English language
English language is the most widely spoken language in the world. It is used as either a primary or secondary language in many countries.
During the 1500's, fewer than 2 million
people spoke English. All of them lived in what is now the United Kingdom.
Through the centuries, as the result of various historical events, English
spread throughout the world. Today, about 400 million people speak English as
their native language. Most of them live in Australia, Canada, Ireland, New
Zealand, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Another 100 million people, chiefly living
in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and in many African countries, speak English
in addition to their own language. An additional 200 million people probably know
at least some English.
Characteristics of English
Vocabulary. English has a larger vocabulary than any other language. There are more
than 600,000 words in the largest dictionaries of the English language.
Some English words have been passed on
from generation to generation as far back as scholars can trace. These words,
such as woman, man, sun, hand, love, go, and eat, express basic
ideas and feelings. Later, many words were borrowed from other languages,
including Arabic, French, German, Greek, Italian, Latin, Russian, and Spanish.
For example, algebra is from Arabic, fashion from French, piano
from Italian, and canyon from Spanish.
A number of words, such as doghouse
and splashdown, were formed by combining other words. New words are
also created by blending words. For example, motor and hotel were
blended into motel. Words can be shortened to form new words, as was
done with history to form story. Words called acronyms
are formed by using the first letter or letters of several words. The word radar
is an acronym for radio detection and ranging.
Pronunciation and spelling in English sometimes seem illogical or inconsistent. Many words are
spelled similarly though pronounced differently. Examples include cough,
though, and through. Other words, such as blue, crew, too,
and shoe, have similar pronunciations but are spelled differently. Many
of these variations show changes that occurred during the development of
English. The spelling of some words remained the same through the centuries,
though their pronunciation changed.
Grammar is the set of principles used to create sentences. These principles
define the elements used to assemble sentences and the relationships between
the elements. The elements include parts of speech and inflections.
Parts of speech are the word categories of
the English language. Scholars do not all agree on how to describe the parts of
speech. The traditional description lists eight classes: nouns, pronouns,
verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections. The
most important relationships of the parts of speech include subject and verb,
verb and predicate, and modifier and the word modified.
Some modern scholars also divide the parts
of speech into two categories, content words and function words.
Content words are the main parts of speech— nouns, verbs, adverbs, and
adjectives—and carry the basic vocabulary meanings. For example, dog, write,
happy, and seldom are content words. These words are also called form
classes. Function words express relationships between content words in a
sentence. For example, in, because, the, very, and not are
function words. They show the grammatical, or structural, meanings of the
sentence and are also called structure classes. Function words include
articles, prepositions, pronouns, and conjunctions. See Parts of speech.
English has fewer inflections than most
other European languages. An inflection is a variation of the form of a word
that gives the word a different meaning or function. An English noun has only
two inflections, the plural and the possessive. Inflections are used to change
the tense and number of a verb or the case of a pronoun. Inflections can
change adjectives to the comparative or the superlative—for example, big,
bigger, biggest.
The subject of a sentence usually comes
first in the word order in English. It is generally followed by the verb and
then the object. Single words that modify nouns are usually placed before the
noun, but phrases that modify nouns are usually placed after the noun. Words
that modify verbs can be put before or after the verb. For more information on
word order and sentence patterns, see Sentence.
The development of English
Origins. The earliest source of the English language was a prehistoric language
that modern scholars call Proto-Indo-European (PIE). The PIE language was probably
spoken about 5,000 years ago by people who lived in the area north of the Black
Sea, in southeastern Europe. These people migrated through the centuries and
gradually developed new languages. One group migrated west and divided into
groups who spoke languages that were the ancestors of the Germanic, Greek, and
Latin tongues. The Germanic languages developed into English, Danish, Dutch,
German, Norwegian, and Swedish. The ancient Greek language became modern Greek,
and early Latin developed into French, Italian, and Spanish.
The earliest known language in what is now
Great Britain was spoken by a people called the Celts. The Romans started to
conquer the Celts in A.D. 43 and ruled much of Britain until the early 400's,
when they returned to Rome. During the mid-400's, Germanic people who lived
along the North Sea invaded Britain. The invaders belonged to three main
tribes—the Angles, the Jutes, and the Saxons. All three tribes spoke their own
Germanic dialect, but they probably understood one another. The Angles
settled in central Britain. This area became known as Angle-Landand,
eventually, as England. The language of the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes
became known as English.
The history of the English language can be
divided into three main periods. The language of the first period, which began
about 500 and ended about 1100, is called Old English. During the next
period, from about 1100 to 1485, the people spoke Middle English. The
language of the period from about 1485 to the present is known as Modern
English.
Old English was mainly a mixture of the Germanic languages of the Angles, Jutes, and
Saxons. Old English resembles modern German more than it does modern English.
Old English had many inflections, as does modern German, and its word order
and pronunciation resembled those of modern German.
The vocabulary of Old English was chiefly
Germanic, though some words came from the language of the Celts. The Germanic
people had learned some Latin words while living on the European continent.
They brought some of those words to the British Isles and
added them to Old English. More Latin
words were added during the 500's and 600's, when Christianity spread in
England.
During the late 800's, Viking invaders
from Denmark and Norway settled in northeast England. As a result, many words
from Scandinavian languages became part of Old English. They included words
beginning with scot sk-, such as scare, scowl, skin, and sky. The pronouns they,
their, and them were also borrowed from the Scandinavians.
Gradually, many inflections of Old English
were dropped. People also began to put words into a more regular order and to
use more prepositions to indicate relationships between words.
Middle English. In 1066, England was conquered by the Normans, a people from the area in
France that is now called Normandy. Their leader, William the Conqueror,
became king of England. The Normans took control of all English institutions,
including the government and the church.
Most of the English people continued to
speak English. However, many of the members of the upper class in England
learned Norman French because they wanted influence and power. The use of
French words eventually became fashionable in England. The English borrowed
thousands of these words and made them part of their own language. The
French-influenced language of England during this period is now called Middle
English.
The Normans intermarried with the English
and, through the years, became increasingly distant—socially, economically,
and culturally—from France. The Normans began to use English as the language of
daily life. By the end of the 1300's, the French influence had declined sharply
in England. English was used again in the courts and in business affairs, where
French had replaced it.
Modern English. By about 1485, English had lost most of its Old English inflections, and
its pronunciation and word order closely resembled those of today. During this
period, the vocabulary of English expanded by borrowing words from many other
languages. Beginning in the 1600's, the language spread throughout the world
as the English explored and colonized Africa, Australia, India, and North America.
Different dialects of the English language developed in these areas. Today,
English is the international language of science and technology. English is
also used throughout the world in business and diplomacy.
Related articles: Case, celts, conjugation, declension, dialect, dictionary, England
(language), English literature, Etymology, gender, gerund, grammar, idiom,
inflection, initial teaching alphabet, language, linguistics, mood (in
grammar), number (in grammar), person, phonetics, pidgin English,
pronunciation, sentence (in grammar), William Shakespeare, syntax, tense,
teutons, vocabulary, and voice (in grammar).
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