Genealogical classification
English belongs to the Germanic family of languages, and is usually classified as Ingwæonic (North Sea Germanic), that is, belonging to the Germanic subgroup that includes English, Scots and Frisian.
Area and Varieties
English is spoken in England, the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and serves as a first or second language throughout the United Kingdom and in virtually all former British colonies. It is the lingua franca of choice in those former colonies that are now multi-ethnic and multilingual nations. Being increasingly perceived as neutral (i.e., not favouring any native culture and language), it is the lingua franca of choice. For example, the campaign to make Hindi India’s lingua franca failed, and Hindi has never been able to rival English in this position.
Knowledge of English as a second language is prestigious and necessary virtually everywhere in the world, and English fluency tends to signal superior education. In some former British and American colonies (especially in Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines) this has led to constant switching between the local language and English, in extreme cases (such as Tagalog, Hindi and Punjabi) switching one or more times within one sentence, even in the official media. As a result of increasing and improving teaching of English as a foreign language in conjunction with increasing global exposure to English language media presentations, English proficiency has been increasing and improving dramatically throughout the world. This applies also to countries that have no close historical ties with the English-speaking world, including countries in which French, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Danish or Russian officially dominate as former colonial languages. In recent years, the pace of this development has been accelerating due to English domination of the Internet.
English is the native language of many part-British or part-European citizens in former British colonies, e.g., of Anglo-Indians in India and of “Eurasians” in Malaysia and Singapore.
English is being promoted as the lingua franca of post-apartheid South Africa. Many South Africans are adopting English as their primary language, especially “Coloureds,” most of whom traditionally used Afrikaans.
More and more universities in countries in which English is not an official language offer study courses, especially summer courses, in English and accept theses and dissertations written in English.
English has replaced French as the official lingua franca of the world postal system and of diplomatic relations, at least de facto, and it is the language of air traffic control.
Many languages abound with English loanwords, and English influences keep increasing dramatically due to internationalization of the media. In Western European countries, improved English teaching methods and thus proficiency has led to strongly Anglicized speech modes especially in young people’s circles. This includes entire phrases. Some of this is reaching the mainstream languages (e.g., “sorry” in Dutch and German). This also includes loan translations, e.g., (1980s –) German Hab eine schöne Zeit! (< “Have a nice time!”) instead of traditional Viel Vergnügen! (“Much enjoyment!”) or Ich sehe dich später (< “I’ll see you later”) instead of traditional Bis dann (“Till then”).
History
English originated as a group of Anglo-Saxon dialects in the area now known as England, as well as in the southeast of Scotland up to the Firth of Forth. These dialects, of which the main ones were Wessexian, Northumbrian, Kentish and Mercian, can still be found in modern speech. Germanic language diversity in early Britain is in part due to substrates of various Celtic language varieties and in part to diverse linguistic backgrounds of Germanic-speaking settlers from what are now Southern Denmark, Northern Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium: Saxons, Angles, Jutes, and—rarely mentioned but linguistically quite influential—Frisians. However, while the Anglo-Saxon of Scotland developed independently and became known as Scots, the dialects of England were eventually brought together under one standard language.
Beginning with the 9th century, Danish attacks and domination, mostly of Britain’s eastern regions, resulted in considerable North Germanic influences on early English dialects.
After the Norman Invasion of England in 1066, the French language had a higher status in England than the Anglo-Saxon dialects did, and it is possible that the English language was in danger of extinction at this time. Ironically, the tide was turned by a group of Cornish-speaking scholars, who, perhaps due to their greater awareness of what it means to lose one’s native language, started a movement to popularise English again. However, the temporary domination of the Normans, whose rulers were of Scandinavian descent but had adopted French as their first language, had left enormous, indelible French marks on the English language in addition to influences of Latin, the medieval European lingua franca of learning, administration and religion. Not only did English absorb a very large number of French words and expressions, but use of English by ruling foreigners and Gallicized Britons left the English language bereft of most of its former morphological complexity, and this caused English syntax to forfeit much of its flexibility but at the same time favoured lexical and idiomatic flexibility and inventiveness. This has caused many scholars to consider English a type of Creole.
Its beginning and early development as a hybrid language and its continual worldwide contacts and proliferation have made the English language singularly adaptable to various linguistic and cultural environments. Despite this, there are numerous opponents to the spread of English as a global auxiliary language. These are primarily organizations and governmental bodies that aim to halt what they consider the threat to the integrity and survival of their respective languages and the Anglicisation or Americanisation of their respective cultures through the vehicle of English.
The success story of English as an international language is all the more remarkable considering that its orthography has not changed considerably since about the 15th century, that its historical, largely inconsistent spelling system constitutes an educational impediment in that it necessitates memorising the spelling of each word.
English has a large number of words derived from the vocabularies of languages it has been in contact with historically: Scots, French, Gaelic, Latin, Scandinavian, Lowlands Saxon (Low German), Dutch/Flemish, German, Arabic, Urdu, Hindi, Bengali, Sinhalese, Tamil, Malay, Burmese, Chinese (primarily Cantonese), Spanish, various North American and Oceanic languages, and many others.
Dialectal diversity of English is enormous but is decreasing due to the influences of national and global media. By far the most diverse region is the United Kingdom, especially England. Most English dialects throughout the world are primarily based on South English dialects, which are “non-rhotic” (i.e. “delete” final /r/). The dialects of Australia and New Zealand are South-English-based with influences from indigenous and immigrant languages. The English dialects of North America are fairly diverse, especially along the east coast. Most of them are “rhotic” (i.e. pronounce final /r/), as are most dialects of Scotland, of Ireland and of large parts of England’s west coast. Much of the diversity of North American English is due to influences of indigenous languages, West African languages, Spanish (especially in the southwest), French (in Canada and the south-eastern United States), and numerous immigrant languages, such as Scots, German, Yiddish, Italian and Polish, now increasingly from non-European immigrant languages. The United States of America have developed their own Standard English variety and orthography, but the differences between them and their non-American counterparts are relatively insignificant. English dialects of the Caribbean region are fairly diverse and are influenced by native and African languages as well as by French and Spanish, in some areas by Dutch and Zeelandic.
Number of Speakers
The number of people who speak English as their primary language is currently estimated at between 340 and 350 million. In terms of native speakers, English currently ranks second in the world, after Mandarin Chinese (ca. 900 million) and before Hindi (ca. 320 million) and Spanish (ca. 310 million). In terms of second or foreign language users as well as in terms of geographical distribution, however, English undoubtedly ranks first by a great margin. The number of people who use English as a non-primary language ought to be assumed to be a high and rapidly increasing percentage of the world population.
Status
English has official primary status in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and a number of other former British colonies. Scots-influenced varieties of English predominate in Scotland, though Gaelic has nominal minority status and, under pressure from the European Union and Scots language activists, Scots, the closest relative of English, has recently been afforded a lower-ranking regional language status. The Republic of Ireland gives national status to Irish (Gaelic), but the overwhelming majority of inhabitants use English as their primary language. Canada is officially bilingual: English and French, but English predominates in most parts of the country. English is one of the official languages of South Africa and after the fall of apartheid has been gaining ground as the national lingua franca. English also serves as one of the official languages in countries such as India (next to Hindi), Pakistan (next to Urdu), Bangladesh (next to Bengali), Israel (next to Hebrew and Arabic), Singapore (next to Malay, Chinese and Tamil) and the Philippines (next to Tagalog). The United States of America do not have an official language policy, but English is their undisputed de facto national language. Almost everywhere in the world, English language proficiency is one of the school graduation requirements and is a prerequisite in numerous trades and in all professional careers.
Education
English is the primary language of education in all countries in which English is the officially or de facto national language. In many countries in which English is one of the official languages, it tends to predominate in secondary and tertiary education as well as in many types of technical training. English is a required school subject in a large and rapidly growing number of countries in which English has no official status.
Media
The role of English in all the media is rapidly increasing in scope and importance, not only in traditionally English-speaking countries but elsewhere as well. Most countries have at least one English language newspaper or news magazine. The number of English language radio and television programmes and stations is rapidly increasing all over the world. Many metropolitan centres in Continental Europe have English language cinemas and theatres. Numerous writers for whom English is not the primary language are now publishing works in English, and English predominates in popular music.
Samples
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samples
Authors: Sandy Fleming & Reinhard F. Hahn
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