English

English language
For other uses of “English”, see English (disambiguation).

Germanic

North Germanic

West Germanic

Anglo-Frisian

Low Franconian

East Germanic

Old High German

English is a West Germanic language that was first
spoken in early medieval England and is now a global
lingua franca.[4][5] It is an official language of almost
60 sovereign states, the most commonly spoken language in the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada,
Australia, Ireland, and New Zealand, and a widely spoken language in countries in the Caribbean, Africa, and
South Asia.[6] It is the third most common native language Phylogenetic tree showing the historical relations between the lanin the world, after Mandarin and Spanish.[7] It is widely guages of the West Germanic branch of the Germanic languages.
learned as a second language and is an official language of
the United Nations, of the European Union, and of many 1 Classification
other world and regional international organisations.
Old English

Anglian

Northumbrian

Old Frisian

Low German

West Saxon

Mercian

East Midland Middle English

Scots

English has developed over the course of more than
1,400 years. The earliest forms of English, a set of
Anglo-Frisian dialects brought to Great Britain by AngloSaxon settlers in the fifth century, are called Old English.
Middle English began in the late 11th century with the
Norman conquest of England.[8] Early Modern English
began in the late 15th century with the introduction of
the printing press to London and the King James Bible
as well as the Great Vowel Shift.[9] Through the worldwide influence of the British Empire, modern English
spread around the world from the 17th to mid-20th centuries. Through newspapers, books, the telegraph, the
telephone, phonograph records, radio, satellite television,
and the Internet, as well as the emergence of the United
States as a global superpower, English has become the
leading language of international discourse and the lingua franca in many...