English language
From Conservapedia
English is the predominant language of the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada as well as other former members of the British Empire. Due to the enormous political and economic influence of the these nations, English functions as the world's major international language.
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Vocabulary
English is a member of the Germanic language family, but with significant influence from French, Spanish, and latin, all Romance language, and Greek. The influence of French is largely due to the conquest of Saxon-speaking England by French speaking Normans in 1066 AD. English owes some of its structure (its system of auxiliary verbs, for example) to French. In terms of the lexicon, Old English words are a minority (though they predominate when one looks at words for basic ideas like "bed" or "food") whereas words from French are more numerous, followed by Latin, Greek, and other modern languages. Scholars identify 4 primary times in the development of history that account for the insurgence of non-native terminology including the above mentioned influence of French, the commencement of trade with Spain and the Enlightenment period for Latin and Greek words.
Throughout its history, English has remained one of the most flexible and inventive languages, borrowing thousands of words from other languages where need or convenience arise, as well as generating new words of its own. In large part as a result, English has one of the largest lexicons (vocabularies) of any world language, and is particularly rich in synonyms and near-synonyms. It is the primary (native) language of approximately 400 million people worldwide, as well as a secondary, or learned language of 600 million more. There are estimated to be nearly one billion people currently learning English.
Spelling
English spelling, technically phonetic based on the Roman alphabet, has changed considerably over time. Because England had vast differences in pronunciations and dialects, and because there was no standardized agreement of how to represent each sound nor which Roman letters corresponded to which sound, spelling was quite variable. Standard spellings did not come about until the late seventeenth century. In or around 1828 in the United States, the lexicographer Noah Webster argued for simplifying some spelling which were no longer phonetic, such as the -our in words such as "colour". Most, though not all, of his proposed changes were adopted, such that US English spelling differs from UK English in some hundreds of instances. UK English spelling is the standard in the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, and most of the Commonwealth of Nations including Canada and Australia; US English spelling is the standard in the United States and its territories.
The term "English" may also be used to refer to a person from the United Kingdom born in the country of England, or to describe something from England or with characteristics particular to that place.
