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As of 2024, there are 57 sovereign states and 28 non-sovereign entities where English is an official language. Many administrative divisions have declared English an official language at the local or regional level. Most states where English is an official language are former territories of the British Empire.
The English language in Europe, as a native language, is mainly spoken in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Outside of these states, it has official status in Malta , the Crown Dependencies (the Isle of Man , Jersey and Guernsey ), Gibraltar and the Sovereign Base Areas of Akrotiri and Dhekelia (two of the British Overseas Territories ).
The following chart lists countries and dependencies along with their capital cities, in English and non-English official language(s). In bold : internationally recognized sovereign states The 193 member states of the United Nations (UN)
The European Union is a supranational union composed of 27 member states. The total English-speaking population of the European Union and the United Kingdom combined (2012) is 256,876,220 [70] (out of a total population of 500,000,000, [71] i.e. 51%) including 65,478,252 native speakers and 191,397,968 non-native speakers, and would be ranked 2nd if it were included.
English is widely spoken and understood as a second language by both Arabs and Jews. Officially, road signs must be in Hebrew, Arabic, and a romanized Hebrew transliteration. In Lebanon, Arabic is the official and national language; the Constitution provides for the conditions of using French to be provided by law. [199]
Five languages have more than 50 million native speakers in Europe: Russian, German, French, Italian, and English. Russian is the most-spoken native language in Europe, [4] and English has the largest number of speakers in total, including some 200 million speakers of English as a second or foreign language. (See English language in Europe.)
Norse influence was strongest in the north-eastern varieties of Old English spoken in the Danelaw area around York, which was the centre of Norse colonisation; today these features are still particularly present in Scots and Northern English. The centre of Norsified English was in the Midlands around Lindsey. After 920 CE, when Lindsey was ...
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.