The English Language: Fast Facts

There are approximately 700 million people in the world who speak English, making it the second most spoken language in the world.

English is part of the Indo-European language family, considered to be a Germanic language.

English is the official or second official language of over 45 nations and is spoken widely in nearly every corner of the world.

English is the language of science and technology, international politics and diplomacy and the aviation and travel industries worldwide.

The word English originates from “Englisc “ the language of the Angles, a Germanic tribe who migrated to the British isles in the 5th C. AD.

It is estimated that 50% of all business negotiations are carried out in English.

Though Mandarin is spoken by a larger population, English today is the most extensively used of the world's languages.

Approximately three quarters of all the items posted in the world are addressed and written in English.

The English language has one of the richest in vocabularies in the world, with about half a million words and another 500,000 technical and scientific terms still unlisted.

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