English Language Facts:
English came from everywhere and includes pretty much everything.
English is a sprawling, messy, and confusing language, with weird rules and quirky usage of words whose origins are lost in history.
The history of the language relied largely on war and invasion.
Written English disappeared completely for more than 100 years.
Half the words we use on a regular basis came from people, places, or foreign terms.
Here is a range of facts related to the History of English language:
1 English is a West Germanic Language.
2 The English language spread with the growth of the British Empire, becoming the dominant language in Canada, the United States, New Zealand and Australia.
3 English is probably the most widely spoken language in the world
4 It is estimated that there could be as many as 1.5 billion total English speakers worldwide.
5 With over 800 million native speakers, Chinese Mandarin is the most spoken native language, followed by Spanish and English.
6 English has a huge vocabulary, with over 250000 different words listed in the Oxford English Dictionary
7 Many scientific words used in the English language come from Latin or Greek.
8 English is written in the Latin alphabet (also known as the Roman alphabet).
9 There are three basic eras to English formation: Old English, which ran from the 5th through 11th centuries; Middle English, which lasted until the 15th century; and Modern English, which takes us to the present.
English came from everywhere and includes pretty much everything.
English is a sprawling, messy, and confusing language, with weird rules and quirky usage of words whose origins are lost in history.
The history of the language relied largely on war and invasion.
Written English disappeared completely for more than 100 years.
Half the words we use on a regular basis came from people, places, or foreign terms.
Here is a range of facts related to the History of English language:
1 English is a West Germanic Language.
2 The English language spread with the growth of the British Empire, becoming the dominant language in Canada, the United States, New Zealand and Australia.
3 English is probably the most widely spoken language in the world
4 It is estimated that there could be as many as 1.5 billion total English speakers worldwide.
5 With over 800 million native speakers, Chinese Mandarin is the most spoken native language, followed by Spanish and English.
6 English has a huge vocabulary, with over 250000 different words listed in the Oxford English Dictionary
7 Many scientific words used in the English language come from Latin or Greek.
8 English is written in the Latin alphabet (also known as the Roman alphabet).
9 There are three basic eras to English formation: Old English, which ran from the 5th through 11th centuries; Middle English, which lasted until the 15th century; and Modern English, which takes us to the present.
10 The first purely English
dictionary appeared in 1604: It was called A Table Alphabeticall [sic],
and it was written by a schoolteacher named Robert Cawdrey.
11 William Shakespeare made up many
of his words: The pre-eminent English writer invented nearly
2,000 words and catch phrases.
12 There are more
than 125 English dialects worldwide: Each dialect uses English
in its own way, from pronunciation and construction.
