English language

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_language

English
Pronunciation	/ˈɪŋɡlɪʃ/
Spoken in	(see below)
Native speakers	First language: 309–400 million Second language: 199 million–1.4 billion Overall: 500 million–1.8 billion
Language family	Indo-European ·                    Germanic o                                    West Germanic §                                                     Anglo–Frisian §                                                                      Anglic §                                                                                      English
Writing system	English alphabet (Latin script)
Official status
Regulated by	No official regulation
Language codes
Countries where English is an official or de facto official language, or national language, and is spoken natively by the majority of the population   Countries where it is an official but not primary language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria.

Following the extensive influence of Great Britain and the United Kingdom from the 18th century, via the British Empire, and of the United States since the mid-20th century, it has been widely dispersed around the world, becoming the leading language of international discourse and the lingua franca in many regions. It is widely learned as a second language and used as an official language of the European Union and many Commonwealth countries, as well as in many world organizations. It is the third most natively spoken language in the world, after Mandarin Chinese and Spanish. It is the most widely spoken language across the world.

Geographical distribution

Pie chart showing the relative numbers of native English speakers in the major English-speaking countries of the world

Approximately 375 million people speak English as their first language. English today is probably the third largest language by number of native speakers, after Mandarin Chinese and Spanish. However, when combining native and non-native speakers it is probably the most commonly spoken language in the world, though possibly second to a combination of the Chinese languages (depending on whether or not distinctions in the latter are classified as "languages" or "dialects").
The countries with the highest populations of native English speakers are, in descending order: United States (215 million), United Kingdom (61 million), Canada (18.2 million), Australia (15.5 million), Nigeria (4 million), Ireland (3.8 million), South Africa (3.7 million), and New Zealand (3.6 million) 2006 Census.
Of those nations where English is spoken as a second language, India has the most such speakers ('Indian English').