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English is a West Germanic Language originating in England , and the First Language for most people in Australia , Canada , the Commonwealth Caribbean , Ireland , New Zealand , the United Kingdom and the United States Of America (also commonly known as the Anglosphere ). It is used extensively as a Second Language and as an Official Language throughout the world, especially in Commonwealth countries such as India , Sri Lanka , Pakistan and South Africa , and in many International Organisation s. Modern English is sometimes described as the global Lingua Franca .12 English is the dominant international language in communications, science, business, aviation, entertainment, radio and diplomacy.3 The influence of the British Empire is the primary reason for the initial spread of the language far beyond the British Isles.4 Following World War II, the growing economic and cultural influence of the United States has significantly accelerated the spread of the language. Today English is being learnt by one billion people. Because a working knowledge of English is required in certain fields, professions, and occupations, English is studied and spoken by over a billion people around the world, to at least a basic level (see English Language Learning And Teaching ). English is one of six official languages of the United Nations . HISTORY See Also: History of the English language English is an Anglo-Frisian Language . Germanic -speaking peoples from northwest Germany ( Saxons and Angles ) and Jutland ( Jutes ) invaded what is now known as Eastern England around the fifth century AD. It is a matter of debate whether the Old English Language spread by displacement of the original population, or the native Celts gradually adopted the language and culture of a new ruling class, or a combination of both of these processes (see Sub-Roman Britain ). Whatever their origin, these Germanic dialects eventually coalesced to a degree (there remained geographical variation) and formed what is today called Old English. Old English loosely resembles some coastal dialects in what are now northwest 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 , largely adopting West Saxon scribal conventions, 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 was to an increasing extent recorded with spoken dialectal variation intact, after written Old English lost its status as the literary language of the nobility. It is postulated that the early development of the language was influenced by a Celtic substratum.56 Later, it was influenced by the related North Germanic language Old Norse , spoken by the Viking s who settled mainly in the north and the east coast down to London, the area known as the Danelaw . The and Greek , leaving a parallel vocabulary that persists into modern times. The Norman influence gave rise to 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 prestigious South Eastern-based dialect in the court, administration and academic life, and the standardising effect of Printing . Early Modern English can be traced back to around the Elizabethan period. CLASSIFICATION AND RELATED LANGUAGES The English language belongs to the western sub-branch of the Germanic Branch of the Indo-European family of languages. The question as to which is the nearest living relative of English is a matter of discussion. Apart from such English-lexified , which is spoken in the Northern Netherlands and Northwest Germany. Other less closely related living West Germanic Languages include German , Low Saxon , 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 subsequent centuries. As a result, a large portion of English vocabulary is derived from 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 Over 380 million people speak English as their first language. English today is probably the third largest language by number of native speakers, after speakers vary greatly from 470 million to over a billion depending on how Literacy or mastery is defined.8http://www.oxfordseminars.com/Tesol/Pages/Teach/teach_20000jobs.php There are some who claim that non-native speakers now outnumber native speakers by a ratio of 3 to 1. Not the Queen's English , Newsweek International, March 7 edition, 2007. The countries with the highest populations of native English speakers are, in descending order: United States (215 million),9 Table 14 gives the figure of 214,809 for those over four years of age who speak exclusively English at home. Based on the American Community Survey, these results exclude those living communally (such as college dormitories, institutions, and group homes), and by definition exclude native English speakers who speak more than one language at home. United Kingdom (58 million),[http://www.cambridge.org/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=0521530334 The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, Second Edition, Crystal, David; Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, [1995] (2003-08-03).] Canada (17.7 million), Mother Tongue, 2001 Counts for Both Sexes, for Canada, Provinces and Territories - 20% Sample Data , Census 2001, .Yong Zhao; Keith P. Campbell (1995). "English in China". World Englishes 14 (3): 377–390. Hong Kong contributes an additional 2.5 million speakers (1996 by-census]). 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 ( Guernsey English ), Guyana , Ireland ( Hiberno-English ), Isle Of Man ( Manx English ), Jamaica ( Jamaican English ), Jersey , Montserrat , Nauru , New Zealand ( New Zealand 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, the U.S. Virgin Islands , and the United States (various forms of American English ). In many other countries, where English is not the most spoken language, it is an official language; these countries include Botswana , Cameroon , Fiji , the Federated States Of Micronesia , Ghana , Gambia , Hong Kong , India , Kiribati , Lesotho , Liberia , Kenya , Madagascar , Malta , the Marshall Islands , Namibia , Nigeria , Pakistan , Papua New Guinea , the Philippines , Puerto Rico , Rwanda , the Solomon Islands , Samoa , Sierra Leone , Singapore , Sri Lanka , Swaziland , Tanzania , Uganda , 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 not an official language in either the United States or the United Kingdom. Languages Spoken in the U.S. , National Virtual Translation Center, 2006. U.S. English Foundation , Official Language Research -- United Kingdom. Although the United States federal government has no official languages, English has been given official status by 30 of the 50 state governments. U.S. ENGLISH,Inc English as a global language See Also: English on the Internet global language Because English is so widely spoken, it has often been referred to as a " 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 . 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%).http://europa.eu.int/comm/education/policies/lang/languages/index_en.html In the EU, a large fraction of the population reports being able to converse well in English. Among non-English speaking countries, a majority reported such English skills in the and Iceland also have a large majority of competent English-speakers. 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 . # American English lacks this sound; words with this sound are pronounced with or . # Many dialects of North American English do not have this vowel. See ''Cot-caught Merger'' . # The North American variation of this sound is a Rhotic Vowel . # 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 . # This sound is often transcribed with or with . # The diphthongs and are monophthongal for many General American speakers, as and . # The letter <''U''> can represent either or the Iotated vowel . In BRP, if this iotated vowel occurs after , , or , it often triggers palatalization of the preceding consonant, turning it to , , and respectively, as in ''tune'', ''during'', ''sugar'', and ''azure''. In American English, palatalization does not generally happen unless the is followed by ''r'', with the result that turn to , , and respectively, as in ''nature'', ''verdure'', ''sure'', and ''treasure''. # , vowel length was phonemically contrastive. # This sound only occurs in non-rhotic accents. In some accents, this sound may be, instead of , . See Pour-poor Merger . # This sound only occurs in non-rhotic accents. In some accents, the schwa offglide of may be dropped, monophthising and lengthening the sound to . See also
Consonants This is the English Consonantal System using symbols from the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). # The Velar Nasal is a non-phonemic allophone of /n/ in some northerly British accents, appearing only before /k/ and /g/. In all other dialects it is a separate phoneme, although it only occurs in Syllable Coda s. # The Alveolar Flap is an allophone of /t/ and /d/ in unstressed syllables in North American English and Australian English .11 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 . This is the same sound represented by single "r" in most varieties of Spanish . # 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. # The sounds are labialised in some dialects. Labialisation is never contrastive in initial position and therefore is sometimes not transcribed. Most speakers of General American realize # The Voiceless Palatal Fricative /ç/ is in most accents just an Allophone of /h/ before /j/; for instance ''human'' /çjuːmən/. However, in some accents (see This ), the /j/ is dropped, but the initial consonant is the same. # The Voiceless Velar Fricative /x/ is used only by Scottish or Welsh speakers of English for Scots/Gaelic words such as ''loch'' or by some speakers for loanwords from German and Hebrew like ''Bach'' or ''Chanukah'' /xanuka/. In some dialects such as Scouse ( Liverpool ) either or the Affricate may be used as an Allophone of /k/ in words such as ''docker'' . Most native speakers have a great deal of trouble pronouncing it correctly when learning a foreign language. Most speakers use the sounds and [h instead. # Voiceless w is found in Scottish and Irish English, as well as in some varieties of American, New Zealand, and English English. In most other dialects it is merged with /w/, in some dialects of Scots it is merged with /f/. Voicing and aspiration Voicing and Aspiration of Stop Consonant s in English depend on dialect and context, but a few general rules can be given:
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. For example: : - ''Do you need anything?'' : - ''I don't, no'' : - ''I don't know'' (contracted to, for example, - or ''I dunno'' in fast or colloquial speech that de-emphasises the pause between don't and know even further) Characteristics of intonation English is a strongly stressed language, in that certain syllables, both within words and within phrases, 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 ( ) 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: Written accents See Also: English words with diacritics Unlike most other Germanic languages, English has almost no Diacritic s, except in foreign Loanwords (like the Acute Accent in ''café'') and in the uncommon use of a Diaeresis mark (often in formal writing) to indicate that two vowels are pronounced separately, rather than as one sound (e.g. ''naïve, Zoë''). FORMAL WRITTEN ENGLISH A version of the language almost universally agreed upon by educated English speakers around the world is called Formal Written English . It takes virtually the same form no matter where in the English-speaking world it is written. In spoken English, by contrast, there are a vast number of differences between Dialects , Accents , and varieties of Slang , colloquial and regional expressions. In spite of this, local variations in the formal written version of the language are quite limited, being restricted largely to the Spelling Differences Between British And American English . BASIC AND SIMPLIFIED VERSIONS To make English easier to read, there are some simplified versions of the language. One basic version is named '', and seven weeks for Basic English, comparable with Ido . Thus Basic English is used by companies who need to make complex books for international use, and by language schools that need to give people some knowledge of English in a short time. Ogden did not put any words into Basic English that could be said with a few other words and he worked to make the words work for speakers of any other language. He put his set of words through a large number of tests and adjustments. He also made the grammar simpler, but tried to keep the grammar normal for English users. The concept gained its greatest publicity just after the Second World War as a tool for world peace. Although it was not built into a program, similar simplifications were devised for various international uses. Another version, Simplified English , exists, which is a Controlled Language originally developed for Aerospace industry maintenance manuals. It offers a carefully limited and standardised subset of English. Simplified English has a lexicon of approved words and those words can only be used in certain ways. For example, the word ''close'' can be used in the phrase "Close the door" but not "do not go close to the landing gear". NOTES REFERENCES SEE ALSO
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