English Language Day

Today is English Language Day. Probably most of us speak English. At least as a second language. This article is a portrait of the English language and also shows some differences in vocabulary in three different varieties.

Read this article in: Deutsch, English

Estimated reading time:3minutes

English is a West Germanic language, more precisely an Anglo-Frisian. However, the influences from other languages are enormous. For example, there are many Celtic and Romance influences. The name of the language also reveals where it originally comes from: England. That is where the history of the English language begins and where it is still spoken today.

Geographically, however, English is now at home all over the world. About 340 million people speak it as their mother tongue, and even more as a second or foreign language. In many countries it is the official language, in others it is the language of communication and education.

How did it come to this? - The spread of English

In which countries is English spoken? Great Britain, USA, Australia, India, Kenya, New Zealand, Ireland, Canada, Belize, South Africa - which others can you think of? The reason for the great spread of the English language was colonisation - the expansion of the British Empire. When this came to an end in the 20th century, however, the language remained in those territories.

Many English varieties

Internationally, British and American English are often regarded as standard. However, these are also standard varieties. However, they are also rich in dialects (read more about the difference between speech and dialect here). Examples of British dialects are Cockney, which is used in My Fair Lady, or Scouse, which was spoken by the Beatles.

As already mentioned, English is not only spoken in Great Britain or the USA, but other countries also speak different varieties. In some cases, these differ greatly. This applies not only to phonetics, but also to vocabulary. alugha has selected a few different vocabulary words from British, American and Australian English.

How do you call these?

English as a world language

World languages have always existed: be it ancient Babylonian, ancient Greek, Latin, French, ... Which ones do you know?

There are numerous advantages to English having established itself as a world language. These include:

a relatively simple grammatical structure
a rich vocabulary that makes it possible to express oneself very precisely, which is especially important in science
on the other hand, English is easy to understand even with a small vocabulary and it is possible to communicate quickly.
Due to globalisation and the great influence of English, many people find access to it quickly and easily.

Globish

As already mentioned, English is spoken by many people as a second and foreign language, even from countries where it is not an official or lingua franca. Many therefore resort to only rudimentary vocabulary and simplified grammatical structures. For this reason, the idea arose to create a constructed language called Globish (neologism from global and English). However, this was never formalised.