Overview of English
Comments(0)
Due to shifts in global power, English has become a global “lingua franca”, perhaps the first in human history. Nearly everybody in the Western world is taught English as their primary language, and Eastern countries teach English as a second language. Anybody who comes in to this world can quickly see how important English is to humans.
If one wants to see the prominence of English in society, they need only look at the industrial world. In textbooks of all sorts, English is the primary language used. No matter what country you go to, the industrial texts are bound to have some amount of English in them.
Despite English’s widespread influence, it is not the number one native tongue learned by humans; Mandarin is. This is due to primarily to Chinas immense population, which outnumbers many English-speaking countries combined. However, English is still the second language learned most by those of Chinese origin.
English had a long evolution, starting with Old English in the fifth century. Old English was so distinct that it seems like a different language, but one can see subtle similarities to modern English in it. The most famous work written in Old English was the epic tale of Beowulf.
Old English originated in the fifth century from the Anglo-Saxons. In 1066, the Norman Conquest occurred, and Middle English began to develop. It was spoken until the end of the fifteenth century. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer is the greatest remnant of Middle English.
For a short period of time, a type of English known as “Early Modern” came about. Some people are under the misconception of Shakespeare using Old English, just because it sounds weird, but he actually used a unique English called Elizabethan. After the time of Shakespeare, the true modern English came about.
One can see that the English language is still evolving. You need to look no further than the dictionary, which frequently changes the meaning of words, adds new ones, and takes out needless words. In fifty years, English could be different from how it is today, but probably not by much.
It has only been recently that English became so prominent, so there is always a chance that another language could overtake it. Due to the prominence of English speaking countries such as the United States and England, it is unlikely that anything like this will happen in the near future.