English language

English is a West Germanic language in the Indo-European language family. Originating in early medieval England,[3][4][5] today English is both the most spoken language in the world[6] and the third most spoken native language, after Mandarin Chinese and Spanish.[7] English is the most widely learned second language and is either the official language or one of the official languages in 59 sovereign states. There are more people who have learned English as a second language than there are native speakers. As of 2005^[update], it was estimated that there were over two billion speakers of English.[8]

Quick facts: English, Pronunciation, Native to, Speak... ▼

English
Pronunciation	/ˈɪŋɡlɪʃ/[1]
Native to	United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, and other locations in the English-speaking world
Speakers	L1: 372.9 million (2022)[2] L2: 1.08 billion (2022)[2] Total: 1.452 billion
Language family	Indo-European Germanic West Germanic North Sea Germanic Anglo-Frisian Anglic English
Early forms	Proto-Indo-European Proto-Germanic Old English Middle English Early Modern English
Writing system	Latin (English alphabet) Anglo-Saxon runes (historically) English Braille, Unified English Braille
Signed forms	Manually coded English (multiple systems)
Official status
Official language in	58 countries 31 non-sovereign entities Various organisations United Nations European Union Commonwealth of Nations Council of Europe ICC IMF IOC ISO NATO WTO NAFTA OAS OECD OIC OPEC GUAM Organization for Democracy and Economic Development PIF UKUSA Agreement ASEAN ASEAN Economic Community SAARC Caribbean Community Organization of Turkic States Türksoy ECO
Recognised minority language in	Malaysia Sri Lanka
Language codes
ISO 639-1	en
ISO 639-2	eng
ISO 639-3	eng
Glottolog	stan1293
Linguasphere	52-ABA
Countries and territories where English is the native language of the majority   Countries and territories where English is an official or administrative language but not a majority native language
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

English is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the island of Great Britain, and its speakers are called Anglophones. English is the primary language of the Anglosphere, which is usually defined as the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, as well as of the Republic of Ireland, and it is also widely spoken in areas of the Caribbean, Africa, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Oceania.[9] It is a co-official language of the United Nations, the European Union, and many other international and regional organisations. English accounts for at least 70% of speakers of the Germanic language branch.

Old English began as a group of dialects emerging among the West Germanic-speaking Anglo-Saxons who settled Britain. The late Old English period absorbed some grammar and core vocabulary from Old Norse, a North Germanic language.[10][11][12] Then, the Middle English period borrowed words extensively from French dialects, which contributes approximately 28% to Modern English vocabulary, and from Latin, which also provides about 28%.[13] Thus, despite a majority of its vocabulary coming from the Romance branch of the Indo-European language family, Modern English is genealogically classified under the Germanic branch. It exists on a dialect continuum with Scots and then is most closely related to the Low Saxon and Frisian languages.