English language

English is a West Germanic language originating in England, and the first language for most people of Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. It is used extensively as a second language and as an official language throughout the world, especially in Commonwealth countries such as India and South Africa, as well as in many international organizations.

Modern English is sometimes described as the world lingua franca.^[2] English is the prominent international language in communications, science, business, aviation, entertainment, and diplomacy and also on the Internet. It has been one of the official languages of the United Nations since its founding in 1945 and is considered by many to be on its way to become the world's first universal language.^[1]

The influence of the British Empire is the primary reason for the language's initial spread far beyond the British Isles.^[3] Following World War II, the increased economic and cultural influence of the United States led to English permeating many other cultures, chiefly through development of telecommunications technology.^[4]

Because a working knowledge of English is required in many fields, professions, and occupations, education ministries throughout the world mandate the teaching of English, at least a basic level (see English language learning and teaching), in an effort to increase the competitiveness of their economies.

History

Main article: History of the English language

English is an Anglo-Frisian language. Germanic-speaking peoples from various parts of northwest Germany (Saxons, Angles) as well as Jutland (Jutes) invaded what is now known as Eastern England around the 5th century AD. It is a matter of current debate whether the Anglo-Saxon language spread by displacement of the original population, or the native Celts gradually adopted the language and culture of a new ruling class (see Sub-Roman Britain). There is also some debate as to whether there were substantial numbers of Saxons already in Britain in late Roman times.

Whatever their origin, these Germanic dialects eventually coalesced to a degree and formed what is today called the Old English language, which resembled some coastal dialects in what are now north-west Germany and the Netherlands (i.e. Frisia). Throughout the history of written Old English, it retained a synthetic structure closer to that of Proto-Indo-European, being based on a single literary standard, while spoken Old English became increasingly analytic in nature, losing the more complex noun case system, relying more heavily on prepositions and fixed word-order to convey meaning. This is evident in the Middle English period, when literature is first recorded in the various spoken dialects of English of the time, after written Old English lost its status as the literary language of the nobility. It has been postulated that the early development of the language may have been influenced by a Celtic substratum.^[5][6] Later, it was influenced by the related North Germanic language Old Norse, spoken by the Vikings who settled mainly in the north and the east coast down to London, the area known as the Danelaw.

Then came the Norman Conquest of England in 1066. For about 300 years following, the Norman kings and the high nobility spoke only Anglo-Norman, which was very close to Old French. A large number of Norman words found their way into Old English. Later, a large number of words were borrowed directly from Latin and Greek, especially for scientific and technical terms, leaving a parallel vocabulary that persists into modern times. The Norman influence strongly affected the evolution of the language over the following centuries, resulting in what is now referred to as Middle English.

During the 15th century, Middle English was transformed by the Great Vowel Shift, the spread of a standardised London-based dialect in government and administration, and the standardising effect of printing. Early Modern English can be traced back to around the time of William Shakespeare.

Classification and related languages

The English language belongs to the western sub-branch of the Germanic branch, which is itself a branch of the Indo-European family of languages.

The question as to which is the nearest living relative of English is a matter of some discussion. Apart from such English-lexified creole languages such as Tok Pisin, Scots (spoken primarily in Scotland and parts of Northern Ireland) is the Germanic variety most closely associated with English. Like English, Scots ultimately descends from Old English, also known as Anglo-Saxon. The closest relative to English after Scots is Frisian, which is spoken in the Northern Netherlands and Northwest Germany. Other less closely related living West Germanic languages include German itself, Low German, Dutch, and Afrikaans. The North Germanic languages of Scandinavia are less closely related to English than the West Germanic languages.

Many French words are also intelligible to an English speaker (though pronunciations are often quite different) because English absorbed a large vocabulary from Norman and French, via Anglo-Norman after the Norman Conquest and directly from French in further centuries. As a result, a substantial share of English vocabulary is quite close to French, with some minor spelling differences (word endings, use of old French spellings, etc.), as well as occasional divergences in meaning, in so called "faux amis", or false-friends.

Geographical distribution

See also: List of countries by English-speaking population

Over 380 million people speak English as their first language. English today is variously estimated as the second, third, or fourth largest language by number of native speakers. All estimates have it trailing Mandarin Chinese, and other estimates are mixed as to whether it outranks Hindi, Spanish, and a combination of the various Arabic dialects.^[7][8][9] However, when combining native and non-native speakers it is probably the most commonly spoken language in the world, though possibly second behind a combination of the Chinese languages.^[10][1] Estimates that include second language speakers vary greatly from 470 million to over a billion depending on how literacy or mastery is defined.^[11][12] There are some who claim that non-native speakers now outnumber native speakers by a ratio of 3 to 1.^[13]

The countries with the highest populations of native English speakers are, in descending order: United States (215 million),^[14] United Kingdom (58 million),^[15] Canada (17.6 million),^[16] Australia (15 million),^[17] Ireland (3.8 million),^[15] and New Zealand (3.4 million).^[18] Of those nations where English is spoken as a second language, India has the most such speakers ('Indian English') and it has been claimed that, combining native and non-native speakers, India now has more people who speak or understand English than any other country in the world.^[19] Following India are the People's Republic of China,^[20] the Philippines,^[21] and Germany.^[22]

English is the primary language in Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Australia (Australian English), the Bahamas, Barbados, Bermuda, Belize, the British Indian Ocean Territory, the British Virgin Islands, Canada (Canadian English), the Cayman Islands, Dominica, the Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, Grenada, Guernsey, Guyana, Isle of Man, Jamaica (Jamaican English), Jersey, Montserrat, Nauru, New Zealand (New Zealand English), Ireland (Hiberno-English), Pitcairn Islands, Saint Helena, Saint Lucia, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Singapore, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, Trinidad and Tobago, the Turks and Caicos Islands, the United Kingdom (various forms of British English), the U.S. Virgin Islands, the United States (various forms of American English), and Zimbabwe.

In many other countries, where English is not a first language, it is an official language; these countries include Cameroon, Fiji, the Federated States of Micronesia, Ghana, Gambia, India, Kiribati, Lesotho, Liberia, Kenya, Namibia, Nigeria, Malta, the Marshall Islands, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Rwanda, the Solomon Islands, Samoa, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. It is also one of the 11 official languages that are given equal status in South Africa ("South African English"). English is also an important language in several former colonies or current dependent territories of the United Kingdom and the United States, such as in Hong Kong and Mauritius.

English is the language most often studied as a foreign language in the European Union (by 89% of schoolchildren), followed by French (32%), German (18%), and Spanish (8%).^[23] It is also the most studied in the People's Republic of China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan.^{[citation needed]}

It is worth noting that English is not an official language in either the United States or the United Kingdom.^[24][25] Although the U.S. federal government has no official languages, English has been given official status by 25 of the 50 state governments.^[26]

English as a global language

See also: English on the Internet and global language

Because English is so widely spoken, it has often been referred to as a "global language", the lingua franca of the modern era. While English is not an official language in many countries, it is currently the language most often taught as a second language around the world. Some linguists believe that it is no longer the exclusive cultural sign of "native English speakers", but is rather a language that is absorbing aspects of cultures worldwide as it continues to grow. It is, by international treaty, the official language for aerial and maritime communications, as well as one of the official languages of the European Union, the United Nations, and most international athletic organisations, including the International Olympic Committee.

Books, magazines, and newspapers written in English are available in many countries around the world. English is also the most commonly used language in the sciences. In 1997, the Science Citation Index reported that 95% of its articles were written in English, even though only half of them came from authors in English-speaking countries.

Dialects and regional varieties

Main article: List of dialects of the English language

The expansion of the British Empire and—especially since WWII—the primacy of the United States have spread English throughout the globe. Because of that global spread, English has developed a host of English dialects and English-based creole languages and pidgins.

The major varieties of English each include, in most cases, several subvarieties, such as Cockney slang within British English; Newfoundland English, and the English spoken by Anglo-Québecers within Canadian English; and African American Vernacular English ("Ebonics") and Southern American English within American English. English is a pluricentric language, without a central language authority like France's Académie française; and although no variety is clearly considered the only standard, there are a number of accents considered as more formal, such as Received Pronunciation in Britain or, formerly, the upper-class Bostonian dialect in the U.S.

Scots developed — largely independently — from the same origins, but following the Acts of Union 1707 a process of language attrition began, whereby successive generations adopted more and more features from English causing dialectalisation. Whether it is now a separate language or a dialect of English better described as Scottish English is in dispute. The pronunciation, grammar and lexis of the traditional forms differ, sometimes substantially, from other varieties of English.

Because of the wide use of English as a second language, English speakers have many different accents, which often signal the speaker's native dialect or language. For the more distinctive characteristics of regional accents, see Regional accents of English speakers, and for the more distinctive characteristics of regional dialects, see List of dialects of the English language.

Just as English itself has borrowed words from many different languages over its history, English loanwords now appear in a great many languages around the world, indicative of the technological and cultural influence of its speakers. Several pidgins and creole languages have formed using an English base, for example Tok Pisin began as one. There are many words in English coined to describe forms of particular non-English languages that contain a very high proportion of English words. Franglais, for example, is used to describe French with a very high English word content; it is found on the Channel Islands. Another variant, spoken in the border bilingual regions of Québec in Canada, is called Frenglish. Norwenglish is a form of English containing many words or expressions directly copied from Norwegian.

Constructed varieties of English

• Basic English is simplified for easy international use. It is used by some aircraft manufacturers and other international businesses to write manuals and communicate. Some English schools in Asia teach it as an initial practical subset of English.
• Special English is a simplified version of English used by the Voice of America. It uses a vocabulary of 1500 words.
• English reform is an attempt to improve collectively upon the English language.
• Seaspeak and the related Airspeak and Policespeak, all based on restricted vocabularies, were designed by Edward Johnson in the 1980s to aid international cooperation and communication in specific areas. There is also a tunnelspeak for use in the Channel Tunnel.
• English as a lingua franca for Europe and Euro-English are concepts of standardising English for use as a second language in continental Europe.
• Manually Coded English — a variety of systems have been developed to represent the English language with hand signals, designed primarily for use in deaf education. These should not be confused with true sign languages such as British Sign Language and American Sign Language used in Anglophone countries, which are independent and not based on English.
• E-Prime excludes forms of the verb "to be."

Euro-English (also Euroenglish or Euro-Englich) terms are English translations of European concepts that are not native to English-speaking countries. Due to the United Kingdom's (and even the Republic of Ireland's) involvement in the European Union, the usage focuses on non-British concepts. Examples are the concept of spatial planning or something being “degressive”, and the word "Euro-".

It also refers to dialects of English spoken by Europeans for whom English is not their first language, especially since English is frequently used by two Europeans to communicate even when neither of them know English as the first language.^{[citation needed]}

Phonology

Main article: English phonology

Vowels

Notes:

It is the vowels that differ most from region to region.

Where symbols appear in pairs, the first corresponds to American English, General American accent; the second corresponds to British English, Received Pronunciation.

1. American English lacks this sound; words with this sound are pronounced with /ɑ/ or /ɔ/.
2. Many dialects of North American English do not have this vowel. See Cot-caught merger.
3. The North American variation of this sound is a rhotic vowel.
4. Many speakers of North American English do not distinguish between these two unstressed vowels. For them, roses and Rosa's are pronounced the same, and the symbol usually used is schwa /ə/.
5. This sound is often transcribed with /i/ or with /ɪ/.
6. The diphthongs /eɪ/ and /oʊ/ are monophthongal for many General American speakers, as /eː/ and /oː/.
7. The letter <U> can represent either /u/ or the iotated vowel /ju/.
8. Vowel length plays a phonetic role in the majority of English dialects, and is said to be phonemic in a few dialects, such as Australian English and New Zealand English. In certain dialects of the modern English language, for instance General American, there is allophonic vowel length: vowel phonemes are realized as long vowel allophones before voiced consonant phonemes in the coda of a syllable. Before the Great Vowel Shift, vowel length was phonemically contrastive.
9. This sound only occurs in non-rhotic accents. In some accents, this sound may be, instead of /ʊə/, /ɔ:/. See pour-poor merger.
10. This sound only occurs in non-rhotic accents. In some accents, the schwa offglide of /ɛə/ may be dropped, monophthising and lengthening the sound to /ɛ:/.

See also

• International Phonetic Alphabet for English for more vowel charts.

Consonants

This is the English Consonantal System using symbols from the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).

1. The velar nasal [ŋ] is a non-phonemic allophone of /n/ in some northerly British accents, appearing only before /g/. In all other dialects it is a separate phoneme, although it only occurs in syllable codas.
2. The alveolar flap [ɾ] is an allophone of /t/ and /d/ in unstressed syllables in North American English and increasingly^{[verification needed]} in Australian English. This is the sound of "tt" or "dd" in the words latter and ladder, which are homophones for many speakers of North American English. In some accents such as Scottish English and Indian English it replaces /ɹ/. This is the same sound represented by single "r" in most varieties of Spanish.
3. In some dialects, such as Cockney, the interdentals /θ/ and /ð/ are usually merged with /f/ and /v/, and in others, like African American Vernacular English, /ð/ is merged with dental /d/. In some Irish varieties, /θ/ and /ð/ become the corresponding dental plosives, which then contrast with the usual alveolar plosives.
4. The sounds /ʃ/, /ʒ/, and /ɹ/ are labialised in some dialects. Labialisation is never contrastive in initial position and therefore is sometimes not transcribed. Most speakers of General American realize <r> (always rhoticized) as the retroflex approximant /ɻ/, whereas the same is realized in Scottish English, etc. as the alveolar trill.
5. The voiceless velar fricative /x/ is used only by Scottish or Welsh speakers of English for Scots/Gaelic words such as loch /lɒx/ or by some speakers for loanwords from German and Hebrew like Bach /bax/ or Chanukah /xanuka/. In some dialects such as Scouse (Liverpool) either [x] or the affricate [kx] may be used as an allophone of /k/ in words such as docker [dɒkxə]. Most native speakers have a great deal of trouble pronouncing it correctly when learning a foreign language. Most speakers use the sounds [k] and [h] instead.
6. Voiceless w [ʍ] is found in Scottish and Irish English, as well as in some varieties of American, New Zealand, and English English. In all other dialects it is merged with /w/.

Voicing and aspiration

Voicing and aspiration of stop consonants in English depend on dialect and context, but a few general rules can be given:

• Voiceless plosives and affricates (/ p/, / t/, / k/, and / tʃ/) are aspirated when they are word-initial or begin a stressed syllable — compare pin [pʰɪn] and spin [spɪn], crap [kʰɹ̥æp] and scrap [skɹæp].
  • In some dialects, aspiration extends to unstressed syllables as well.
  • In other dialects, such as Indo-Pakistani English, all voiceless stops remain unaspirated.
• Word-initial voiced plosives may be devoiced in some dialects.
• Word-terminal voiceless plosives may be unreleased or accompanied by a glottal stop in some dialects (e.g. many varieties of American English) — examples: tap [ tʰæp̚], sack [ sæk̚].
• Word-terminal voiced plosives may be devoiced in some dialects (e.g. some varieties of American English) — examples: sad [ sæd̥], bag [ bæɡ̊]. In other dialects they are fully voiced in final position, but only partially voiced in initial position.

See also

International Phonetic Alphabet for English

Supra-segmental features

Tone groups

English is an intonation language. This means that the pitch of the voice is used syntactically, for example, to convey surprise and irony, or to change a statement into a question.

In English, intonation patterns are on groups of words, which are called tone groups, tone units, intonation groups or sense groups. Tone groups are said on a single breath and, as a consequence, are of limited length, more often being on average five words long or lasting roughly two seconds. The structure of tone groups can have a crucial impact on the meaning of what is said. For example:

- /duː juː niːd ˈɛnɪˌθɪŋ/ Do you need anything?

- /aɪ dəʊnt | nəʊ/ I don't, no

- /aɪ dəʊnt nəʊ/ I don't know (contracted to, for example, - /aɪ dəʊnəʊ/ or /aɪ dənəʊ/ I dunno in fast or colloquial speech that de-emphasises the pause between don't and know even further)

Characteristics of intonation (stress accent)

English is a stress-timed language, i.e., certain syllables in each multi-syllabic word get a relative prominence/loudness during pronunciation while the others do not. The former kind of syllables are said to be accentuated/stressed and the latter are unaccentuated/unstressed. All good dictionaries of English mark the accentuated syllable(s) by either placing an apostrophe-like ( ˈ ) sign either before (as in IPA, Oxford English Dictionary, or Merriam-Webster dictionaries) or after (as in many other dictionaries) the syllable where the stress accent falls. In general, for a two-syllable word in English, it can be broadly said that if it is a noun or an adjective, the first syllable is accentuated; but if it is a verb, the second syllable is accentuated.

Hence in a sentence, each tone group can be subdivided into syllables, which can either be stressed (strong) or unstressed (weak). The stressed syllable is called the nuclear syllable. For example:

That | was | the | best | thing | you | could | have | done!

Here, all syllables are unstressed, except the syllables/words "best" and "done", which are stressed. "Best" is stressed harder and, therefore, is the nuclear syllable.

The nuclear syllable carries the main point the speaker wishes to make. For example:

John hadn't stolen that money. (... Someone else had.)

John hadn't stolen that money. (... You said he had. or ... Not at that time, but later he did.)

John hadn't stolen that money. (... He acquired the money by some other means.)

John hadn't stolen that money. (... He had stolen some other money.)

John hadn't stolen that money. (... He stole something else.)

Also

I didn't tell her that. (... Someone else told her.)

I didn't tell her that. (... You said I did. or ... But now I will!)

I didn't tell her that. (... I didn't say it; she could have inferred it, etc.)

I didn't tell her that. (... I told someone else.)

I didn't tell her that. (... I told her something else.)

The nuclear syllable is spoken louder than all the others and has a characteristic change of pitch. The changes of pitch most commonly encountered in English are the rising pitch and the falling pitch, although the fall-rising pitch and/or the rise-falling pitch are sometimes used. For example:

When do you want to be paid?

Now? (Rising pitch. In this case, it denotes a question: "can I be paid now?" or "do you desire to be paid now?")

Now. (Falling pitch. In this case, it denotes a statement: I choose to be paid now.)

Grammar

Main article: English grammar

English grammar displays minimal inflection compared with most other Indo-European languages. This is caused by deflexion. For example, Modern English, unlike Modern German or Dutch and the Romance languages, lacks grammatical gender and adjectival agreement. Case marking has almost disappeared from the language and mainly survives in pronouns. The patterning of strong (e.g. speak/spoke/spoken) versus weak verbs inherited from Germanic has declined in importance and the remnants of inflection (such as plural marking) have become more regular.

At the same time as inflection has declined in importance in English, the language has become more analytic, and developed a greater reliance on features such as modal verbs and word order to convey grammatical information. Auxiliary verbs are used to mark constructions such as questions, negatives, the passive voice and progressive tenses.

Vocabulary

Germanic words (generally words of German or to a lesser extent Scandinavian origin) which include all the basics such as pronouns and conjunctions tend to be shorter than the Latinate words of English, and more common in ordinary speech. The longer Latinate words are often regarded as more elegant or educated. However, the excessive or superfluous use of Latinate words is, at times, considered by some to be either pretentious (as in the stereotypical policeman's talk of "apprehending the suspect") or an attempt to obfuscate an issue. George Orwell's essay "Politics and the English Language" gives a particular viewpoint on this feature of English.

An English speaker is in many cases able to choose between Germanic and Latinate synonyms: "come" or "arrive"; "sight" or "vision"; "freedom" or "liberty." In some cases there is a choice between a Germanic word (oversee), a Latin word (supervise), and a French word derived from the same Latin word (survey). The richness of the language arises from the variety of different meanings and nuances such synonyms have from each other, enabling the speaker to express fine variations or shades of thought. Familiarity with the etymology of groups of synonyms can give English speakers greater control over their linguistic register. See: List of Germanic and Latinate equivalents.

An exception to this and a peculiarity perhaps unique to English is that the nouns for meats are commonly different from, and unrelated to, those for the animals from which they are produced, the animal commonly having a Germanic name and the meat having a French-derived one. Examples include: deer and venison;