 |
|
| VOCABULARY DATABASE > ENGLISH > INFORMATION |
|
||||
|
Speakers. English is a West Germanic language spoken by 300-400 million people as a first language. It is the most widespread language on earth, second language speakers probably totaling 1,000 million. Its best known standards are General American and Standard British English. The latter has been increasingly influenced by the American variant since World War II.
Importance. English is one of six official languages of the United Nations and one of the four major languages in scientific publications.
History. The language derived from the language spoken by Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, who migrated to Britain 5th-6th c. It was heavily influenced by Latin, following the christianization of the country, by Old Norse, introduced by Viking invaders during the 9th c., and by Old French, spoken by the Normans, which in turn conquered Britain during the 11th c. During the Renaissance, many loanwords were adopted from French, Latin, and Greek. The language started to be standardized in the 18th c. American English was first described extensively by Noah Webster in the 19th c.
Features. Being sort of a pidgin itself, English has lost much of the inflection of its Germanic ancestor and became an analytic language. As a result, the word function is largely flexible, while word position within a sentence is by and large fixed. On the other hand, the language has kept on being very open to foreign vocabulary. As James D. Nicoll put it, "English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary." The remarkably irregular spelling system of English also witnesses the ups and downs of its historical origin.
Legal notice.
Our homepage is http://www.vtrain.net