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The British Empire at its height covered one quarter of the Earth's land surface, and the English language adopted foreign words from many countries. 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 ...
Colonization efforts began in the late 16th century with failed attempts by England to establish permanent colonies in the North. The first of the permanent English colony in the Americas was established in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607. Colonies were established in North America, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean.
British North America comprised the colonial territories of the British Empire in North America from 1783 onwards. English colonisation of North America began in the 16th century in Newfoundland, then further south at Roanoke and Jamestown, Virginia, and more substantially with the founding of the Thirteen Colonies along the Atlantic coast of North America.
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 ...
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]
Anglo-America is distinct from Latin America, a region of the Americas where Romance languages (e.g., Spanish, Portuguese, and French) are prevalent. [2] The adjective is commonly used, for instance, in the phrase "Anglo-American law", a concept roughly coterminous with Common Law .
Governor Peter Minuit was a Walloon born in what is now Germany who also spoke English and worked for a Dutch company. [52] The term New Netherland Dutch generally includes all the Europeans who came to live there, [ 1 ] but may also refer to Africans, Indo-Caribbeans , South Americans, and even the Indians who were integral to the society.
The British economy had begun to grow rapidly at the end of the 17th century and, by the mid-18th century, small factories in Britain were producing much more than the nation could consume. Britain found a market for their goods in the British colonies of North America, increasing her exports to that region by 360% between 1740 and 1770.