Espinoza, Gonzalo

LYCA
Mr. Cristian Sanhueza
Thursday, October 27
th


The History of EngIish Language
(513 words)
English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England and
is lingua franca in many parts of the world, due to the military, economic, scientific,
political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th
centuries and that of the United States from the middle 20th century to the present.
t is used extensively as a second language and as an official language in
Commonwealth countries and is the preferred language of many international
organizations.
Historically, English originated from several dialects (now called Old English) which
were brought to Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers beginning in the 5th century. The
language was heavily influenced by the Old Norse language of Viking invaders.
After the Norman conquest, Old English developed into Middle English, borrowing
heavily from the Norman vocabulary and spelling conventions. Modern English
developed from there and continues to adopt foreign words, especially from Latin
and Greek.
Modern English, sometimes described as the first global lingua franca, is the
dominant international language in communications, science, business, aviation,
entertainment, radio and diplomacy. The initial reason for its enormous spread
beyond the bounds of the British sles, was the growth of the British Empire, and by
the late nineteenth century its reach was truly global. t is the dominant language in
the United States, whose growing economic and cultural influence and status as a
global superpower since World War have significantly accelerated adoption of
English as a language across the planet.
n order to establish the language they develop a dictionary. The first English
Dictionary was published in 1603. Currently, due to the significant assimilation of
several European languages throughout history, modern English has a very large
vocabulary. The Oxford English Dictionary contains more than 250,000 different
words, not including many technical terms and jargon.
Another product of the 18th century was the invention of English Grammar.
Nowadays, english is the third most spoken native language in the world with 328
million speakers, after Mandarin Chinese with 845 million speakers and Spanish
with 390 million.
A working knowledge of English has become a requirement in a number of fields,
occupations and professions such asmedicineand as a consequence over a billion
people speak English to at least a basic level.
Some linguists recognize that one impact of this massive growth of English, in
common with otherglobal languages, has been to reduce native linguistic diversity
in many parts of the world historically, most particularly in Australasia and North
America, and its hugeinfluencecontinues toplay an important role in language
attrition. By a similar token, historical linguists, aware of thecomplexand fluid
dynamics of language change, are always alive to the potential English contains
through the vast size and spread of the communities that use it and its natural
internal variety, such as in its creoles and pidgins, to produce a new family of
distinct languages over time.
What will happen in the future? t will continue growing and developing, maybe it
will be the universal language and there will be no barriers among cultures.