english

English is a West Germanic language that originated in early medieval England and is now spoken on every continent. It has one of the largest speaking populations in the world, with hundreds of millions of native speakers and many more who use it as a second or foreign language. It is the de facto language of international communication and is widely used in education, science, business, media, and diplomacy.

English began with the arrival of the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes in Britain during the 5th century, forming Old English. It absorbed Norse influence through contact with Scandinavian settlers and, after the Norman Conquest of 1066, incorporated a substantial amount of French vocabulary. By the Middle English period, the grammar remained synthetic but began to simplify, while the lexicon expanded. The Early Modern English period, driven by the Renaissance and the development of printing, produced the form most familiar today.

Modern English has a relatively analytic grammar and a large, flexible vocabulary. It relies on word order and auxiliary words to express tense and aspect, rather than inflection, and uses articles and a largely fixed subject–verb–object structure. There are numerous dialects and varieties, including British, American, Australian, and Indian English, as well as creoles and pidgins with English bases.

Written English uses the Latin alphabet. Spelling and pronunciation show substantial irregularity due to historical sound changes and borrowing from many languages. The language continues to evolve rapidly through global communication, technology, and media, adding new terms and adapting usage while maintaining standard varieties for education and formal contexts.