133-460: Cath Gabhra ( English : The Battle of Gabhair or Gowra ) is a narrative of the Fenian Cycle of Irish mythology . It tells of the destruction of the fianna and the deaths of most of its warriors in a battle against the forces of High King Cairbre Lifechair . It is notable for depicting the fianna, the heroes of the cycle, in a negative light. Cath Gabhra exists in many versions, and
266-569: A lingua franca for administrative, scholarly, religious, political, and other purposes in parts of the present-day European Union. After Athens and other Greek city-states of the 6th to 4th centuries BC, the first documented political entity historically verifiable in Europe was the Roman Republic , traditionally founded in 509 BC, the successor-state to the Etruscan city-state confederacies . Latin as
399-628: A derogation previously stipulated that not all documents have to be translated into Irish as is the case with the other official languages. The regulation meant that legislation adopted by both the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers is translated into Irish, and interpretation from Irish was available at European Parliament plenary sessions and some Council meetings. The cost of translation, interpretation, publication, and legal services involved in making Irish an official EU language
532-542: A lingua franca of Europe was rivalled only by Greek. It is serving as honourable and ceremonial language in some of the oldest European universities in the 21st century, and has operated as the official language of the Roman Catholic Church until today. Latin, along with Greek, was at the core of education in Europe from the schools of rhetoric of the Roman Republic in all of its provinces and territories, through
665-546: A mixed language or a creole —a theory called the Middle English creole hypothesis . Although the great influence of these languages on the vocabulary and grammar of Modern English is widely acknowledged, most specialists in language contact do not consider English to be a true mixed language. English is classified as a Germanic language because it shares innovations with other Germanic languages including Dutch , German , and Swedish . These shared innovations show that
798-598: A "treaty language" meant that only the treaties of the European Union were translated into Irish, whereas Legal Acts of the European Union adopted under the treaties (like Directives and Regulations ) did not have to be. When Ireland joined the EEC (now the EU ) in 1973, Irish was accorded "Treaty Language" status. This meant that the founding EU Treaty was restated in Irish. Irish
931-635: A 2012 official Eurobarometer poll (conducted when the UK was still a member of the EU), 38 percent of the EU respondents outside the countries where English is an official language said they could speak English well enough to have a conversation in that language. The next most commonly mentioned foreign language, French (which is the most widely known foreign language in the UK and Ireland), could be used in conversation by 12 percent of respondents. A working knowledge of English has become
1064-651: A distinct language from Modern English and is virtually impossible for 21st-century unstudied English-speakers to understand. Its grammar was similar to that of modern German: nouns, adjectives, pronouns, and verbs had many more inflectional endings and forms , and word order was much freer than in Modern English. Modern English has case forms in pronouns ( he , him , his ) and has a few verb inflections ( speak , speaks , speaking , spoke , spoken ), but Old English had case endings in nouns as well, and verbs had more person and number endings. Its closest relative
1197-484: A foreign language, make up the "expanding circle". The distinctions between English as a first language, as a second language, and as a foreign language are often debatable and may change in particular countries over time. For example, in the Netherlands and some other countries of Europe, knowledge of English as a second language is nearly universal, with over 80 percent of the population able to use it, and thus English
1330-520: A more standard version of English. They have many more speakers of English who acquire English as they grow up through day-to-day use and listening to broadcasting, especially if they attend schools where English is the medium of instruction. Varieties of English learned by non-native speakers born to English-speaking parents may be influenced, especially in their grammar, by the other languages spoken by those learners. Most of those varieties of English include words little used by native speakers of English in
1463-688: A number of other Anglic languages, including Scots and the extinct Fingallian dialect and Yola language of Ireland. Like Icelandic and Faroese , the development of English in the British Isles isolated it from the continental Germanic languages and influences, and it has since diverged considerably. English is not mutually intelligible with any continental Germanic language, as it differs in vocabulary , syntax , and phonology . However, some of these, such as Dutch or Frisian, do show strong affinities with English, especially with its earlier stages. Unlike Icelandic and Faroese, which were isolated,
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#17330937924851596-525: A possibility of divergence of English dialects into mutually unintelligible languages, most think a more likely outcome is that English will continue to function as a koineised language, in which the standard form unifies speakers from around the world. English is used as the language for wider communication in countries around the world. Thus English has grown in worldwide use much more than any constructed language proposed as an international auxiliary language , including Esperanto . Languages of
1729-533: A request of the Alternative Democratic Reform Party (ADR) to make Luxembourgish an official language of the European Union citing financial reasons and also that German and French being already official languages would be sufficient for the needs of Luxembourg. The Romani people , numbering over two million in the EU, speak the Romani language (actually numerous different languages), which
1862-679: A requirement in a number of occupations and professions such as medicine and computing. English has become so important in scientific publishing that more than 80 percent of all scientific journal articles indexed by Chemical Abstracts in 1998 were written in English, as were 90 percent of all articles in natural science publications by 1996 and 82 percent of articles in humanities publications by 1995. International communities such as international business people may use English as an auxiliary language , with an emphasis on vocabulary suitable for their domain of interest. This has led some scholars to develop
1995-407: A rich inflectional morphology and relatively free word order to a mostly analytic pattern with little inflection and a fairly fixed subject–verb–object word order . Modern English relies more on auxiliary verbs and word order for the expression of complex tenses , aspects and moods , as well as passive constructions , interrogatives , and some negation . The earliest form of English
2128-744: A significant minority speaks English. The countries with the most native English speakers are, in descending order, the United States (at least 231 million), the United Kingdom (60 million), Canada (19 million), Australia (at least 17 million), South Africa (4.8 million), Ireland (4.2 million), and New Zealand (3.7 million). In these countries, children of native speakers learn English from their parents, and local people who speak other languages and new immigrants learn English to communicate in their neighbourhoods and workplaces. The inner-circle countries provide
2261-447: A verb ending ( present plural): From the 8th to the 11th centuries, Old English gradually transformed through language contact with Old Norse in some regions. The waves of Norse (Viking) colonisation of northern parts of the British Isles in the 8th and 9th centuries put Old English into intense contact with Old Norse , a North Germanic language. Norse influence was strongest in the north-eastern varieties of Old English spoken in
2394-552: Is Old Frisian , but even some centuries after the Anglo-Saxon migration, Old English retained considerable mutual intelligibility with other Germanic varieties. Even in the 9th and 10th centuries, amidst the Danelaw and other Viking invasions, there is historical evidence that Old Norse and Old English retained considerable mutual intelligibility, although probably the northern dialects of Old English were more similar to Old Norse than
2527-871: Is 1% of the annual general budget of the EU, or €2.28 per person per year. The EU Parliament has made clear that its member states have autonomy for language education, which by treaty the Union must respect. The vast majority of the 24 official EU languages belong to the Indo-European family : the three dominant subfamilies are the Germanic , Romance , and Slavic . Germanic languages are primarily spoken in central and northern Europe and include Danish, Dutch, English, German, and Swedish. Romance languages are mostly spoken in western and southern European regions; they include French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, and Spanish. The Slavic languages are predominantly found in central Europe and
2660-400: Is also the most widely learned second language in the world, with more second-language speakers than native speakers. English is either the official language or one of the official languages in 59 sovereign states (such as India , Ireland , and Canada ). In some other countries, it is the sole or dominant language for historical reasons without being explicitly defined by law (such as in
2793-459: Is also undergoing change under the influence of American English, fuelled by the strong presence of American English in the media and the prestige associated with the United States as a world power. As of 2016 , 400 million people spoke English as their first language , and 1.1 billion spoke it as a secondary language. English is the largest language by number of speakers . English
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#17330937924852926-603: Is also widely used in media and literature, and the number of English language books published annually in India is the third largest in the world after the US and UK. However, English is rarely spoken as a first language, numbering only around a couple hundred-thousand people, and less than 5% of the population speak fluent English in India. David Crystal claimed in 2004 that, combining native and non-native speakers, India now has more people who speak or understand English than any other country in
3059-407: Is an official language of countries populated by few descendants of native speakers of English. It has also become by far the most important language of international communication when people who share no native language meet anywhere in the world. The Indian linguist Braj Kachru distinguished countries where English is spoken with a three circles model . In his model, Kachru based his model on
3192-528: Is called Old English or Anglo-Saxon ( c. 450–1150 ). Old English developed from a set of West Germanic dialects, often grouped as Anglo-Frisian or North Sea Germanic , and originally spoken along the coasts of Frisia , Lower Saxony and southern Jutland by Germanic peoples known to the historical record as the Angles , Saxons , and Jutes . From the 5th century, the Anglo-Saxons settled Britain as
3325-480: Is generally considered identical to the modern Garristown , County Dublin , but other texts place it in Glenn Gabhra, situated between the hills of Tara and Skryne , County Meath . Some chronicles give the date of battle as 284. English language English is a West Germanic language in the Indo-European language family , whose speakers, called Anglophones , originated in early medieval England on
3458-427: Is in fact used by some European Parliament constituents as a spoken dialect of Portuguese due to its similarity with this language. Luxembourgish ( Luxembourg ) and Turkish ( Cyprus ) are the only two national languages that are not official languages of the EU. Neither Luxembourg nor Cyprus have yet used the provision of 13 June 2005 resolution to benefit from use in official EU institutions. On 26 February 2016 it
3591-511: Is not official in any EU member state or polity, except for being an official minority language of Sweden and Finland . Moreover, Romani mass media and educational institution presences are near-negligible. Though not an official language of the European Union, Russian is spoken in all member states that were part of the Soviet Union (and before that the Russian Empire ). Russian is
3724-542: Is recognised by the Constitution of a Member State on all or part of its territory or the use of which as a national language is authorised by law." The official use of such languages will be authorised on the basis of an administrative arrangement concluded between the council and the requesting member state. Although Basque, Catalan/Valencian and Galician are not nationwide official languages in Spain, as co-official languages in
3857-500: Is referenced often in other works, including poems about Cairbre Lifechair in the Book of Leinster and in the long narrative Acallam na Senórach . Cairbre's daughter Sgiam Sholais is betrothed to Maolsheachlainn, prince of the Déisi , whose father Oengus has been killed by Cairbre's sons Fíacha Sroiptine and Eochaid Doimlen. However, the fianna and Fionn mac Cumhaill demand a large tribute for
3990-424: Is routinely used to communicate with foreigners and often in higher education. In these countries, although English is not used for government business, its widespread use puts them at the boundary between the "outer circle" and "expanding circle". English is unusual among world languages in how many of its users are not native speakers but speakers of English as a second or foreign language. Many users of English in
4123-517: Is spoken by communities on every continent and on islands in all the major oceans. The countries where English is spoken can be grouped into different categories according to how English is used in each country. The "inner circle" countries with many native speakers of English share an international standard of written English and jointly influence speech norms for English around the world. English does not belong to just one country, and it does not belong solely to descendants of English settlers. English
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4256-534: Is the most commonly used. The most widely understood language in the EU is English, which is understood by 44% of all adults, while German is the most widely used mother tongue, spoken by 18%. French is an official language in all three of the cities that are political centres of the Union: Brussels , Belgium; Strasbourg , France; and Luxembourg City , Luxembourg. Since the exit of the United Kingdom from
4389-777: Is the third person pronoun group beginning with th- ( they, them, their ) which replaced the Anglo-Saxon pronouns with h- ( hie, him, hera ). Other core Norse loanwords include "give", "get", "sky", "skirt", "egg", and "cake", typically displacing a native Anglo-Saxon equivalent. Old Norse in this era retained considerable mutual intelligibility with some dialects of Old English, particularly northern ones. Englischmen þeyz hy hadde fram þe bygynnyng þre manner speche, Souþeron, Northeron, and Myddel speche in þe myddel of þe lond, ... Noþeles by comyxstion and mellyng, furst wiþ Danes, and afterward wiþ Normans, in menye þe contray longage ys asperyed, and som vseþ strange wlaffyng, chyteryng, harryng, and garryng grisbytting. Although, from
4522-637: Is universal, though. At least five different Sami languages are spoken in Sweden, but "Sami language" (undifferentiated) is recognised as an official minority language in Sweden , and is co-official with Swedish in four municipalities in Norrbotten County (Swedish Lapland). Most of Sami speakers speak Northern Sami (5,000–6,000 speakers), although there are ca. 1,000–2,000 Lule Sami speakers and 600 Southern Sami speakers. Also Ume Sámi and Pite Sámi are spoken in Sweden. For millennia, Latin served as
4655-587: The Anglo-Norman language . Because Norman was spoken primarily by the elites and nobles, while the lower classes continued speaking English, the main influence of Norman was the introduction of a wide range of loanwords related to politics, legislation and prestigious social domains. Middle English also greatly simplified the inflectional system, probably in order to reconcile Old Norse and Old English, which were inflectionally different but morphologically similar. The distinction between nominative and accusative cases
4788-479: The Augustinian canon Orrm , which highlights the blending of both Old English and Anglo-Norman elements in English for the first time. In Wycliff'e Bible of the 1380s, the verse Matthew 8:20 was written: Foxis han dennes, and briddis of heuene han nestis . Here the plural suffix -n on the verb have is still retained, but none of the case endings on the nouns are present. By the 12th century Middle English
4921-552: The Balkans in southeastern Europe; they include Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Polish, Slovak, and Slovene. The Baltic languages , Latvian and Lithuanian; the Celtic languages , including Irish; and Greek are also Indo-European. Outside the Indo-European family, Estonian, Finnish, and Hungarian are Uralic languages , while Maltese is the only Afroasiatic language with official status in
5054-450: The Celtic language known as Scottish Gaelic ) and several Romance languages spoken in Spain, Portugal, France and Italy, such as Aragonese , Asturian , Mirandese , Lombard , Ligurian , Piedmontese , Venetian , Corsican , Neapolitan and Sicilian . The French constitution stipulates French as the sole language of France. Since the 2008 modifications , article 75-1 of the Constitution adds that "regional languages form part of
5187-537: The Danelaw area around York, which was the centre of Norse colonisation; today these features are still particularly present in Scots and Northern English . The centre of Norsified English was in the Midlands around Lindsey . After 920 CE, when Lindsey was incorporated into the Anglo-Saxon polity, English spread extensively throughout the region. An element of Norse influence that continues in all English varieties today
5320-475: The European Free Trade Association , Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) set English as their organisation's sole working language even though most members are not countries with a majority of native English speakers. While the European Union (EU) allows member states to designate any of the national languages as an official language of
5453-785: The European Ombudsman , Nikiforos Diamandouros , and the Spanish ambassador in the EU, Carlos Bastarreche, signed an agreement in Brussels to allow Spanish citizens to address complaints to the European Ombudsman in Basque, Catalan/Valencian and Galician, all three co-official languages in Spain. According to the agreement, a translation body, which will be set up and financed by the Spanish government, will be responsible for translating complaints submitted in these languages. In turn, it will translate
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5586-475: The Germanic language branch, and as of 2021 , Ethnologue estimated that there were over 1.5 billion speakers worldwide. Old English emerged from a group of West Germanic dialects spoken by the Anglo-Saxons . Late Old English borrowed some grammar and core vocabulary from Old Norse , a North Germanic language . Then, Middle English borrowed vocabulary extensively from French dialects , which are
5719-731: The Low Saxon and Frisian languages . English is an Indo-European language and belongs to the West Germanic group of the Germanic languages . Old English originated from a Germanic tribal and linguistic continuum along the Frisian North Sea coast, whose languages gradually evolved into the Anglic languages in the British Isles , and into the Frisian languages and Low German /Low Saxon on
5852-472: The Northern Ireland region of the United Kingdom, then an EU member state, Irish was not made an official working language of the EU until 1 January 2007. On that date an EU Council Regulation making Irish an official working language of the EU came into effect. This followed a unanimous decision on 13 June 2005 by EU foreign ministers that Irish would be made the 21st official language of the EU. However,
5985-641: The United Nations at the end of World War II , English had become pre-eminent and is now the main worldwide language of diplomacy and international relations. It is one of six official languages of the United Nations. Many other worldwide international organisations, including the International Olympic Committee , specify English as a working language or official language of the organisation. Many regional international organisations such as
6118-577: The conquest of England by William the Conqueror in 1066, but it developed further in the period from 1150 to 1500. With the Norman conquest of England in 1066, the now-Norsified Old English language was subject to another wave of intense contact, this time with Old French , in particular Old Norman French , influencing it as a superstrate. The Norman French spoken by the elite in England eventually developed into
6251-574: The institutions of the EU . Institutions have the right to define the linguistic regime of their working but the Commission and a number of other institutions did not do this as indicated by several Court judgments The EU asserts that it is in favour of linguistic diversity. This principle is enshrined in the EU Charter of fundamental rights (art. 22) and in the Treaty on European Union (art. 3(3) TEU). In
6384-511: The palatalisation of consonants that were velar consonants in Proto-Germanic (see Phonological history of Old English § Palatalization ). The earliest varieties of an English language, collectively known as Old English or "Anglo-Saxon", evolved from a group of North Sea Germanic dialects brought to Britain in the 5th century. Old English dialects were later influenced by Old Norse -speaking Viking invaders and settlers , starting in
6517-558: The "outer circle" countries are countries such as the Philippines , Jamaica , India , Pakistan , Singapore , Malaysia and Nigeria with a much smaller proportion of native speakers of English but much use of English as a second language for education, government, or domestic business, and its routine use for school instruction and official interactions with the government. Those countries have millions of native speakers of dialect continua ranging from an English-based creole to
6650-611: The 1999 national Framework Law on the Country's historical linguistic minorities , in accordance with the Article 6 of the Italian Constitution . However, many languages other than Italian and the above-mentioned twelve are spoken across the country, most of them being either Gallo-Italic or Italo-Dalmatian , which lack any sort of official recognition and protection. The Spanish governments have sought to give some official status in
6783-499: The 19th century, when the cultures of vernacular languages and the "national languages" started to gain ground and claim status. Today, several institutions of the European Union use Latin in their logos and domain names instead of listing their names in all the official languages. For example, the European Court of Justice has its website at "curia.europa.eu". The Court of Auditors uses Curia Rationum in its logo. The Council of
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#17330937924856916-596: The 8th and 9th centuries. Middle English began in the late 11th century after the Norman Conquest of England, when a considerable amount of Old French vocabulary was incorporated into English over some three centuries. Early Modern English began in the late 15th century with the start of the Great Vowel Shift and the Renaissance trend of borrowing further Latin and Greek words and roots, concurrent with
7049-595: The Angles. English may have a small amount of substrate influence from Common Brittonic, and a number of possible Brittonicisms in English have been proposed, but whether most of these supposed Brittonicisms are actually a direct result of Brittonic substrate influence is disputed. Old English was divided into four dialects: the Anglian dialects ( Mercian and Northumbrian ) and the Saxon dialects ( Kentish and West Saxon ). Through
7182-512: The British Empire in the 1950s and 1960s, former colonies often did not reject English but rather continued to use it as independent countries setting their own language policies. For example, the view of the English language among many Indians has gone from associating it with colonialism to associating it with economic progress, and English continues to be an official language of India. English
7315-480: The EU in 2020, the government of France has encouraged greater use of French as a working language. Luxembourgish and Turkish , which have official status in Luxembourg and Cyprus , respectively, are the only two official languages of EU member states that are not official languages of the EU. In 2023, the Spanish government requested that its co-official languages Catalan , Basque , and Galician be added to
7448-468: The EU are also working languages . Documents which a member state or a person subject to the jurisdiction of a member state sends to institutions of the Community may be drafted in any one of the official languages selected by the sender. The reply is drafted in the same language. Regulations and other documents of general application are drafted in the twenty-four official languages. The Official Journal of
7581-504: The EU by migrants and refugees who have left the region as a result of the Yugoslav wars and unrest there. There are large Chinese communities in France , Spain , Italy , and other countries. Old and recent Chinese migrants speak a number of Chinese varieties , in particular Cantonese and other southern Chinese varieties. However, Mandarin is becoming increasingly more prevalent due to
7714-584: The EU for the languages of the autonomous communities of Spain , Catalan / Valencian , Galician and Basque . The 667th Council Meeting of the Council of the European Union in Luxembourg on 13 June 2005, decided to authorise limited use at EU level of languages recognised by member states other than the official working languages. The Council granted recognition to "languages other than the languages referred to in Council Regulation No 1/1958 whose status
7847-467: The EU has very limited influence in this area, as the content of educational systems is the responsibility of individual member states, a number of EU funding programmes actively promote language learning and linguistic diversity . All 24 official languages of the EU are accepted as working languages , but in practice only three – English, French, and German – are in wide general use in its institutions, and of these, English
7980-544: The EU is bowing to pressure to exclude Russian speakers in the Baltic in this way". In Finland, the Sami languages Northern Sami (ca. 2,000 speakers), Skolt Sami (400) and Inari Sami (300) have limited local recognition in certain municipalities of Finnish Lapland . Furthermore, legislation specifically concerning the Sami must be translated to these languages. Bilingualism with Finnish
8113-461: The EU, language policy is the responsibility of member states, and the EU does not have a common language policy; EU institutions play a supporting role in this field, based on the principle of " subsidiarity "; they promote a European dimension in the member states' language policies. The EU encourages all its citizens to be multilingual ; specifically, it encourages them to be able to speak two languages in addition to their native language . Though
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#17330937924858246-673: The EU. Most official EU languages are written in the Latin script . The two exceptions are Greek , which is written in the Greek script , and Bulgarian , which is written in Cyrillic script . With the accession of Bulgaria to the European Union on 1 January 2007, Cyrillic became the third official script of the European Union , following the Latin and Greek scripts. The original design of euro banknotes had
8379-581: The EU. Some regional or minority languages spoken within the EU do not have official recognition at EU level. Some of them may have some official status within the member state and count many more speakers than some of the lesser-used official languages. The official languages of EU are in bold . In the list, language varieties classified as dialects of an official language by member countries are not included. However, many of these varieties may be viewed as separate languages: for instance, Scots (the Germanic language descended from Old English , not
8512-569: The EU. Dutch , English , French , German , Greek , and Swedish are all official languages at the national level in multiple countries (see table above). In addition, Croatian , Czech , Danish , Hungarian , Italian , Slovak , and Slovene are official languages in multiple EU countries at the regional level. Furthermore, not all national languages have been accorded the status of official EU languages. These include Luxembourgish , an official language of Luxembourg since 1984, and Turkish , an official language of Cyprus . All languages of
8645-417: The EU. This was done in exchange for the support of the Catalan separatist party Junts for Francina Armengol 's candidacy for President of the Congress of Deputies . Without such support the PSOE would likely have been unable to form a new government and a second election would have been held in the same year. Galician in particular, not being itself a European Parliament official language, can be used and
8778-434: The Early Modern period includes the works of William Shakespeare and the translation of the Bible commissioned by King James I . Even after the vowel shift the language still sounded different from Modern English: for example, the consonant clusters /kn ɡn sw/ in knight , gnat , and sword were still pronounced. Many of the grammatical features that a modern reader of Shakespeare might find quaint or archaic represent
8911-409: The English Language , which introduced standard spellings of words and usage norms. In 1828, Noah Webster published the American Dictionary of the English language to try to establish a norm for speaking and writing American English that was independent of the British standard. Within Britain, non-standard or lower class dialect features were increasingly stigmatised, leading to the quick spread of
9044-429: The English-speaking inner circle countries outside Britain helped level dialect distinctions and produce koineised forms of English in South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. The majority of immigrants to the United States without British ancestry rapidly adopted English after arrival. Now the majority of the United States population are monolingual English speakers. English has ceased to be an "English language" in
9177-424: The European Union The European Union (EU) has 24 official languages , of which three – English , French and German – were considered "procedural" languages but this notion was abandoned by the European Commission (whereas the European Parliament accepts all official languages as working languages ). In fact English and French are used in the day-to-day workings of
9310-399: The European Union is published in the twenty-four official languages. Documents of major public importance or interest are produced in all official languages, but that accounts for a minority of the institutions′ work. Other documents—e.g., communications with the national authorities, decisions addressed to particular individuals or entities and correspondence—are translated only into
9443-446: The European Union has its website at "consilium.europa.eu" and its logo showing Consilium . The European Union itself has a Latin motto : " In varietate concordia ". Under the European Company Regulation , companies can be incorporated as Societas Europaea (Latin for "European Company", often shortened to "SE" after the company's own proper name). Latin is one of the languages of IATE (the inter-institutional terminology database of
9576-555: The European Union). A wide variety of languages from other parts of the world are spoken by immigrant communities in EU countries. Turkish (which is also an official language of the EU member Cyprus) is spoken as a first language by an estimated 1% of the population in Belgium and the western part of Germany , and by 1% in the Netherlands . Other widely used migrant languages include Berber languages which are spoken by about 1% of
9709-584: The French heritage". Nevertheless, there exist a number of languages spoken by sizable minorities, such as Breton (a Celtic language), Basque , and several Romance languages such as Occitan , Catalan , Corsican and the various langues d'oïl (other than French), as well as Germanic languages spoken in Alsace-Lorraine (Central Franconian, High Franconian, Luxembourgish, and Alemannic) and French Flanders (Dutch). These languages enjoy no official status under
9842-460: The French state, and regions are not permitted to bestow any such status themselves. The official language of Greece is Greek, and recognized minority languages are Armenian, Ladino and Turkish. Nevertheless, there are several other languages in Greece, which lack any recognition. These are Albanian, Aromanian , Megleno-Romanian (these last two usually being collectively known as "Vlach"), Romani and
9975-555: The Ombudsman's decisions from Spanish into the language of the complainant. Until such a body is established the agreement will not become effective. Following the 2023 Spanish general election , the PSOE -led Spanish government sent a letter to the rotating Presidency of the Council of the European Union , asking for Catalan, Basque, and Galician to be added to the current 24 official languages of
10108-600: The Roman economy and administration collapsed . By the 7th century, this Germanic language of the Anglo-Saxons became dominant in Britain , replacing the languages of Roman Britain (43–409): Common Brittonic , a Celtic language , and British Latin , brought to Britain by the Roman occupation. At this time, these dialects generally resisted influence from the then-local Brittonic and Latin languages. England and English (originally Ænglaland and Ænglisc ) are both named after
10241-494: The Slavic varieties spoken in the country . Greece has been described as the only European Union member state that sticks to a "linguistic assimilationist ideology". Italy's official language is Italian, although twelve additional languages (namely Albanian , Catalan , German , Greek , Slovene , Croatian , French , Franco-Provençal , Friulian , Ladin , Occitan and Sardinian ) have been recognized as minority languages by
10374-442: The Union, in practice English is the main working language of EU organisations. Although in most countries English is not an official language, it is currently the language most often taught as a foreign language . In the countries of the EU, English is the most widely spoken foreign language in nineteen of the twenty-five member states where it is not an official language (that is, the countries other than Ireland and Malta ). In
10507-451: The United States and United Kingdom ). It is a co-official language of the United Nations , the European Union , and many other international and regional organisations. It has also become the de facto lingua franca of diplomacy, science , technology, international trade, logistics, tourism, aviation, entertainment, and the Internet . English accounts for at least 70% of total speakers of
10640-407: The base from which English spreads to other countries in the world. Estimates of the numbers of second language and foreign-language English speakers vary greatly from 470 million to more than 1 billion, depending on how proficiency is defined. Linguist David Crystal estimates that non-native speakers now outnumber native speakers by a ratio of 3 to 1. In Kachru's three-circles model,
10773-401: The basis for the required controlled natural languages Seaspeak and Airspeak, used as international languages of seafaring and aviation. English used to have parity with French and German in scientific research, but now it dominates that field. It achieved parity with French as a language of diplomacy at the Treaty of Versailles negotiations in 1919. By the time of the foundation of
10906-404: The beginning, Englishmen had three manners of speaking, southern, northern and midlands speech in the middle of the country, ... Nevertheless, through intermingling and mixing, first with Danes and then with Normans, amongst many the country language has arisen, and some use strange stammering, chattering, snarling, and grating gnashing. Middle English is often arbitrarily defined as beginning with
11039-697: The consensus of educated English speakers around the world, without any oversight by any government or international organisation. American listeners readily understand most British broadcasting, and British listeners readily understand most American broadcasting. Most English speakers around the world can understand radio programmes, television programmes, and films from many parts of the English-speaking world. Both standard and non-standard varieties of English can include both formal or informal styles, distinguished by word choice and syntax and use both technical and non-technical registers. The settlement history of
11172-682: The continent. The Frisian languages, which together with the Anglic languages form the Anglo-Frisian languages , are the closest living relatives of English. Low German/Low Saxon is also closely related, and sometimes English, the Frisian languages, and Low German are grouped together as the North Sea Germanic languages, though this grouping remains debated. Old English evolved into Middle English , which in turn evolved into Modern English. Particular dialects of Old and Middle English also developed into
11305-476: The development of English was influenced by a long series of invasions of the British Isles by other peoples and languages, particularly Old Norse and French dialects . These left a profound mark of their own on the language, so that English shows some similarities in vocabulary and grammar with many languages outside its linguistic clades —but it is not mutually intelligible with any of those languages either. Some scholars have argued that English can be considered
11438-515: The distinct characteristics of Early Modern English. In the 1611 King James Version of the Bible, written in Early Modern English, Matthew 8:20 says, "The Foxes haue holes and the birds of the ayre haue nests." This exemplifies the loss of case and its effects on sentence structure (replacement with subject–verb–object word order, and the use of of instead of the non-possessive genitive), and
11571-401: The early period of Old English were written using a runic script . By the 6th century, a Latin alphabet was adopted, written with half-uncial letterforms . It included the runic letters wynn ⟨ ƿ ⟩ and thorn ⟨ þ ⟩ , and the modified Latin letters eth ⟨ ð ⟩ , and ash ⟨ æ ⟩ . Old English is essentially
11704-459: The education system) and just over 72,000 use Irish as a daily language outside the education system. At the time of Croatia's accession to the EU , some diplomats and officials suggested that, rather than accepting the Croatian written standard as an official EU language, the EU should instead adopt a single unified literary form that would encompass several nearly-identical written standards of
11837-539: The educational reforms of King Alfred in the 9th century and the influence of the kingdom of Wessex , the West Saxon dialect became the standard written variety . The epic poem Beowulf is written in West Saxon, and the earliest English poem, Cædmon's Hymn , is written in Northumbrian. Modern English developed mainly from Mercian, but the Scots language developed from Northumbrian. A few short inscriptions from
11970-408: The expanding circle use it to communicate with other people from the expanding circle, so that interaction with native speakers of English plays no part in their decision to use the language. Non-native varieties of English are widely used for international communication, and speakers of one such variety often encounter features of other varieties. Very often today a conversation in English anywhere in
12103-408: The fianna's fate. In some versions, Fionn himself is slain by Aichlech while he weeps over the death of his grandson. Cairbre's forces ultimately triumph, and the only survivors of the fianna are Oisín and Caílte mac Rónáin , who live long enough to recount their tale to Saint Patrick two centuries later, according to Acallam na Senórach . The location of the battle varies from text to text. Gabhra
12236-452: The first time in the state's history. Irish is the only official language of the EU that is not the most widely spoken language in any member state. According to the 2006 Irish census figures, there are 1.66 million people in Ireland with some ability to speak Irish, out of a population of 4.6 million, though only 538,500 use Irish on a daily basis (counting those who use it mainly in
12369-710: The growing economic and cultural influence of the United States and its status as a superpower following the Second World War has, along with worldwide broadcasting in English by the BBC and other broadcasters, caused the language to spread across the planet much faster. In the 21st century, English is more widely spoken and written than any language has ever been. As Modern English developed, explicit norms for standard usage were published, and spread through official media such as public education and state-sponsored publications. In 1755, Samuel Johnson published his A Dictionary of
12502-479: The history of English was Early Modern English (1500–1700). Early Modern English was characterised by the Great Vowel Shift (1350–1700), inflectional simplification, and linguistic standardisation. The Great Vowel Shift affected the stressed long vowels of Middle English. It was a chain shift , meaning that each shift triggered a subsequent shift in the vowel system. Mid and open vowels were raised , and close vowels were broken into diphthongs . For example,
12635-407: The history of how English spread in different countries, how users acquire English, and the range of uses English has in each country. The three circles change membership over time. Countries with large communities of native speakers of English (the inner circle) include Britain, the United States, Australia, Canada, Ireland, and New Zealand, where the majority speaks English, and South Africa, where
12768-403: The inner-circle countries, and they may show grammatical and phonological differences from inner-circle varieties as well. The standard English of the inner-circle countries is often taken as a norm for use of English in the outer-circle countries. In the three-circles model, countries such as Poland, China, Brazil, Germany, Japan, Indonesia, Egypt, and other countries where English is taught as
12901-524: The introduction of loanwords from French ( ayre ) and word replacements ( bird originally meaning "nestling" had replaced OE fugol ). By the late 18th century, the British Empire had spread English through its colonies and geopolitical dominance. Commerce, science and technology, diplomacy, art, and formal education all contributed to English becoming the first truly global language. English also facilitated worldwide international communication. English
13034-467: The introduction of the printing press to London. This era notably culminated in the King James Bible and the works of William Shakespeare . The printing press greatly standardised English spelling, which has remained largely unchanged since then, despite a wide variety of later sound shifts in English dialects. Modern English has spread around the world since the 17th century as a consequence of
13167-483: The island of Great Britain . The namesake of the language is the Angles , one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to Britain . It is the most spoken language in the world, primarily due to the global influences of the former British Empire (succeeded by the Commonwealth of Nations ) and the United States . English is the third-most spoken native language , after Standard Chinese and Spanish ; it
13300-431: The languages have descended from a single common ancestor called Proto-Germanic . Some shared features of Germanic languages include the division of verbs into strong and weak classes, the use of modal verbs , and the sound changes affecting Proto-Indo-European consonants, known as Grimm's and Verner's laws . English is classified as an Anglo-Frisian language because Frisian and English share other features, such as
13433-407: The languages needed. For internal purposes the EU institutions are allowed by law to choose their own language arrangements. The European Commission , for example, conducts its internal business in three languages, English , French , and German (sometimes called "procedural languages"), and goes fully multilingual only for public information and communication purposes. The European Parliament , on
13566-594: The marriage, and Cairbre decides their power has corrupted them. He raises a vast army from Ulster , Leinster , and Connacht , which is joined by the faction of the fianna loyal to Fionn's enemy Goll mac Morna . Fionn and the fianna are aided by the men of Munster and the Déisi. Cairbre starts the final battle by killing Fionn's servant Ferdia, and the armies meet at Gabhair for the final confrontation. The fianna's greatest warrior, Fionn's grandson Oscar (the son of Oisín ), slays Cairbre, but dies of his wounds, thereby sealing
13699-477: The medieval trivium and quadrivium , through the humanists and the Renaissance, all the way to Newton's Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (just to name one example of thousands of scientific works written in this language), to the public schools of all European countries, where Latin (along with Greek) was at the core of their curricula. Latin served as the undisputed European lingua franca until
13832-573: The native language of about 1.6 million Baltic Russians residing in Estonia , Latvia , and Lithuania , as well as a sizeable community of about 3.5 million in Germany and as a major immigrant language elsewhere in the EU , e.g. in and around Paris. Russian is also understood by a majority of ethnic Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians born before c. 1980, since, as official language of the Soviet Union , it
13965-476: The official languages of the EU. As of 30 July 2023 , the official languages of the European Union , as stipulated in the latest amendment of Regulation No 1 determining the languages to be used by the European Economic Community of 1958, are: The number of member states exceeds the number of official languages, as several national languages are shared by two or more countries in
14098-479: The other Western Balkan states eventually joined the EU as well. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia was cited as an example of an international body that had conducted business in such a unified standard. In negotiations with Croatia , however, it was agreed that the Croatian standard would become a separate official EU language, as none of the other states at issue had yet been admitted to
14231-489: The other hand, has members who need working documents in their own languages, so its document flow is fully multilingual from the outset. Non-institutional EU bodies are not legally obliged to make language arrangement for all the 24 languages The translations are expensive. According to the EU's English-language website, the cost of maintaining the institutions’ policy of multilingualism—i.e., the cost of translation and interpretation—was €1,123 million in 2005, which
14364-627: The population of both the Netherlands and Belgium and by many Berber migrants in France, Spain, Italy and Germany. Arabic is spoken in many EU countries mainly in its Maghrebi and Levantine varieties. Maghrebi Arabic is spoken by migrants in France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany. Levantine Arabic is spoken by migrants in Germany, France, Sweden, Denmark, Austria and Greece. Languages from former Yugoslavia ( Serbian , Bosnian , Macedonian , Albanian , etc.) are spoken in many parts of
14497-426: The prestige varieties among the middle classes. In modern English, the loss of grammatical case is almost complete (it is now only found in pronouns, such as he and him , she and her , who and whom ), and SVO word order is mostly fixed. Some changes, such as the use of do-support , have become universalised. (Earlier English did not use the word "do" as a general auxiliary as Modern English does; at first it
14630-657: The reign of Henry V . Around 1430, the Court of Chancery in Westminster began using English in its official documents , and a new standard form of Middle English, known as Chancery Standard , developed from the dialects of London and the East Midlands . In 1476, William Caxton introduced the printing press to England and began publishing the first printed books in London, expanding the influence of this form of English. Literature from
14763-413: The respective regions—pursuant to Spanish constitution, among other documents—they are eligible to benefit from official use in EU institutions under the terms of 13 June 2005 resolution of the Council of the European Union. The Spanish government has assented to the provisions in respect of these languages. The status of Catalan, spoken by over 9 million EU citizens (just over 1.8% of the total), has been
14896-481: The same language, historically known as Serbo-Croatian , the official language of Yugoslavia until its disintegration and the division of the language among ethnic lines. In addition to Croatian, this would include the Serbian , Bosnian , and Montenegrin written standards, all of them based in the same spoken dialect of Eastern Herzegovina , with the goal of reducing potential translation and interpretation costs if
15029-464: The sense of belonging only to people who are ethnically English . Use of English is growing country-by-country internally and for international communication. Most people learn English for practical rather than ideological reasons. Many speakers of English in Africa have become part of an "Afro-Saxon" language community that unites Africans from different countries. As decolonisation proceeded throughout
15162-478: The source of approximately 28% of Modern English words , and from Latin , which is the source of an additional 28% . As such, though most of its total vocabulary comes from Romance languages , Modern English's grammar, phonology, and most commonly used words in everyday use keep it genealogically classified under the Germanic branch. It exists on a dialect continuum with Scots and is then most closely related to
15295-474: The southern dialects. Theoretically, as late as the 900s AD, a commoner from certain (northern) parts of England could hold a conversation with a commoner from certain parts of Scandinavia. Research continues into the details of the myriad tribes in peoples in England and Scandinavia and the mutual contacts between them. The translation of Matthew 8:20 from 1000 shows examples of case endings ( nominative plural, accusative plural, genitive singular) and
15428-455: The study of English as an auxiliary language. The trademarked Globish uses a relatively small subset of English vocabulary (about 1500 words, designed to represent the highest use in international business English) in combination with the standard English grammar. Other examples include Simple English . The increased use of the English language globally has had an effect on other languages, leading to some English words being assimilated into
15561-648: The subject of particular debate. On 11 December 1990, the use of Catalan was the subject of a European Parliament Resolution (resolution A3-169/90 on languages in the [European] Community and the situation of Catalan). On 16 November 2005, the President Peter Straub of the Committee of the Regions signed an agreement with the Spanish Ambassador to the EU, Carlos Bastarreche [ es ] , approving
15694-543: The use of Spanish regional languages in an EU institution for the first time in a meeting on that day, with interpretation provided by European Commission interpreters. On 3 July 2006, the European Parliament's Bureau approved a proposal by the Spanish State to allow citizens to address the European Parliament in Basque, Catalan/Valencian and Galician, two months after its initial rejection. On 30 November 2006,
15827-412: The vocabularies of other languages. This influence of English has led to concerns about language death , and to claims of linguistic imperialism , and has provoked resistance to the spread of English; however the number of speakers continues to increase because many people around the world think that English provides them with opportunities for better employment and improved lives. Though some mention
15960-473: The word bite was originally pronounced as the word beet is today, and the second vowel in the word about was pronounced as the word boot is today. The Great Vowel Shift explains many irregularities in spelling since English retains many spellings from Middle English, and it also explains why English vowel letters have very different pronunciations from the same letters in other languages. English began to rise in prestige, relative to Norman French, during
16093-509: The word euro written in both Latin (Euro) and Greek (Ευρώ) letters; the Cyrillic spelling (Eвро) was added to the new Europa series of banknotes started in 2013 (see Linguistic issues concerning the euro ). Although Maltese is an official language, the Council set a transitional period of three years from 1 May 2004, during which the institutions were not obliged to draft all acts in Maltese. It
16226-785: The world may include no native speakers of English at all, even while including speakers from several different countries. This is particularly true of the shared vocabulary of mathematics and the sciences. English is a pluricentric language , which means that no one national authority sets the standard for use of the language. Spoken English, including English used in broadcasting, generally follows national pronunciation standards that are established by custom rather than by regulation. International broadcasters are usually identifiable as coming from one country rather than another through their accents , but newsreader scripts are also composed largely in international standard written English . The norms of standard written English are maintained purely by
16359-539: The world, but the number of English speakers in India is uncertain, with most scholars concluding that the United States still has more speakers of English than India. Modern English, sometimes described as the first global lingua franca , is also regarded as the first world language . English is the world's most widely used language in newspaper publishing, book publishing, international telecommunications, scientific publishing, international trade, mass entertainment, and diplomacy. English is, by international treaty,
16492-438: The worldwide influence of the British Empire and the United States. Through all types of printed and electronic media in these countries, English has become the leading language of international discourse and the lingua franca in many regions and professional contexts such as science, navigation , and law. Its modern grammar is the result of a gradual change from a dependent-marking pattern typical of Indo-European with
16625-796: Was a compulsory school subject in those countries that were part of the Soviet Union . To a lesser extent, this legacy also holds true among the older generation in parts of the EU that were formerly part of the Eastern bloc , such as the GDR . In March 2010 fact-sheets in Russian produced by the EU executive's offices in Latvia were withdrawn, provoking criticism from Plaid Cymru MEP and European Free Alliance group President Jill Evans who called European Commission to continue to provide information in non-official EU languages and commented that "it's disappointing to hear that
16758-405: Was adopted in parts of North America, parts of Africa, Oceania, and many other regions. When they obtained political independence, some of the newly independent states that had multiple indigenous languages opted to continue using English as the official language to avoid the political and other difficulties inherent in promoting any one indigenous language above the others. In the 20th century
16891-438: Was agreed that the council could extend this transitional period by an additional year, but decided not to. All new acts of the institutions were required to be adopted and published in Maltese from 30 April 2007. Irish previously had the status of "treaty language" before being upgraded to an official and working language in 2007. However, a temporary derogation was enforced until 1 January 2022. The designation of Irish as
17024-468: Was also listed in that treaty and all subsequent EU treaties as one of the authentic languages of the treaties. As a Treaty Language, Irish was an official procedural language of the European Court of Justice . It was also possible to correspond in written Irish with the EU Institutions. However, despite being the first official language of Ireland and having been accorded minority-language status in
17157-411: Was estimated at just under €3.5 million a year. On 3 December 2015, a new regulation passed by the council had set a definitive schedule on the gradual reduction of the derogation of the Irish language. This regulation outlined a schedule of gradual reduction spread across five years starting from 2016. The derogation was ultimately revoked on 1 January 2022, making Irish a fully recognised EU language for
17290-511: Was fully developed, integrating both Norse and French features; it continued to be spoken until the transition to early Modern English around 1500. Middle English literature includes Geoffrey Chaucer 's The Canterbury Tales , and Thomas Malory 's Le Morte d'Arthur . In the Middle English period, the use of regional dialects in writing proliferated, and dialect traits were even used for effect by authors such as Chaucer. The next period in
17423-500: Was lost except in personal pronouns, the instrumental case was dropped, and the use of the genitive case was limited to indicating possession . The inflectional system regularised many irregular inflectional forms, and gradually simplified the system of agreement, making word order less flexible. The transition from Old to Middle English can be placed during the writing of the Ormulum . The oldest Middle English texts that were written by
17556-437: Was made public that Cyprus has asked to make Turkish an official EU language, in a “gesture” that could help reunification and improve EU–Turkey relations. Already in 2004, it was planned that Turkish would become an official language if Cyprus reunited. Turkish is also a recognized minority language in two EU member countries ( Greece and Romania ). In September 2010, Luxembourg's foreign minister Jean Asselborn declined
17689-533: Was only used in question constructions, and even then was not obligatory. Now, do-support with the verb have is becoming increasingly standardised.) The use of progressive forms in -ing , appears to be spreading to new constructions, and forms such as had been being built are becoming more common. Regularisation of irregular forms also slowly continues (e.g. dreamed instead of dreamt ), and analytical alternatives to inflectional forms are becoming more common (e.g. more polite instead of politer ). British English
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