The Anglo Saxons spoke an Ingvaeonic old English type language.
English is a Germanic language that first spouted its roots in England and south-eastern Scotland in the fifth century during the reign of the Anglo Saxons, 1600 years ago.
Around the 11th century the language transformed, via four main dialects into Middle English these dialects were West Saxon, Mercian, Northumbrian, and Kentish.
It was also influenced by the Old Norse language of the Viking invaders.
From the 18th century, and through the results of the economic, scientific, political, cultural, and pure military might of the United Kingdom, English was being spoken more and more and from the mid 20th century in the United States of America, English has become the most used language in many parts of the world today.
Countries, where English is a majority language, are dark blue; countries where it is an official but not a majority language are light blue.
It is the official language in the European Union as well as most of the world’s organizations; on top of that, it is widely used as a second language in most parts of the world. Around 300 to 400 million people in 53 different countries use English as their first language and 200 to 1500 million as a second language.
Many technical and scientific words are from Latin and Greek roots
English has always developed from, and is still “Borrowing” from, other languages including, Latin, Greek, Norman-French, Norse, and a whole host of other languages, as well as coining new words, many being adopted and included into the main English dictionaries every year, many technical and scientific words have been constructed from Latin and Greek roots.
English contains more words than any other language on the planet and it is thought more than 14 words are added to English every day, through slang and just by continuous use.
The internet is now contributing to many of the new words officially added each year, words such as blog, web 2.0, carbon footprint, and green-collar are now all included, and who knows even LOL might one day be accepted.
English is the lingua franca in computing and on the Internet, and the computing vocabulary of many languages is borrowed from English.
Most of the world’s “other languages” are jealousy guarded against the outside influence and by doing so help to make English grow which happily accepts parts of foreign languages as it’s own, such as from French, adieu, agent provocateur, aide-de-camp, à la carte, bon voyage, debutante and from German, angst, kindergarten, sauerkraut and aspirin, I could go on quoting from just about all of the worlds most used languages.
Learning the language
Some people think English is the hardest language to learn others say it is the easiest when you think English is everywhere and can be used and therefore learned everywhere, English people are very understanding of mistakes, making it a very flexible and therefore easy language to learn.
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