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English is an official language of countries populated by few descendants of native speakers of English. It has also become by far the most important language of international communication when people who share no native language meet anywhere in the world.
The Story of English in 100 Words. Picador. ISBN 978-1250024206. David Crystal (2015). Wordsmiths and Warriors: The English-Language Tourist's Guide to Britain. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0198729136. John McWhorter (2017). Words on the Move: Why English Won't - and Can't - Sit Still (Like, Literally). Picador. ISBN 978-1250143785.
Braj Kachru divides the use of English into three concentric circles. [8]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 occasional passionate plea is made to promote HEL—J. E. Graves notes in a 1956 article in College English that proper courses in HEL are necessary for any future English teacher, and bemoans the perceived shoving aside of "language study in high school with non-rigorous semantics and 'learning situations.'" [4] One such plea came in 1961 ...
The English language descends from Old English, the West Germanic language of the Anglo-Saxons. Most of its grammar, its core vocabulary and the most common words are Germanic. [ 1 ] However, the percentage of loans in everyday conversation varies by dialect and idiolect , even if English vocabulary at large has a greater Romance influence.
An English-medium education system is one that uses English as the primary medium of instruction—particularly where English is not the mother tongue of students.. Initially this is associated with the expansion of English from its homeland in England and the lowlands of Scotland and its spread to the rest of Great Britain and Ireland, beginning in the sixteenth century.
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.
English words gave way to borrowings from Anglo-Norman following the Norman Conquest as English lost ground as a language of prestige. Anglo-Norman was used in schools and dominated literature, nobility and higher life, leading a wealth of French loanwords to enter English over the course of several centuries—English only returned to courts of law in 1362, and to government in the following ...