About English

by Pisith Phlong

Number of speakers:
English is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world. It is the native language of about 350 million people and a second language to about 400 million people. It is the official language of the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. (Strazny, p. 288)

Language group:
English is one of the Western Germanic languages. It belongs to the Germanic subgroup of the Indo-European language family, along with others such as German, Dutch and Frisian. (Frawley, p. 515)

History of written language and script:
The English language originated in about the 5th century. The English dialects were formed after the invasion of Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Frisians into Celtic lands in 449 A.D. Influenced by the Latin writing system, older forms of English developed into modern English in about the 17th century. In the mid 18th century, the English language system was divided into two, British and American English, and this is characterized by the loss of postvocalic ‘r’ and the secondary stress in suffixes. (Strazny, p. 288, 293) Following the industrial revolution in Britain in the 18th century, English spread to different continents around the world and gained the status of official language in many other countries, such as Australia, New Zealand and Singapore.

Language:
English has a long historical connection with the Latin language, and a few other languages of the same West Germanic branch. Its history is divided into three different periods: 1) Old English, from 449 A.D to about 1100 A.D, is characterized by the forming of the old English dialects, Anglo Saxon, influenced by Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Frisians.  By the 6th century, English borrowed a number of words from Latin, Greek, Hebrew and some Scandinavian languages after the people of England were Christianized and Latin became the religious language at the time. 2) Middle English, from about 1100 A.D to about 1500 A.D, is marked by the Norman conquest of England in 1066 A.D. The Norman-French become dominant in the English administration. West Saxon was replaced and Latin was used for official records from the 12th century to the 13th century. Following the fall of the Normans in the 13th century, English continued to be influenced by the French and Latin, especially with word loans used in religion, government, law, military and education. However, the influence from French gave rise to the English spoken in the 16th century, and it gradually developed into Modern English. (Frawley, p. 517-518, Brown, p. 176) 3) Modern English, from about 1500 A.D to the present, is derived from Old English and through borrowing more terms from French, Greek, Latin and other languages. Modern English is separated into two phases, the Early Modern period and the Late Modern. Early Modern English (1500 - 1700 A.D) is significant because of the translation of the Bible in 1611 and the writings of Shakespeare in which about one third of his words were Latin based. (Brown, p. 164, 166) Late Modern English (from 1700 to the present) is characterized by the industrial revolution in Britain, and the spread of English to different continents through migration and colonization. It is also during this latest period that English was divided into two, British and American English, following the American Revolution (1775 - 1783). (Brown, p. 169)

Scripts:
Like the other West-Germanic languages, the English writing system is much influenced by Latin. English words are formed by using the Latin alphabet, with the combination of 21 consonants and 5 vowels. Old English writings covered a variety of subjects, ranging from poetry to religious text, medicine, grammar and chronicles. The Old English grammar is significantly different from the Modern English because its nouns and their modifiers change form according to numbers (singular and plural), gender (masculine, feminine and neutral) and cases (nominative, accusative, genitive, and dative). (Brown, p. 183) In Middle English, Latin and French play more important roles in the English language, and this gave rise to the modern English language by the end of this period. The English writing system adapted more contemporary Latin scripts and used them in its cursive handwriting style. By the Early Modern period, the writing of Shakespeare became popular. There were slight changes in English grammar resulting in the loss of reflection between most words (nouns) and their modifiers. (Brown, p. 169) It is during this period that the first English monolingual dictionary was produced. Some of the earliest dictionaries of monolingual English are Table alphabeticall...of hard usual English words,…gathered for the benefit & helpe of ladies, gentlewomen, or any other unskillful person by Robert Cawdrey in 1604, English expositor by John Bullokar in 1616, The English dictionary: an interpreter of hard English words by Henry Cockeram in 1623. By the Late Modern English period, English dictionaries became richer and encyclopedias emerged. American words also began to have influence in dictionaries, such as from the Webster. Some dictionaries produced in this late period are, the Oxford English dictionary since 1895, the Collins Cobuild dictionary, the Longman dictionary, and the Concise Oxford dictionary. (Brown, p. 189-194)

International expansion of English
The expansion of English in the world began in the 17th century, during the early modern period. This expansion is divided into three phases: 1) First phase, in the early 17th century. In 1603, the British asserted control over Scotland and then in 1707 expanded to Ireland making English more widely spoken in the British Isles. 2) Second phase, in the early 17th century, the English usage expanded across the continents to North America and then Australia after 1788, followed by New Zealand. 3) Third phase is characterized by the introduction of English to Asia and Africa. After forming the British administration over India through the East India Company, the British mission of Sir Stamford Raffles started to establish centers in Southeast Asia. The British created a center in Penang in 1786, in Singapore in 1819, and in Malacca in 1824 and the whole Federated Malay States by 1867. In 1898, the US controlled the Philippines after winning the Spanish-American war and continued to control the Philippines until 1946. It is during this last phase that English was integrated with the other local languages. (Brown, p. 195-196, Fennell, p. 254)

Other Dialects: 
There are two Standard English language forms: British English and American English, a  separation that occurred following the American Revolution (1775-1783). For centuries, English has dispersed to many different regions around the world and produced a variety of English dialects. Countries using English in the world are classified into three main types based on the English using status in the society: 1) Inner Circle, for countries in which English is used as the primary Language, such as the United States, Great Britain, Ireland, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. 2) Outer Circle, for countries in which English is used as the second language, generally old colonies of English speaking countries, such as Britain or the United States. The Outer Circle includes Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, India, Malawi, Nigeria and 50 other territories. 3) Expanding Circle, for countries in which English is considered to be an international language. There are many countries in this category such as Burma, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, China and others. (Fennel, p. 255-256)

Comparison to Western languages:
Like other Western languages, English sentence structure is arranged in Subject-Verb-Object. Comparing other Western Germanic languages, English articles (a/an and the) lacks the inflection of gender and number and its second person singular and plural use the same term, while French and Germany have two separate pronouns for the second person singular and plural. (Strazny, p. 290)

References:
Brown, K. Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, Volume 4. (2nd ed.). Elsevier: Oxford, 2006.
Frawley, W. J. International Encyclopedia of Linguistics, Vol. 1. (2nd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
Strazny, P. Encyclopedia of Linguistics, Vol. 1. New York: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2005.
Fennel. B. A. A History of English, a Sociolinguistic Approach. Blackwell Publisher Ltd: Oxford, 2001