English - SpeedyLook encyclopedia

History

Classification

English is a Germanic Langue, family within whom the Living languages closest are the clippings and the Scots, but which nevertheless was subject to on several occasions the influence of others Germanic Langues like the Vieux norrois, of the Latin and various Romance Langues, especially the French, latino-Romance influence which one does not notice only in the words which are a priori lexical loans ( already considering or go , French expressions used in English; embargo of the Spanish ; cupola , folio or stiletto of Italian), but still in very many words with étymon Latin (like expect ← exspectare , school ← schola , scuttle ← scutella , or street ← strata ).

Geographical distribution

Official statute

See also: English (official language)

English is the first language in Australia (English Australian), the Bahamas, Barbados (English carribéen), Bermuda, Dominique, Gibraltar, Grenade, Guyana, Jamaica (English jamaïcain), New Zealand (English New Zealander), Antigua-and-Barbuda, St Lucia, Saint-Christophe-and-Niévès, Saint-Vincent-and them Grenadian, Trinity-and-Tobago, the United Kingdom (British English), and (without official recognition) with the the United States (American English), like in certain villages of the Dominican Republic, near to the border Haiti enne (where one speaks English about the 19th century, resulting from former slaves of the states of the south of the United States having flee the American Civil War).

English is also one of the first languages of the Belize (with Spanish), of the Canada (Canadian English, with the French), of the India (Hindi and English like 21 other languages of State), of the Ireland (with the Irish), of the Singapore (with the Malayan one, Mandarin, Tamil and other languages Asian) and South Africa (with the Zoulou, the Xhosa, the Afrikaans, and the Sotho of north). It is the nonofficial language most used in Israel. It is the usual language in the island of Saint Martin's day.

With Hong-Kong, it is an official language and largely used in the business world. He is learned as of the kindergarten, and is the language of instruction of some elementary schools, many secondary schools and all the universities. A substantial number of students acquire a level of native speaker. This language is so largely used there that it is inadequate to say that it is only one second language or a foreign language.

It is an official language, but not maternal, in the following countries: Cameroun, Fiji, HongKong, Micronesia, Ghana, Gambia, Kiribati, Lesotho, Liberia, Kenya, Namibia, Nigeria, Malta, Marshall Islands, Pakistan, New Guinea-News-Guinea, Filipino, the Solomon Islands, Samoa, Sierra Leone, Swaziland, Tanzania, Vanuatu, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Derived languages

English gave birth:

with many Pidgin S and creole S;
with the BASIC English , language created by C.K. Ogden and I.A. Richards in 1930. This one comprises nothing any more but 850 words: those which are essential to the daily life (expression of feelings included) more those necessary to define the others the time of a conversation;
with the Special English (English special), composed of 2000 words approximately, excluding the Idiom S and spoken at fallback speed (25% less quickly than a normal diction); this variety of English is one of the languages used by the radio VOA ( The Voice off America ) for the diffusion of its emissions in the whole world;
with the simple English , a language of Wikipédia where articles written in an original manner in richer but more difficult English of access are transcribed.

Influence of English

The influence of English grows since about fifty years because of universalization of the commercial exchanges and technological, dominated by great powers speaking this language, the United Kingdom and the United States in particular. This is why the use of English words is notable in sectors like the Informatique, the Télécommunications like was (and is always, moreover) the Italian for the Musique. Another phenomenon is related to this expansionism: English tends to being used in the place of other languages. Thus French was the privileged language of the diplomatic relations and of the contractual relations, the influence of the United States made fall this use in disuse. English is also since 1951 the language used in aviation, on decision of ICAO. He in addition acquired in the world the place of language most frequently used in the international meetings, even if the Multilinguisme remains the standard. Being the first foreign language learned in the world, it profits from a single base speakers in all the countries on all the continents. It is finally the second Official language of very many States.

Writing

English uses the Latin alphabet (with, in the past, of the letters like 2D or þ ; to see higher). He uses signs Diacritique S only to write the words of foreign origin. Its orthography rises from a historical long process and there is not often more exact correspondence between this one and the current pronunciation.

Pronunciation

Vowels

August 1st

Consonants

The table below presents the system of the consonants of English with the symbols of the International Phonetic Alphabet (API).

Grammar

See detailed article: English Grammar

Conjugation

See detailed article: English Conjugation

Lexicon

French: they are for these very close reasons, with the writing, of their homonym. For example: difference , introduction , village , pure .

On the other hand, English kept words such as mushroom , budget and (year) apron which one hardly recognizes the French origin (respectively related to mousseron , bougette and mat by Métanalyse). -->

Number of words

Contrary to other languages, there does not exist organization which counts officially the English words. As in addition the current importance of this language in the scientific research makes that many words are created the every day (some promised with a broad diffusion, others remaining of confidential use), it does not exist complete listing. One can simply note that the dictionary Oxford English Dictionary , one of most complete, counts more: 500000 entries, including obsolete words, technical words and words of local dialects. This number seems confirmed by the Webster' S Third New International , which counted: 450000 words in 1961. However, their entries entirely do not coincide and it is estimated that by combining them one would reach: 750000 words.

Origin of the words

In 1973, Thomas Finkenstaedt and Dieter Wolf, while basing themselves on the 80.000 words of the Shorter Oxford Dictionary (3rd edition), established the following distribution:

French, including former French and the Norman one (or Anglo-French): 28,3%
Latin, including the scientific and technical words recent: 28,24%
former and Middle English, Old norrois and Dutch: 25%
Greek: 5,32%
unspecified etymology: 4,03%
words derived from proper names: 3,28%
all other languages: less than 1%

However, the problems of definition lead to divergent appreciations. Thus the French linguist Henriette Walter affirms on his side that more of two thirds of the English words are of French origin.

Although English absorbed many words of foreign origin, the heart of the lexicon remains Anglo-Saxon: the first 100 words of the Corpus of American English of the university Brown , assembled in the years 1960, are Anglo-Saxon. The most current words of the English language (grammatical like in , the , Be or lexical words like father , coils , name …) are words of Anglo-Saxon origin

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