)
UK (16.7%)
Canada (5.3%)
Australia (4.7%)
South Africa (1.3%)
Ireland (1.1%)
New Zealand (1%)
Other (5.6%)

English is a pluricentric language, which means that no one national authority sets the
standard for use of the language.[91][92][93][94] Spoken English, for example English used in
broadcasting, generally follows national pronunciation standards that are also established by
custom rather than by regulation. International broadcasters are usually identifiable as coming
from one country rather than another through their accents,[95] but newsreader scripts are also
composed largely in international standard written English. The norms of standard written
English are maintained purely by the consensus of educated English-speakers around the
world, without any oversight by any government or international organisation.[96]
American listeners generally readily understand most British broadcasting, and British listeners
readily understand most American broadcasting. Most English speakers around the world can
understand radio programmes, television programmes, and films from many parts of the
English-speaking world.[97] Both standard and non-standard varieties of English can include
both formal or informal styles, distinguished by word choice and syntax and use both technical
and non-technical registers.[98]
The settlement history of the English-speaking inner circle countries outside Britain helped
level dialect distinctions and produce koineised forms of English in South Africa, Australia, and
New Zealand.[99] The majority of immigrants to the United States without British ancestry rapidly
adopted English after arrival. Now the majority of the United States population are monolingual
English speakers,[69][100] and English has been given official or co-official status by 30 of the 50
state governments, as well as all five territorial governments of the US, though there has never
been an official language at the federal level.[101][102]

English as a global language

Main article: English as a lingua franca
See also: Foreign language influences in English and Study of global communication
English has ceased to be an "English language" in the sense of belonging only to people who
are ethnically English.[103][104] Use of English is growing country-by-country internally and for
international communication. Most people learn English for practical rather than ideological
reasons.[105] Many speakers of English in Africa have become part of an "Afro-Saxon" language
community that unites Africans from different countries.[106]
As decolonisation proceeded throughout the British Empire in the 1950s and 1960s, former
colonies often did not reject English but rather continued to use it as independent countries
setting their own language policies.[54][55][107] For example, the view of the English
language among many Indians has gone from associating it with colonialism to associating it
with economic progress, and English continues to be an official language of India.[108] English is
also widely used in media and literature, and the number of English language books published
annually in India is the third largest in the world after the US and UK.[109] However English is
rarely spoken as a first language, numbering only around a couple hundred-thousand people,
and less than 5% of the population speak fluent English in India.[110][111] David Crystal claimed in
2004 that, combining native and non-native speakers, India now has more people who speak
or understand English than any other country in the world,[112] but the number of English
speakers in India is very uncertain, with most scholars concluding that the United States still
has more speakers of English than India.[113]
Modern English, sometimes described as the first global lingua franca,[57][114] is also regarded as
the first world language.[115][116] English is the world's most widely used language in newspaper
publishing, book publishing, international telecommunications, scientific publishing,
international trade, mass entertainment, and diplomacy.[116] English is, by international treaty,
the basis for the required controlled natural languages[117] Seaspeak and Airspeak, used
as international languages of seafaring[118] and aviation.[119] English used to have parity with
French and German in scientific research, but now it dominates that field.[120] It achieved parity
with French as a language of diplomacy at the Treaty of Versailles negotiations in 1919.[121] By
the time of the foundation of the United Nations at the end of World War II, English had
become pre-eminent[122] and is now the main worldwide language of diplomacy and
international relations.[123] It is one of six official languages of the United Nations.[124] Many other
worldwide international organisations, including the International Olympic Committee, specify
English as a working language or official language of the organisation.
Many regional international organisations such as the European Free Trade
Association, Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN),[58] and Asia-Pacific Economic
Cooperation (APEC) set English as their organisation's sole working language even though
most members are not countries with a majority of native English speakers. While the
European Union (EU) allows member states to designate any of the national languages as an
official language of the Union, in practice English is the main working language of EU
organisations.[125]
Although in most countries English is not an official language, it is currently the language most
often taught as a foreign language.[57][58] In the countries of the EU, English is the most widely
spoken foreign language in nineteen of the twenty-five member states where it is not an official
language (that is, the countries other than Ireland and Malta). In a 2012 official Eurobarometer
poll (conducted when the UK was still a member of the EU), 38 percent of the EU respondents
outside the countries where English is an official language said they could speak English well
enough to have a conversation in that language. The next most commonly mentioned foreign
language, French (which is the most widely known foreign language in the UK and Ireland),
could be used in conversation by 12 percent of respondents.[126]

Countries in which English Language is a Mandatory or an Optional Subject

English is the dominant language
English is a mandatory subject
English is an optional subject
No data
A working knowledge of English has become a requirement in a number of occupations and
professions such as medicine[127] and computing. English has become so important in scientific
publishing that more than 80 percent of all scientific journal articles indexed by Chemical
Abstracts in 1998 were written in English, as were 90 percent of all articles in natural science
publications by 1996 and 82 percent of articles in humanities publications by 1995.[128]
International communities such as international business people may use English as
an auxiliary language, with an emphasis on vocabulary suitable for their domain of interest.
This has led some scholars to develop the study of English as an auxiliary language. The
trademarked Globish uses a relatively small subset of English vocabulary (about 1500 words,
designed to represent the highest use in international business English) in combination with the
standard English grammar.[129] Other examples include Simple English.
The increased use of the English language globally has had an effect on other languages,
leading to some English words being assimilated into the vocabularies of other languages. This
influence of English has led to concerns about language death,[130] and to claims of linguistic
imperialism,[131] and has provoked resistance to the spread of English; however the number of
speakers continues to increase because many people around the world think that English
provides them with opportunities for better employment and improved lives.[132]
Although some scholars[who?] mention a possibility of future divergence of English dialects into
mutually unintelligible languages, most think a more likely outcome is that English will continue
to function as a koineised language in which the standard form unifies speakers from around
the world.[133] English is used as the language for wider communication in countries around the
world.[134] Thus English has grown in worldwide use much more than any constructed
language proposed as an international auxiliary language, including Esperanto.[135][136]