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As of 2016, 400 million people spoke English as their first language, and 1.1 billion spoke it as a secondary language. [70] English is the largest language by number of speakers. English is spoken by communities on every continent and on islands in all the major oceans. [71]
British English and North American English, the two major varieties of the language, are together spoken by 400 million people. The total number of English speakers worldwide may exceed one billion. [32] There have been attempts to predict future English evolution, though they have been met with skepticism. [33]
North American English encompasses the English language as spoken in both the United States and Canada. Because of their related histories and cultures, [ 2 ] plus the similarities between the pronunciations (accents), vocabulary, and grammar of U.S. English and Canadian English , linguists often group the two together.
American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, [b] is the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States. [4] English is the most widely spoken language in the United States .
The English language was introduced to the Americas by the arrival of the English, beginning in the late 16th century.The language also spread to numerous other parts of the world as a result of British trade and settlement and the spread of the former British Empire, which, by 1921, included 470–570 million people, about a quarter of the world's population.
English has become increasingly common; when the United States was founded, just 40% of Americans spoke English. [72] [better source needed]. In 2002, 87% of Americans spoke English as their first language. [73] [74] It serves as the de facto national language, the language in which government business is carried out. According to the U.S ...
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 widespread language geographically.
Northern American English or Northern U.S. English (also, Northern AmE) is a class of historically related American English dialects, spoken by predominantly white Americans, [1] in much of the Great Lakes region and some of the Northeast region within the United States.