English is a West Germanic language that was first spoken in early medieval England and eventually became a global lingua franca.
英语是一种西日耳曼语言,最早在中世纪早期的英国使用,最终成为全球通用语言。
It is named after the Angles, one of the Germanic tribes that migrated to the area of Great Britain that later took their name, as England. Both names derive from Anglia, a peninsula in the Baltic Sea.
The language is closely related to Frisian and Low Saxon, and its vocabulary has been significantly influenced by other Germanic languages, particularly Norse (a North Germanic language), and to a greater extent by Latin and French.
English has developed over the course of more than 1,400 years. The earliest forms of English, a group of West Germanic (Ingvaeonic) dialects brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the 5th century, are collectively called Old English.
Middle English began in the late 11th century with the Norman conquest of England; this was a period in which the language was influenced by French.
中世纪英语始于11世纪末,诺曼征服了英格兰,这是一个受法语影响的时期。
Early Modern English began in the late 15th century with the introduction of the printing press to London, the printing of the King James Bible and the start of the Great Vowel Shift.
早期的现代英语始于15世纪末,随着印刷机的引入伦敦,詹姆斯国王的圣经印刷和大元音移位的开始。
Through the worldwide influence of the British Empire, and later the United States, Modern English has been spreading around the world since the 17th century.
通过大英帝国以及后来的美国的全球影响,现代英语自17世纪以来一直在世界各地传播。
Through all types of printed and electronic media, and spurred by the emergence of the United States as a global superpower, English has become the leading language of international discourse and the lingua franca in many regions and professional contexts such as science, navigation and law.
People are aware that English has 26 letters. But the 26 letters of origin, I am afraid people will not know more. It turned out that the letters originated from the Latin alphabet, the Latin origins in the Greek alphabet, and Greek letters by the Phoenician alphabet evolved