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English language

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Languages

   English
   Pronunciation: IPA: /ˈɪŋglɪʃ/
   Spoken in: Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, United Kingdom,
   United States and many other countries
   Total speakers: First language: 354 million
   Second language: 150 million–1.5 billion
   Ranking: 4 as a native language;
   1 or 2 in overall speakers (depending on counting method)
   Language family: Indo-European
     Germanic
      West Germanic
       Anglo-Frisian
        Anglic
        English
   Writing system: Latin alphabet
   Official status
   Official language of: De jure, exclusive: Liberia, several Commonwealth
   countries
   De jure, non-exclusive: Canada, Hong Kong, Ireland, South Africa,
   Kenya, India, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, Israel, Kosovo,
   European Union, Zimbabwe
   De facto, exclusive: Australia
   De facto, non-exclusive: New Zealand, United Kingdom, United States
   Regulated by: no official regulation
   Language codes
   ISO 639-1: en
   ISO 639-2: eng
   ISO/FDIS 639-3: eng

    World countries, states, and provinces where English is the de facto
   official language are dark blue; countries, states, and provinces where
        it is an official, but not a primary language are light blue.


   Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA
   chart for English for an English-​based pronunciation key.

   English is a widely distributed language originating in England that is
   currently the primary language of several countries. It is extensively
   used as a second language and as an official language in many other
   countries. English is the most widely taught and understood language in
   the world, and sometimes is described as a lingua franca. Although
   Modern Standard Chinese has more mother-tongue speakers (approximately
   700 million) English is used by more people as a second or foreign
   language, putting the total number of English-speakers worldwide at
   well over one billion.

   An estimated 354 million people speak English as their first language.
   Estimates about second language speakers of English vary greatly
   between 150 million and 1.5 billion. English is the dominant
   international language in communications, science, business, aviation,
   entertainment, diplomacy and the Internet. It has been one of the
   official languages of the United Nations since its founding in 1945.

   English is a West Germanic language that developed from Old English,
   the language of the Anglo-Saxons. English, having its major roots in
   Germanic languages, derives most of its grammar from Old English. As a
   result of the Norman Conquest, it has been heavily influenced, more
   than any other Germanic language, by French and Latin. From England it
   spread to the rest of the British Isles, then to the colonies and
   territories of the British Empire (outside and inside the current
   Commonwealth of Nations) such as the United States, Canada, Australia,
   New Zealand, and others, particularly those in the Anglophone
   Caribbean. As a result of these historical developments English is the
   official language (sometimes one of several) in many countries formerly
   under British or American rule, such as Pakistan, Ghana, India,
   Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, Uganda, and the Philippines.

   Mandarin Chinese and Hindi have more native speakers than does English;
   however, the geographic distribution of Mandarin and Hindi, as both
   first and second languages, is more limited than that of English.
   English also is the most widely spoken Germanic language. English
   spread to many parts of the world through the expansion of the British
   Empire, but did not acquire lingua franca status in the world until the
   late 20th century, when American culture began to overpower that of
   others on the global scale. Following World War II, the economic and
   cultural influence of the United States increased and English permeated
   other cultures, chiefly through development of telecommunications
   technology. Because a working knowledge of English is required in many
   fields, professions, and occupations, education ministries throughout
   the world mandate the teaching of English to, at least, a basic level
   (see English as an additional language).

History

   English is an Anglo-Frisian language brought to southeastern Great
   Britain in the 5th century AD and earlier by Germanic settlers and
   Germanic auxiliary troops from various parts of northwest Germany (
   Saxons, Angles) as well as Jutland ( Jutes).

   The extent of Germanic immigration to Britain during Roman supremacy
   there is unknown, but substantial, as Germanic auxiliary troops were
   continually recruited outside and settled within the borders of the
   Empire, Britain being no exception to this rule. Thus, the Germanic
   roots of English in Britain may go back to the 2nd Century A.D. or even
   earlier.

   The original Old English language was subsequently influenced by two
   successive waves of invasion. The first was by speakers of languages in
   the Scandinavian branch of the Germanic family, who colonised parts of
   the British Isles in the eighth and ninth centuries. The second wave
   was of the Normans in the eleventh century, who spoke Norman French (an
   oïl language closely related to Modern French).

   While modern scholarship considers most of the story to be legendary
   and politically motivated, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle reported that
   around the year 449, Vortigern, a legendary king of the Brythons,
   invited the Angles to help him against the Picts (of modern-day
   Scotland). In return, the Angles were granted lands in the southeast
   and far north of England. Further aid was sought, and in response came
   Saxons, Angles, and Jutes. The Chronicle talks of a subsequent influx
   of settlers who eventually established seven kingdoms.

   These Germanic invaders dominated the original Celtic-speaking
   inhabitants, whose languages survived in areas not under Germanic
   domination: Scotland, Wales, Brittany, Cornwall, and Ireland. The
   dialects spoken by the invaders dominated almost all of what is now
   called England and formed what is today called the Old English
   language, which resembled some coastal dialects in what are now
   northwest Germany and the Netherlands (i.e. Frisia). 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, 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. 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 — which is 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 French, via the 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.

Geographical distribution

   Distribution of first-language native English speakers by country
   (Crystal 1997)
   Enlarge
   Distribution of first-language native English speakers by country
   (Crystal 1997)

   According to the World Factbook, aided with Aneki, and the Guinness
   World Records English is currently the 2nd most commonly spoken
   language in the world. It has over 500 million speakers. It is behind
   only Mandarin, which has over 1 billion speakers. English is today the
   third most widely distributed language as a first spoken language in
   the world, after Mandarin and Hindi (see the ranking). Something around
   600 million people use the various dialects of English regularly. About
   377 million people use one of the versions of English as their mother
   tongue, and a similar number of people use one of them as their second
   or foreign language as well. English is used widely in either the
   public or private sphere in more than 100 countries all over the world.
   In addition, the language has occupied a prominent place in
   international academic and business communities. The current status of
   the English language at the start of the new millennium compares with
   that of Latin in most of Western Europe since the fall of the Roman
   Empire. English is also the most widely used language for young
   backpackers who travel across continents, regardless of whether it is
   their mother tongue or a secondary language.

   Although the language is named after England, the United States now has
   more first-language English speakers than the rest of the world
   combined. The United Kingdom comes second, with England indeed having
   as many English speakers as the rest of the world combined (aside from
   the USA). Canada is third, and Australia fourth, with those four
   comprising 95% of native English speakers. Of those nations where
   English is spoken as a second language, India has the most such
   speakers (' Indian English') and now has more people who speak or
   understand English than any other country. Following India are the
   People's Republic of China, the Philippines, Germany and the United
   States (by way of immigrant communities and other enclaves in which
   English is necessary for communication with their English-speaking
   countrymen).

   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,
   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.

   English is also an important minority language of South Africa ( South
   African English), and in several other former colonies or current
   dependent territories of the United Kingdom and the United States, for
   example Hong Kong, Singapore, Mauritius, and the Philippines.

   In Asia, former British colonies like Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia
   use English as either an official language or a de facto common
   language, and it is taught in all private and public schools as a
   mandatory subject. There are a considerable number of native English
   speakers in urban areas in both countries. In Hong Kong, English is
   co-official with Chinese, and is widely used in business activities. It
   is taught from infant school and kindergarten, and is the medium of
   instruction for a few primary schools, many secondary schools and all
   universities. Substantial numbers of students reach native-speaker
   fluency. It is so widely used that it is inadequate to say that it is
   merely a second or foreign language, though there is still a percentage
   of people in Hong Kong with poor or little command of English.

   The majority of English native speakers (67 to 70 per cent) live in the
   United States (Crystal, 1997). Although the U.S. Federal government has
   no official languages, English has been given official status by 27 of
   the 50 state governments, all but three of which (Hawaii, New Mexico
   and Louisiana) have declared English their sole official language.

   In many other countries, where English is not a first language, it is
   an official language; these countries include Belize, 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, Sri Lanka, Swaziland, Tanzania,
   Zambia and Zimbabwe.

   English is the most widely learned and used foreign language, and as
   such, 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. Others believe there are limits to how well English can go in
   suiting everyone for communication purposes. 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%). It is also the most studied in the People's Republic of China,
   Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. English is also compulsory for most
   secondary school students in the PRC and Taiwan. See English as an
   additional language.

English as a 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. It is
   also, by international treaty, the official language for
   aircraft/airport and maritime communication, as well as being one of
   the official languages of both the European Union and the United
   Nations, and of most international athletic organizations, including
   the 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

   The influence of the British Empire, and Commonwealth of Nations, as
   well as the primacy of the United States, especially since WWII, has
   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 the
   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 English's wide use 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 the Far
       East 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 standardizing 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.

Phonology

Vowels

     IPA                        Description                          word
                                 monophthongs
   i/iː    Close front unrounded vowel                            b ead
   ɪ       Near-close near-front unrounded vowel                  b id
   ɛ       Open-mid front unrounded vowel                         b ed
   æ       Near-open front unrounded vowel                        b ad
   ɒ       Open back rounded vowel                                b od ^1
   ɔ       Open-mid back rounded vowel                            p awed ^2
   ɑ/ɑː    Open back unrounded vowel                              br a
   ʊ       Near-close near-back rounded vowel                     g ood
   u/uː    Close back rounded vowel                               b ooed
   ʌ/ɐ     Open-mid back unrounded vowel, Near-open central vowel b ud
   ɝ/ɜː    Open-mid central unrounded vowel                       b ird ^3
   ə       Schwa                                                  Ros a's ^4
   ɨ       Close central unrounded vowel                          ros es ^5
                                  diphthongs
   e(ɪ)/eɪ Close-mid front unrounded vowel
           Close front unrounded vowel                            b ayed ^6
   o(ʊ)/əʊ Close-mid back rounded vowel
           Near-close near-back rounded vowel                     b ode ^6
   aɪ      Open front unrounded vowel
           Near-close near-front unrounded vowel                  b uy
   aʊ      Open front unrounded vowel
           Near-close near-back rounded vowel                     b ough
   ɔɪ      Open-mid back rounded vowel
           Close front unrounded vowel                            b oy

   Notes:

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

   Where symbols appear in pairs, the first corresponds to the sounds used
   in North American English; the second corresponds to English spoken
   elsewhere.
    1. North American English lacks this sound; words with this sound are
       pronounced with /ɑ/ or /ɔ/. According to The Canadian Oxford
       Dictionary (1998), this sound is present in Standard Canadian
       English.
    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.

Consonants

   This is the English Consonantal System using symbols from the
   International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).
     bilabial labio-
   dental dental alveolar post-
   alveolar palatal velar glottal
   plosive p  b     t  d     k  g
   nasal m     n     ŋ ^1
   flap       ɾ ^2
   fricative   f  v θ  ð ^3 s  z ʃ  ʒ ^4   x ^5 h
   affricate         tʃ  dʒ ^4
   approximant       ɹ ^4   j
   lateral approximant       l
               labial-velar
   approximant ʍ  w^6
    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 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.

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/ 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.)
          John hadn't stolen that money. (... He was given the money.)
          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.)
          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?
          Nów? (Rising pitch. In this case, it denotes a question: can I
          be paid now?)
          Nòw (Falling pitch. In this case, it denotes a statement: I
          choose to be paid now.)

Grammar

   English grammar displays minimal inflection compared with most other
   Indo-European languages. 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 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 (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
   regarded by many as more elegant or educated. However, the excessive
   use of Latinate words is 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 thorough treatment of this
   feature of English.

   An English speaker is often able to choose between Germanic and
   Latinate synonyms: "come" or "arrive"; "sight" or "vision"; "freedom"
   or "liberty." Often 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; cow and beef; or swine/pig and
   pork. This is assumed to be a result of the aftermath of the Norman
   invasion, where a French-speaking elite were the consumers of the meat,
   produced by English-speaking lower classes.

   In everyday speech, the majority of words will normally be Germanic. If
   a speaker wishes to make a forceful point in an argument in a very
   blunt way, Germanic words will usually be chosen. A majority of
   Latinate words (or at least a majority of content words) will normally
   be used in more formal speech and writing, such as a courtroom or an
   encyclopedia article. However, there are other Latinate words that are
   used normally in everyday speech and do not sound formal; these are
   mainly words for concepts that no longer have Germanic words, and are
   generally assimilated better and in many cases do not appear Latinate.
   For instance, the words mountain, valley, river, aunt, uncle, push and
   stay are all Latinate.

   English is noted for the vast size of its active vocabulary and its
   fluidity. English easily accepts technical terms into common usage and
   imports new words and phrases that often come into common usage.
   Examples of this phenomenon include: cookie, Internet and URL
   (technical terms), as well as genre, über, lingua franca and amigo
   (imported words/phrases, from French, German, modern Latin, and
   Spanish, respectively). In addition, slang often provides new meanings
   for old words and phrases. In fact, this fluidity is so pronounced that
   a distinction often needs to be made between formal forms of English
   and contemporary usage. See also: sociolinguistics.

Number of words in English

   As the General Explanations at the beginning of the Oxford English
   Dictionary state:

          The Vocabulary of a widely diffused and highly cultivated living
          language is not a fixed quantity circumscribed by definite
          limits... there is absolutely no defining line in any direction:
          the circle of the English language has a well-defined centre but
          no discernible circumference.

   The vocabulary of English is undoubtedly vast, but assigning a specific
   number to its size is more a matter of definition than of calculation.
   Unlike other languages, there is no Academy to define officially
   accepted words. Neologisms are coined regularly in medicine, science
   and technology and other fields, and new slang is constantly developed.
   Some of these new words enter wide usage; others remain restricted to
   small circles. Foreign words used in immigrant communities often make
   their way into wider English usage. Archaic, dialectal, and regional
   words might or might not be widely considered as "English".

   The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition (OED2) includes over 600,000
   definitions, following a rather inclusive policy:

          It embraces not only the standard language of literature and
          conversation, whether current at the moment, or obsolete, or
          archaic, but also the main technical vocabulary, and a large
          measure of dialectal usage and slang (Supplement to the OED,
          1933).

   The difficulty of defining the number of words is compounded by the
   emergence of new versions of English, such as Indo-Pakistani English.
   The editors of Merriam Webster's Third New International Dictionary,
   Unabridged (475,000 definitions) in their preface, estimate the number
   to be much higher.

Word origins

   Influences in English Vocabulary
   Enlarge
   Influences in English Vocabulary

   One of the consequences of the French influence is that the vocabulary
   of English is, to a certain extent, divided between those words which
   are Germanic (mostly Old English) and those which are "Latinate"
   (Latin-derived, either directly from Norman French or other Romance
   languages).

   Numerous sets of statistics have been proposed to demonstrate the
   various origins of English vocabulary. None, as yet, are considered
   definitive by a majority of linguists.

   A computerised survey of about 80,000 words in the old Shorter Oxford
   Dictionary (3rd ed.) was published in Ordered Profusion by Thomas
   Finkenstaedt and Dieter Wolff (1973) that estimated the origin of
   English words as follows:
     * Langue d'oïl, including French and Old Norman: 28.3%
     * Latin, including modern scientific and technical Latin: 28.24%
     * Other Germanic languages (including Old English, Old Norse, and
       Dutch): 25%
     * Greek: 5.32%
     * No etymology given: 4.03%
     * Derived from proper names: 3.28%
     * All other languages contributed less than 1%

   A survey by Joseph M. Williams in Origins of the English Language of
   10,000 words taken from several thousand business letters gave this set
   of statistics:
     * French (langue d'oïl), 41%
     * "Native" English, 33%
     * Latin, 15%
     * Danish, 2%
     * Dutch, 1%
     * Other, 10%

   Other estimates that have been made:
     * French (langue d'oïl), 40%^
     * Greek, 13%^
     * Anglo-Saxon (Old English), 10%^
     * Danish, 2%
     * Dutch, 1%
     * And, as about 50% of English is derived from Latin — directly or
       otherwise (e.g. from French) — ^another 10 to 15% can be attributed
       to direct borrowings from those languages.

   Some researchers assert that as much as 83% of the 1,000 most common
   English words are Anglo-Saxon in origin.

Dutch origins

   Words describing the navy, types of ships, and other objects or
   activities on the water are often from Dutch origin. Yacht (Jacht) and
   cruiser (kruiser) are examples.

French origins

   There are many words of French origin in English, such as competition,
   art, table, publicity, police, role, routine, machine, force, and many
   others that have been and are being anglicised; they are now pronounced
   according to English rules of phonology, rather than French.
   Approximately 40% of English vocabulary is of French or Oïl language
   origin, most derived from, or transmitted via, the Anglo-Norman spoken
   by the upper classes in England for several hundred years after the
   Norman Conquest.

Writing system

   English has been written using the Latin alphabet since around the
   ninth century. (Before that, Old English had been written using the
   Anglo-Saxon Futhorc.) The spelling system or orthography of English is
   historical, not phonological. The spelling of words often diverges
   considerably from how they are spoken, and English spelling is often
   considered to be one of the most difficult to learn of any language
   that uses an alphabet. See English orthography.

Basic sound-letter correspondence

   Only the consonant letters are pronounced in a relatively regular way:
   IPA Alphabetic representation Dialect-specific
   p p
   b b
   t t, th (rarely) thyme, Thames th thing ( African-American, New York)
   d d th that ( African-American, New York)
   k c (+ a, o, u, consonants), k, ck, ch, qu (rarely) conquer, kh (in
   foreign words)
   g g, gh, gu (+ a, e, i), gue (final position)
   m m
   n n
   ŋ n (before g or k), ng
   f f, ph, gh (final, infrequent) laugh, rough th thing (many forms of
   English used in England)
   v v th with ( Cockney, Estuary English)
   θ th thick, think, through
   ð th that, this, the
   s s, c (+ e, i, y), sc (+ e, i, y)
   z z, s (finally or occasionally medially), ss (rarely) possess,
   dessert, word-initial x xylophone
   ʃ sh, sch, ti portion, ci/ce suspicion, ocean; si/ssi tension, mission;
   ch (esp. in words of French origin); rarely s/ss sugar, issue; chsi
   fuchsia
   ʒ si division, zh (in foreign words), z azure, su pleasure, g (in words
   of French origin) (+e, i, y) genre
   x kh, ch, h (in foreign words) occasionally ch loch ( Scottish English,
   Welsh English)
   h h (syllable-initially, otherwise silent)
   tʃ ch, tch occasionally tu future, culture; t (+ u, ue, eu) tune,
   Tuesday, Teutonic (most dialects - see yod coalescence)
   dʒ j, g (+ e, i, y), dg (+ e, i, consonant) badge, judg(e)ment d (+ u,
   ue, ew) dune, due, dew (most dialects - another example of yod
   coalescence)
   ɹ r, wr (initial) wrangle
   j y (initially or surrounded by vowels)
   l l
   w w
   ʍ wh Scottish and Irish English, as well as some varieties of American,
   New Zealand, and English English

Written accents

   English includes some words that can be written with accent marks.
   These words have mostly been imported from other languages, usually
   French. But it is increasingly rare for writers of English to actually
   use the accent marks for common words, even in very formal writing. The
   strongest tendency to retain the accent is in words that are atypical
   of English morphology and therefore still perceived as slightly
   foreign. For example, café and animé both have a pronounced final e,
   which would be "silent" by the normal English pronunciation rules.

   Some examples: ångström, animé, appliqué, attaché, blasé, bric-à-brac,
   café, cliché, crème, crêpe, façade, fiancé(e), flambé, naïve, né(e),
   papier-mâché, passé, piñata, protégé, raison d'être, résumé, risqué,
   über-, vis-à-vis, voilà. For a more complete list, see List of English
   words with diacritics.

   Some words such as rôle and hôtel were first seen with accents when
   they were borrowed into English, but now the accent is almost never
   used. The words were considered very French borrowings when first used
   in English, even accused by some of being foreign phrases used where
   English alternatives would suffice, but today their French origin is
   largely forgotten. The accent on "élite" has disappeared from most
   publications today, though Time magazine still uses it. For some words
   such as "soupçon" however, the only spelling found in English
   dictionaries (the OED and others) uses the diacritic.

   Italics, with appropriate accents, are generally applied to foreign
   terms that are uncommonly used in or have not been assimilated into
   English: for example, adiós, coup d'état, crème brûlée, pièce de
   résistance, raison d'être, über ( übermensch), vis-à-vis.

   It was formerly common in English to use a diaeresis to indicate a
   syllable break: for example, coöperate, daïs, reëlect. One publication
   that still uses a diaeresis for this function is the New Yorker
   magazine. However, this is increasingly rare in modern English.
   Nowadays the diaeresis is normally left out (cooperate), or a hyphen is
   used (co-operate). It is, however, still common in loanwords such as
   naïve and noël.

   Written accents are also used occasionally in poetry and scripts for
   dramatic performances to indicate that a certain normally unstressed
   syllable in a word should be stressed for dramatic effect, or to keep
   with the metre of the poetry. This use is frequently seen in archaic
   and pseudoarchaic writings with the "-ed" suffix, to indicate that the
   "e" should be fully pronounced, as with cursèd.

   In certain older texts (typically British), the use of ligatures is
   common in words such as archæology, œsophagus, and encyclopædia. Such
   words have Latin or Greek origin. Nowadays, the ligatures have been
   generally replaced in British English by the separated letters "ae" and
   "oe" ("archaeology", "oesophagus") and in American English by "ae" and
   "e" ("archaeology", "esophagus"), however, the spellings "oeconomy" and
   "oecology" are now generally replaced by "economy" and "ecology"
   outside the U.S. as well.

   For further information on how one can type diacritics and ligatures,
   see British and American keyboards, keyboard layouts.

Formal written English

   A version of the language, which is 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.

   Learners of English are in danger of being misled by native speakers
   who refer to American English, Australian English, British English or
   other varieties of English. While it is true that many regional
   differences between the forms of spoken English can be documented, the
   learner can easily fall into the trap of believing that these are
   different languages. They are instead mostly regional variations of the
   spoken language and such variations occur within these countries as
   well as between them.

   The differences in formal writing that occur in the various parts of
   the English-speaking world are so slight that many dozens of pages of
   formal English can be read without the reader coming across any clues
   as to the origin of the writer, far less any difficulties of
   comprehension.

   A popular American website about errors in English, written by a
   professor at a west coast U.S. university guiding his students towards
   preferred constructions of written English, contains almost nothing
   among its hundreds of entries with which a counterpart thousands of
   miles away in Sydney or London would disagree. Certainly, disputes
   about pronunciation and colloquial expressions used in speech abound.
   But in the written language these are relatively few.

Basic and simplified versions

   To make English easier to read, there are some simplified versions of
   the language. One basic version is named Basic English, a constructed
   language with a small number of words created by Charles Kay Ogden and
   described in his book Basic English: A General Introduction with Rules
   and Grammar (1930). The language is based on a simplified version of
   English. Ogden said that it would take seven years to learn English,
   seven months for Esperanto, 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
   programme, 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".

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   with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details
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