English is the official language of more than seventy-five countries including Britain, Canada, the United States, Australia, and South Africa. In countries where many different languages are spoken, English is often used as an official language to help people communicate.

Who's native language is English?

England and the Scottish Lowlands, parts of the United Kingdom, are the birthplace of the English language, and the modern form of the language has been being spread around the world since the 17th century, first by the worldwide influence of the United Kingdom, and more recently by that of the United States.

Who owns English language?

OK, long story short: no one owns English; there is no single standard for it, though American and British English are the main dialects in the world today; they are both very influential in different spheres but the future of World English will be largely determined by people who speak it as a second language.

Where is the English language from?

English originated in England and is the dominant language of the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, and various island nations in the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean.

Who created English?

English is a West Germanic language that originated from Anglo-Frisian dialects brought to Britain in the mid 5th to 7th centuries AD by Anglo-Saxon migrants from what is now northwest Germany, southern Denmark and the Netherlands.

Time It Takes To Learn Languages | Comparison

Who is the father of English?

Who is known as the father of the English language? Geoffrey Chaucer. He was born in London sometime between 1340 and 1344. He was an English author, poet, philosopher, bureaucrat (courtier), and diplomat.

How old is English?

English has developed over the course of more than 1,400 years. 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.

How was English started?

The evolution of spoken English began from the fifth century, with waves of attack and eventual occupation by the Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Frisians. They spoke the same West Germanic tongue but with different dialects. Their intermingling created a new Germanic language; now referred to as Anglo-Saxon, or Old English.

Why is English so widely spoken?

Some of the reasons for the English Language's popularity today include: The rise of the British Empire and The United States, developments within the science and technology industries, and the fact the English Language is gender free, among a number of other reasons.

Which country speaks English the most?

• United States: 268M. ...
• India: 125M. ...
• Pakistan: 94M. ...
• The Philippines: 90M. ...
• Nigeria: 79M-100M. ...
• The United Kingdom: 59.6M. ...
• The Netherlands: 15M English Speakers. ...
• Denmark: 4.8M English Speakers.

Which country is the best speaking English?

The Netherlands has emerged as the nation with the highest English language proficiency, according to the EF English Proficiency Index, with a score of 72.

What was the first language?

Sumerian language, language isolate and the oldest written language in existence. First attested about 3100 bce in southern Mesopotamia, it flourished during the 3rd millennium bce.

What is a main language?

An official language is a language given a special status in a particular country, state, or other jurisdiction. ... English is the most common official language, with recognized status in 51 countries. Arabic, French, and Spanish are also widely recognized.

How many speak English in the world?

In 2021, there were around 1.35 billion people worldwide who spoke English either natively or as a second language, slightly more than the 1.12 billion Mandarin Chinese speakers at the time of survey.

Who was the first person to speak English?

English was first spoken by people of England. England was inhabited by people from central Asia and central Asian people were from Africa's rift valley. English is derived from Latin from Sanskrit. So the first English words would have been spoken by Aryans of Vedic Age.

Who used Old English?

Old English – the earliest form of the English language – was spoken and written in Anglo-Saxon Britain from c. 450 CE until c. 1150 (thus it continued to be used for some decades after the Norman Conquest of 1066).

What are Old English words?

• Bedward. Exactly as it sounds, bedward means heading for bed. ...
• Billingsgate. This one is a sneaky word; it sounds so very proper and yet it refers to abusive language and curse words.
• Brabble. Do you ever brabble? ...
• Crapulous. ...
• Elflock. ...
• Erstwhile. ...
• Expergefactor. ...
• Fudgel.

Is Shakespeare Old English?

The language in which Shakespeare wrote is referred to as Early Modern English, a linguistic period that lasted from approximately 1500 to 1750. The language spoken during this period is often referred to as Elizabethan English or Shakespearian English.

Why English is important?

Although English is not the most spoken language in the world, it is the official language in 53 countries and is spoken as a first language by around 400 million people worldwide. ... It gives you an open door to the world and helps you communicate with global citizens.

Who wrote English grammar?

The first English grammar, Pamphlet for Grammar by William Bullokar, written with the seeming goal of demonstrating that English was quite as rule-bound as Latin, was published in 1586. Bullokar's grammar was faithfully modeled on William Lily's Latin grammar, Rudimenta Grammatices (1534).

Who is father of grammar?

Lindley Murray's English Grammar (8th ed. 1802) inscribed (to Samuel Miller) by “the author.” Lindley Murray is best known as “the father of English grammar.” But before he earned that title, he practiced law in New York.