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English

Germanic Languages

English is a West Germanic language that originated in early medieval England and is now the most widely spoken second language in the world and the primary language of international science, business and aviation. Its vocabulary was reshaped by centuries of contact, first with Old Norse through Viking settlement, then massively with Norman French after the Conquest of 1066, leaving a language whose grammar remains recognizably Germanic while a large share of its everyday vocabulary is of French or Latin origin. It is written in the Latin alphabet with famously irregular spelling, a legacy of its layered history that later standardization never fully reconciled with pronunciation.

Facts
ISO 639-3 Code
eng 3
Speaker Count
1,500,000,000 3
Ethnologue's total figure combines roughly 380 million first-language speakers with over a billion second-language speakers; the two populations are counted very differently across sources, so total speaker figures for English vary widely by methodology.
Status
Living 3
Attested From (Year)
from 450 2
Conventional start date of Old English, the earliest form of the language.
Region
Originated in early medieval England; today spoken natively across the United Kingdom, Ireland, United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and beyond 2
Region reflects origin plus current global spread; see source for detail on worldwide distribution.
Classification
Language Kind
Safe 1
Official Status
Official Language 2
Wikipedia 'English language': official, or one of the official languages, of 57 sovereign states and 30 dependent territories; checked 2026-09-27.
Connections

Ancestor Of

African American Vernacular English, Dialects and Varieties
Source Wikipedia: African-American Vernacular English
Australian English, Dialects and Varieties
Source Wikipedia: Australian English
Canadian English, Dialects and Varieties
Source Wikipedia: Canadian English
Cockney, Dialects and Varieties
Source Wikipedia: Cockney
Geordie, Dialects and Varieties
Source Wikipedia: Geordie
Hiberno-English, Dialects and Varieties
Source Wikipedia: Hiberno-English
Indian English, Dialects and Varieties
Source Wikipedia: Indian English
Jamaican Patois, Dialects and Varieties
Source Wikipedia: Jamaican Patois
New Zealand English, Dialects and Varieties
Source Wikipedia: New Zealand English
Newfoundland English, Dialects and Varieties
Source Wikipedia: Newfoundland English
Nigerian English, Dialects and Varieties
Source Wikipedia: Nigerian English
Received Pronunciation, Dialects and Varieties
Source Wikipedia: Received Pronunciation
Scottish English, Dialects and Varieties
Source Wikipedia: Scottish English
Scouse, Dialects and Varieties
Source Wikipedia: Scouse
Singlish, Dialects and Varieties
Source Wikipedia: Singlish
South African English, Dialects and Varieties
Source Wikipedia: South African English
Southern American English, Dialects and Varieties
Source Wikipedia: Southern American English
Welsh English, Dialects and Varieties
Source Wikipedia: Welsh English
Yorkshire Dialect, Dialects and Varieties
Source Wikipedia: Yorkshire Dialect

Associated With

Braj Kachru, Linguists
Bulgarian, Languages

This source names English directly: "order, a development that parallels English losing case rather than most of Bulgarians closer relatives."

Source The Cambridge Encyclopedia of LanguageDavid Crystal (editor)
Charles J. Fillmore, Linguists

Developed Case Grammar and later frame semantics largely through analysis of English argument structure.

David Crystal, Linguists
Encyclopaedia Britannica, Sources

This source names English directly: "Encyclopaedia Britannica is a general English-language encyclopedia, in continuous publication since 1768, whose linguistics and history entries are written and reviewed by subject specialists and..."

Source Encyclopaedia Britannica
Eve V. Clark, Linguists
Source Wikipedia: Eve V. Clark
Geoffrey Leech, Linguists
Geoffrey Pullum, Linguists
George Lakoff, Linguists

Developed conceptual metaphor theory largely through analysis of everyday English expressions, most influentially in Metaphors We Live By (1980).

Joan Bresnan, Linguists

Developed lexical-functional grammar, a syntactic theory built substantially on the analysis of English argument structure and control constructions.

John Rupert Firth, Linguists

Developed prosodic analysis and a contextual theory of meaning largely through the study of English phonology.

Latin, Languages

This source names Latin directly: "everyday vocabulary is of French or Latin origin."

Source The Cambridge Encyclopedia of LanguageDavid Crystal (editor)
Leonard Bloomfield, Linguists
Source LanguageLeonard Bloomfield
Michael Halliday, Linguists

Developed systemic functional grammar as a comprehensive account of English clause structure and its social functions.

Morris Halle, Linguists
Noam Chomsky, Linguists
Source Syntactic StructuresNoam Chomsky
Otto Jespersen, Linguists
Source Wikipedia: Otto Jespersen
Ray Jackendoff, Linguists

Developed conceptual semantics and the parallel architecture model of grammar largely through analysis of English syntax and lexical semantics.

Steven Pinker, Linguists
William Labov, Linguists
Source The Social Stratification of English in New York CityWilliam Labov

In Family

Germanic, Language Families
Source Wikipedia: Germanic Languages
Indo-European, Language Families
Source Glottolog

Written In

Latin Script, Scripts
Source Omniglot: The Online Encyclopedia of Writing Systems and Languages
In the Other Atlases

Cases Where Used

A Common Word Between Us and You

Also in Divinity Atlas: used in this subject.

Ancient Faith Radio

Also in Divinity Atlas: used in this subject.

Article 25 of the Constitution of India

Also in Divinity Atlas: used in this subject.

Britain

Also in Divinity Atlas: used in this subject.

BYUtv

Also in Divinity Atlas: used in this subject.

Da Ai Television

Also in Divinity Atlas: used in this subject.

Davey and Goliath

Also in Divinity Atlas: used in this subject.

England

Also in Divinity Atlas: used in this subject.

Family Talk with Dr. James Dobson

Also in Divinity Atlas: used in this subject.

Focus on the Family, Daily Radio Broadcast

Also in Divinity Atlas: used in this subject.

Hour of Decision

Also in Divinity Atlas: used in this subject.

Hour of Power

Also in Divinity Atlas: used in this subject.

IQRA TV

Also in Divinity Atlas: used in this subject.

JBS, Jewish Broadcasting Service

Also in Divinity Atlas: used in this subject.

Laudato Si'

Also in Divinity Atlas: used in this subject.

Luzon

Also in Divinity Atlas: used in this subject.

Mother Angelica Live

Also in Divinity Atlas: used in this subject.

Music and the Spoken Word

Also in Divinity Atlas: used in this subject.

North America

Also in Divinity Atlas: used in this subject.

Order No. 5 on the Reincarnation of Living Buddhas

Also in Divinity Atlas: used in this subject.

Orkney

Also in Divinity Atlas: used in this subject.

Peace TV

Also in Divinity Atlas: used in this subject.

Praise the Lord (Trinity Broadcasting Network)

Also in Divinity Atlas: used in this subject.

Radio Veritas Asia

Also in Divinity Atlas: used in this subject.

Salem Radio Network

Also in Divinity Atlas: used in this subject.

Salt Lake Valley

Also in Divinity Atlas: used in this subject.

Scotland

Also in Divinity Atlas: used in this subject.

The 700 Club

Also in Divinity Atlas: used in this subject.

The Act of Supremacy

Also in Divinity Atlas: used in this subject.

The American Indian Religious Freedom Act

Also in Divinity Atlas: used in this subject.

The Bengal Sati Regulation of 1829

Also in Divinity Atlas: used in this subject.

The Caribbean

Also in Divinity Atlas: used in this subject.

The Code of Indian Offenses

Also in Divinity Atlas: used in this subject.

The Constitution (Second Amendment) Act, 1974 (Pakistan)

Also in Divinity Atlas: used in this subject.

The Edict of Expulsion of 1290

Also in Divinity Atlas: used in this subject.

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution

Also in Divinity Atlas: used in this subject.

The Guianas

Also in Divinity Atlas: used in this subject.

The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act

Also in Divinity Atlas: used in this subject.

The Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991

Also in Divinity Atlas: used in this subject.

The Temple Entry Proclamation of Travancore

Also in Divinity Atlas: used in this subject.

The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom

Also in Divinity Atlas: used in this subject.

Three Angels Broadcasting Network

Also in Divinity Atlas: used in this subject.

Yorubaland

Also in Divinity Atlas: used in this subject.

Adams-Onis Treaty

Also in History Atlas: used in this subject.

Agreement Regarding Compensation for the Kubo (Kabaw) Valley (1834)

Also in History Atlas: used in this subject.

Anglo-Irish Treaty

Also in History Atlas: used in this subject.

Anglo-Japanese Alliance

Also in History Atlas: used in this subject.

Antarctic Treaty

Also in History Atlas: used in this subject.

Balfour Declaration

Also in History Atlas: used in this subject.

Camp David Accords

Also in History Atlas: used in this subject.

Showing 1 to 50 of 102 in Cases Where Used, page 1 of 3.

Original Language Of

The Valley of Fear

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

The Virgin and the Gypsy

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

The War of the Worlds

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

The Waste Land

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

The Weary Blues

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

The Whisperer in Darkness

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

The Wind Done Gone

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

The Woman in White

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

The Yellow Wallpaper

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Their Eyes Were Watching God

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Theodore Sturgeon

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

They Flee from Me

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Things Fall Apart

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Thomas Carlyle

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Thomas Harris

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Thomas Malory

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Three Men in a Boat

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

To Kill a Mockingbird

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Tom Sawyer, Detective

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Tom Stoppard

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Toni Morrison

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Tsitsi Dangarembga

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Ulysses

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Untouchable (novel)

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Ursula K. Le Guin

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Vanity Fair

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Veronica

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Virginia Woolf

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Vladimir Nabokov

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

W. Somerset Maugham

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Walden

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Wallace Stegner

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Walt Whitman

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Walter Scott

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

We Can Remember It for You Wholesale

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Weedon Grossmith

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Weep Not, Child

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

When I Lived in Modern Times

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Who Goes There?

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Wide Sargasso Sea

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Wilkie Collins

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

William Faulkner

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

William Gibson

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

William Makepeace Thackeray

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

William S. Burroughs

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

William Shakespeare

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

William Wordsworth

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Wole Soyinka

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Wolf Hall

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Woman in the Nineteenth Century

Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.

Showing 1,201 to 1,250 of 1,257 in Original Language Of, page 25 of 26.

Found In

Australia

Also in Geography Atlas: where this subject is found.

Europe

Also in Geography Atlas: where this subject is found.

North America

Also in Geography Atlas: where this subject is found.

Sources
1. Glottolog: English (Glottolog languoid stan1293)
GlottologEndangerment, AES status
Quote, Endangerment, AES status
AES status: not endangered
View the Source
2. Wikipedia: English Language
Wikimedia Foundation
  • lead section
    named after the Angles, one of the Germanic peoples who migrated to Britain
  • Quote
    Old English ... was spoken from c. 450 to c. 1150
View the Source
3. Ethnologue: Languages of the World
SIL International, 2024View the Source
The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language
David Crystal (editor), Cambridge University Press, 2010
Glottolog
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary AnthropologyIn Family: Indo-EuropeanView the Source
Omniglot: The Online Encyclopedia of Writing Systems and Languages
Written In: Latin ScriptView the Source
Syntactic Structures
Noam Chomsky, 1957Associated With: Noam Chomsky
Language
Leonard Bloomfield, 1933Associated With: Leonard Bloomfield
The Social Stratification of English in New York City
William Labov, 1966Associated With: William Labov
Wikipedia: Germanic Languages
Wikimedia FoundationIn Family: Germanic, Major branches sectionView the Source
Wikipedia: Cockney
Wikimedia FoundationAncestor Of: Cockney, Nomenclature section, citing Fynes Moryson, 1617
Quote, Ancestor Of: Cockney, Nomenclature section, citing Fynes Moryson, 1617
Londoners, and all within the sound of Bow Bells, are in reproach called Cockneys.
View the Source
Wikipedia: Scouse
Wikimedia FoundationAncestor Of: Scouse, Lead section
Quote, Ancestor Of: Scouse, Lead section
Scouse is highly distinctive and bears little resemblance to other English accents, primarily due to the port of Liverpool, which saw the arrival of Irish and Welsh immigrants and was a popular stop for Scandinavian sailors.
View the Source
Wikipedia: Geordie
Wikimedia FoundationAncestor Of: Geordie, Lead section
Quote, Ancestor Of: Geordie, Lead section
The Geordie dialect is often considered unintelligible to many other native English speakers.
View the Source
Wikipedia: African-American Vernacular English
Wikimedia FoundationAncestor Of: African American Vernacular English, Article text
Quote, Ancestor Of: African American Vernacular English, Article text
John McWhorter argues that what truly unites all AAVE accents is a uniquely wide-ranging intonation pattern or "melody", which characterizes even the most "neutral" or light African-American accent.
View the Source
Wikipedia: Southern American English
Wikimedia FoundationAncestor Of: Southern American English, Phonology section
Quote, Ancestor Of: Southern American English, Phonology section
One defining feature is the diphthong in prize, lime, fly and similar words losing its gliding quality and becoming a flat vowel in many or all environments.
View the Source
Wikipedia: Australian English
Wikimedia FoundationAncestor Of: Australian English, History section
Quote, Ancestor Of: Australian English, History section
By the 1820s, the native-born colonists' speech was recognisably distinct from speakers in Britain and Ireland.
View the Source
Wikipedia: Jamaican Patois
Wikimedia FoundationAncestor Of: Jamaican Patois, History section
Quote, Ancestor Of: Jamaican Patois, History section
Patois developed in the 17th century when enslaved people from West and Central Africa were exposed to, learned, and nativised the vernacular and dialectal languages spoken by the slaveholders and overseers.
View the Source
Wikipedia: Singlish
Wikimedia FoundationAncestor Of: Singlish, Article text
Quote, Ancestor Of: Singlish, Article text
The grammar of Singlish includes topic-prominence, omission of the word be, reduplication of words, and discourse particles, which is a distinguishing feature of Singlish, such as ah, lah, and what.
View the Source
Wikipedia: Newfoundland English
Wikimedia FoundationAncestor Of: Newfoundland English, Article text
Quote, Ancestor Of: Newfoundland English, Article text
For example, "that thing over there" becomes "dat ting over dere".
View the Source
Wikipedia: Yorkshire Dialect
Wikimedia FoundationAncestor Of: Yorkshire Dialect, Introduction section
Quote, Ancestor Of: Yorkshire Dialect, Introduction section
Yorkshire experienced drastic dialect levelling in the 20th century, eroding many traditional features.
View the Source
Wikipedia: Indian English
Wikimedia FoundationAncestor Of: Indian English, Lead sentence
Quote, Ancestor Of: Indian English, Lead sentence
Indian English or "English (India)" (en-IN) is the set of English language varieties native to India
View the Source
Wikipedia: New Zealand English
Wikimedia FoundationAncestor Of: New Zealand English, Lead sentence
Quote, Ancestor Of: New Zealand English, Lead sentence
New Zealand English (NZE) is the variant of the English language spoken and written by mos
View the Source
Wikipedia: Scottish English
Wikimedia FoundationAncestor Of: Scottish English, Lead sentence
Quote, Ancestor Of: Scottish English, Lead sentence
Scottish English is the set of varieties of the English language spoken in Scotland.
View the Source
Wikipedia: Hiberno-English
Wikimedia FoundationAncestor Of: Hiberno-English, Lead sentence
Quote, Ancestor Of: Hiberno-English, Lead sentence
sometimes called Anglo-Irish, is the set of dialects of the English language native to the island of I
View the Source
Wikipedia: Welsh English
Wikimedia FoundationAncestor Of: Welsh English, Lead sentence
Quote, Ancestor Of: Welsh English, Lead sentence
Welsh English comprises the dialects of English spoken by Welsh people.
View the Source
Wikipedia: Canadian English
Wikimedia FoundationAncestor Of: Canadian English, Lead sentence
Quote, Ancestor Of: Canadian English, Lead sentence
espread variety of Canadian English being Standard Canadian English.
View the Source
Wikipedia: South African English
Wikimedia FoundationAncestor Of: South African English, Lead sentence
Quote, Ancestor Of: South African English, Lead sentence
uth African English (SAfE, SAfEn, SAE, en-ZA) is the set of English language dialects native to South
View the Source
Wikipedia: Nigerian English
Wikimedia FoundationAncestor Of: Nigerian English, Lead sentence
Quote, Ancestor Of: Nigerian English, Lead sentence
known as Nigerian Standard English (en-NG), is a variety of English spoken in Nigeria.
View the Source
Wikipedia: Received Pronunciation
Wikimedia FoundationAncestor Of: Received Pronunciation, Lead sentence
Quote, Ancestor Of: Received Pronunciation, Lead sentence
Received Pronunciation (RP) is an accent of British English regarded as the standard accent of
View the Source
Wikipedia: Otto Jespersen
Wikimedia FoundationAssociated With: Otto Jespersen, Lead section
Quote, Associated With: Otto Jespersen, Lead section
description of the grammar of the English language
View the Source
Wikipedia: Eve V. Clark
Associated With: Eve V. Clark, Lead section
Quote, Associated With: Eve V. Clark, Lead section
comparative studies of English and Hebrew
View the Source
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