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e. English is a West Germanic language that originated from Ingvaeonic languages 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. The Anglo-Saxons settled in the British Isles from the mid-5th century and came to dominate the bulk of southern ...
English is a West Germanic language in the Indo-European language family, whose speakers, called Anglophones, originated in early medieval England on the island of Great Britain. [4][5][6] The namesake of the language is the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to Britain.
Most states where English is an official language are former territories of the British Empire. Exceptions include Rwanda and Burundi [also should be on map], which were formerly German and then Belgian colonies; Cameroon, where only part of the country was under the British mandate; and Liberia, the Philippines, the Federated States of ...
British English is the basis of, and very similar to, Commonwealth English. [42] Commonwealth English is English as spoken and written in the Commonwealth countries, though often with some local variation. This includes English spoken in Australia, Malta, New Zealand, Nigeria, and South Africa. It also includes South Asian English used in South ...
[not verified in body] [4] [page range too broad] English borrowed many words from Old Norse, the North Germanic language of the Vikings, [5] and later from Norman French, the Romance language of the Normans, which descends from Latin. Estimates of native words derived from Old English range up to 33%, [6] with the rest made up of outside ...
t. e. The English people are an ethnic group and nation native to England, who speak the English language, a West Germanic language, and share a common ancestry, history, and culture. [7] The English identity began with the Anglo-Saxons, when they were known as the Angelcynn, meaning race or tribe of the Angles.
Braj Kachru divides the use of English into three concentric circles. [4]The inner circle is the traditional base of English and includes countries such as the United Kingdom and Ireland and the anglophone populations of the former British colonies of the United States, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada, and various islands of the Caribbean, Indian Ocean, and Pacific Ocean.
The English-speaking world comprises the 88 countries and territories in which English is an official, administrative, or cultural language. In the early 2000s, between one and two billion people spoke English, [1][2] making it the largest language by number of speakers, the third largest language by number of native speakers and the most ...