![]() It is a co-official language of the United Nations, the European Union and many other world and regional international organisations. English is the majority native language in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Ireland, an official and the main language of Singapore, and it is widely spoken in some areas of the Caribbean, Africa, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Oceania. ![]() As of 2005, it was estimated that there were over 2 billion speakers of English. There are more people who have learned it as a second language than there are native speakers. It is the most widely learned second language and is either the official language or one of the official languages in almost 60 sovereign states. Modern English relies more on auxiliary verbs and word order for the expression of complex tenses, aspect and mood, as well as passive constructions, interrogatives and some negation.Įnglish is the largest language by number of speakers, and the third most-spoken native language in the world, after Standard Chinese and Spanish. Modern English grammar is the result of a gradual change from a typical Indo-European dependent marking pattern, with a rich inflectional morphology and relatively free word order, to a mostly analytic pattern with little inflection, a fairly fixed subject–verb–object word order and a complex syntax. Through all types of printed and electronic media of these countries, English has become the leading language of international discourse and the lingua franca in many regions and professional contexts such as science, navigation and law. Modern English has been spreading around the world since the 17th century by the worldwide influence of the British Empire and the United States. Early Modern English began in the late 15th century with the introduction of the printing press to London, the printing of the King James Bible and the start of the Great Vowel Shift. Middle English began in the late 11th century with the Norman conquest of England this was a period in which English was influenced by Old French, in particular through its Old Norman dialect. ![]() The earliest forms of English, a group of West Germanic (Ingvaeonic) dialects brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the 5th century, are collectively called Old English. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.Įnglish has developed over the course of more than 1,400 years. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Regions where English is official but not as a primary native language ![]()
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