It is estimated that over 95% of theBritish population are monolingual English speakers.
There are various minority Celticlanguages, and speakers of these can usually speak English as well.
In Scotland 1.4% speak Scottish Gaelic aswell as English;
in Northern Ireland 6.6% of the populationare bilingual in Irish Gaelic and English;
in Wales, 21% also speak Welsh. Welsh isthe only Celtic language that enjoys official status.
In Scotland, Northern Ireland and someborder areas of England, Scots is a distinct minority language although attimes it overlaps with Scottish English.
There are also large numbers of communitylanguages, brought into the country and sustained by recent immigrantcommunities, which account for more than 5.5% of the population.
The largest group (spoken by 2.7% of thetotal UK population) are South Asian languages such as Bengali, Punjabi, Hindiand Gujarati. Other community languages include Cantonese, Italian, Polish,Greek and Turkish.
45% of the total ethnic minority populationlives in London, but community languages are spoken throughout the UnitedKingdom.
English is a language belonging to thebranch of Germanic languages in the Indo-European Language Family. From thisdiagram, we can see that English is the closest to Frisian, and also close toDutch and German.
In Britain, the main language is English,or, to be exact, British English.
In Britain, every part of the country hasits own way of speaking English. People in Yorkshire sound very different topeople in Surrey; a Somerset accent is very different from an Scottish accentand it's hard to believe that people from Birmingham are speaking the samelanguage as those from Cornwall. Most people in Britain can guess where someonecomes from by the way they speak, either by their accent or by the words theyuse. Cockney English, for example, refers to the accent or dialect of Englishtraditionally spoken by working-class Londoners. But the most famous accent isReceived Pronunciation or RP. Received Pronunciation is regarded as thestandard accent of Standard English in the United Kingdom. Although itoriginally derives from London English, it is non-regional. You can hear itspoken in many places.
The history of the English language hastraditionally been divided into three main periods: Old English (450-1100 AD),Middle English (1100-circa 1500 AD) and Modern English (since 1500). Over thecenturies, the English language has been influenced by a number of otherlanguages.
During the 5th Century AD three Germanic tribes(Saxons, Angles, and Jutes) came to the British Isles from various parts ofnorthwest Germany as well as Denmark. These tribes were warlike and pushed outmost of the original, Celtic-speaking inhabitants from England into Scotland,Wales, and Cornwall.
Through the years, the Saxons, Angles andJutes mixed their different Germanic dialects. This group of dialects formswhat linguists refer to as Old English or Anglo-Saxon. The word"English" comes from the name of the Angles.
Before the Romans came (54-5BC), variousCeltic languages were spoken. The influence of Celtic upon Old English wasslight. In fact, very few Celtic words have lived on in the English language.But many of place and river names have Celtic origins: Kent, York, Dover,Cumberland, Thames, Avon, Trent, Severn.
The Romans brought Latin to Britain, whichwas part of the Roman Empire for over 400 years.
The arrival of St. Augustine in 597 and theintroduction of Christianity into Saxon England brought more Latin words intothe English language. Some, such as church, bishop, baptism, monk, eucharistand presbyter came indirectly through Latin from the Greek.
Around 878 AD Danes and Norsemen, alsocalled Vikings, invaded the country and English got many Norse words into thelanguage. Words derived from Norse include: sky, egg, cake, skin, leg, window(wind eye), husband, fellow, skill, anger, flat, odd, ugly, get, give, take,raise, call, die, they, their, them.
The most famous work in Old English is aheroic epic poem called "Beowulf", written more than one thousandyears ago.
After the French-speaking Normans invadedEngland in 1066, the Old French language began to dominate the English court,administration, and culture.
Latin was mostly used for written language,especially that of the Church. Meanwhile, The English language, as the languageof the now lower class, was considered a vulgar tongue.
In this period, many Middle English wordswere influenced by French. They were mostly words of government or power: suchas crown, castle, court, parliament, army, mansion, gown, beauty, banquet, art,poet, romance, duke, servant, peasant, traitor and governor.
Because the ruling class was mostlyFrench-speaking and the lower class spoke English, they had different words formost domestic animals. Words like ox, cow, calf, sheep, swine, and deer werecalled by the Normans in different terms like beef, veal, mutton, pork, bacon,and venison.
The most famous example of Middle Englishis Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales", a collection of stories about agroup of thirty people who travel as pilgrims to Canterbury, England.
Modern English developed in the 15th century. Johann Gutenberg invented the printing press in Germany around 1450,but Caxton set up England's first press in 1476. The invention of the printingpress made books available to more people.
Shakespeare's writings were very popularduring the 16th and 17th century. The Bible wastranslated into English in this period. On the right, the picture showsShakespeare’s work Hamlet.
It was during the English Renaissance thatmost of the words from Greek and Latin entered English.
As Britain began the Industrial Revolutionand established many colonies around the world, numerous foreign words cameinto English. As English becomes the world language, this trend goes on.
