Spread of English

Historical development
Developed out of Germanic lgs during 5th and 6th cent-s Jutes, Angles, Saxons, Frisians By Medieval times (1100-1500) had replaced the original Celtic lg in nearly all of England; in southern and easten Scotland

 Until the 1600s=17th cent spoken by few The original Celtic lg survived in the form of Welsh in Wales and as Cornish in Cornwall The Highlands and islands of western and northern Scotland spoke another Celtic lgGaelic brought from Ireland in premediaeval times

 The geographical and demographic expansion of English began in the late 1600s North America, Bermuda, the Bahamas, the Caribbean Also spread into northern areas of Ireland from Scotland During the 1700s into southern Ireland

 During 1800s into Wales, today only 20% are native Welsh speakers In Scotland English began to replace Gaelic, has ~70 000 native speakers The development of Southern hemisphere varieties began in early 1800s: colonization of Australia, later New Zealand, South Africa, other islands

 These patterns of expansion, settlement and colonization have had an effect on the relationships, similarities and differences beween the varieties of English. See OHP These are most obvious at the level of pronunciation. Few differences in consonant systems, most at the level of vowel systems.

Most distinctive varieties:

Those of Scotland and northern Ireland: reflect ancient differences between northern and southern varieties of E Those of the Caribbean: reflect the influence of African lgs and the process of creolization in their formation.

Amazing facts
Of all the worlds lgs, some 2,700, has the richest vocabulary: 500,000 in OED+ 500,000 terms uncatalogued Compare: German 185,000, French less than 100,000 of the worlds mail Lg of technology from Silicon Valley to Shanghai

 80% of info stored in PCs Nearly half of business deals in Europe conducted in E Official lg of the Olympics, the Miss Universe competition Official voice of the air, the sea, of Christianity 5 largest broadcasting companies transmit in E

 Used by 3-4 hundred million people for whom it is NOT a native lg, i.e. Used as 2nd lg in many countries: India, Kenya, Nigeria, Singapore etc In addition to that:E as a foreign lg

Internet links
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/routesofenglis h/world/index_noflash.shtml http://www.englishclub.com/englishlanguage-history.htm