English is a Germanic Language of the Indo-European Family. This broad family includes most of the European languages spoken today. The Indo-European family includes several major branches: Latin and the modern Romance languages (French etc.); the Germanic languages (English, German, Swedish etc.); the Indo-Iranian languages (Hindi, Sanskrit etc.); the Slavic languages (Russian, Polish, Czech etc.); the Baltic languages of Latvian and Lithuanian; the Celtic languages (Welsh, Irish Gaelic etc.); Greek.
English is the second most spoken language in the world. Only Mandarin (Chinese) is spoken by more people. English is now the most widespread of the world's languages. It is becoming the world's unofficial international language.

It is estimated that there are 300 million native speakers and 300 million who use English as a second language. More than 100 million people use it as a foreign language. It is the language of science, air and water transport, computing, tourism and international relations. It is listed as the official or second official language in 45 countries. This can be compared to 27 for French, 20 for Spanish and 17 for Arabic. English is often spoken in other countries where it has no official status. It plays an important role in the cultural, political and economic life of many countries. The native speakers of English live in Great Britain, in the United States of America, Australia and New Zealand.
The number of people learning English is estimated as 200,000,000 learners in Europe, 150,000,000 in South America, and more than 400,000,000 in Asia.
For English speakers, English language teaching has been a very successful business. For the last 40 years students from all over the world have rushed to England to learn English. In the 1980s people could become rich very fast if they owned a language school. 

In London, towns and cities like Oxford, Cambridge and Brighton people made huge profits teaching young adults and teenagers coming to England to study English.
The British Council is a United Kingdom-based organisation specialising in international educational and cultural programmes. It was founded in 1934 as the British Committee for Relations with Other Countries. Leeper, the founder of the British Council and the British government recognized the importance of cultural propaganda in promoting British interests. The British Council's sponsoring department within the United Kingdom Government is the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

There are 70 British Council Teaching Centres in 53 countries. It taught 1,200,000 class hours to 300,000 learners in 2007. The British Council is the world's largest English language teaching organisation. In its examination centres, the British Council administers 1.5 million UK examinations to over one million candidates each year. The Council runs a number of global English language standardised tests. It is a very profitable business, as the market is constantly growing. Half of all business deals are conducted in English. Two thirds of all scientific papers are written in English. Over 70% of all post is written and addressed in English. Most international tourism and diplomacy is conducted in English.

Some 20-30 years ago a Soviet university graduate could feel himself on a safe ground with just elementary skills in English. Russian was a self sufficient language. There were a lot of scientific books, special journals in every field of science and technology. Soviet scientists were known all over the world for their works in nuclear physics, chemistry, laser optics, metallurgy, medicine. They were leaders in space, ocean, Arctic and Antarctic exploration. Their articles and reports were translated from Russian into many other languages. Russian was of great interest for other peoples. It was spoken all over the Soviet Union, it was learnt at schools and universities of Eastern Europe, in many countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America. It could be used for international communications in those countries. After the destruction of the USSR Russian was replaced by English in most of them. Even on the territory of many former Soviet Republics English is more widely used than Russian. Now it is necessary for any specialist in the Russian Federation to know English well.

The history of the English language can be traced back to the arrival of three Germanic tribes to the British Isles during the 5th Century AD. Angles, Saxons and Jutes crossed the North Sea from the continent. The inhabitants of Britain previously spoke a Celtic language. After the arrival of Germanic tribes most of the Celtic speakers were pushed into Wales, Cornwall and Scotland. Some of them migrated to the Brittany Coast of France. The Celtic Language of Breton is still spoken there today. The Angles were named from Engle, their land of origin. This name is the source of the words England and English.
An Anglo-Saxon inscription dated between 450 and 480AD is the oldest sample of the English language.
During the next few centuries four dialects of English developed: Northumbrian in Northumbria, Mercian in the Kingdom of Mercia, West Saxon in the Kingdom of Wessex, Kentish in Kent.

During the 7th and 8th Centuries, Northumbria's culture and language dominated Britain. The Viking invasions of the 9th Century brought this domination to an end. The Kingdom of Mercia was destroyed. Only Wessex remained as an independent kingdom.
By the 10th Century, the West Saxon dialect became the official language of Britain. Written Old English is mainly known from this period. It was written in an alphabet called Runic. It was borrowed from the Scandinavian languages. The Latin Alphabet was brought over from Ireland by Christian missionaries later.
At this time, the vocabulary of Old English consisted of an Anglo Saxon base with borrowed words from the Scandinavian languages (Danish and Norse) and Latin. Latin gave English words like street, kitchen, kettle, cup, cheese, wine, angel, bishop, candle.

The Vikings added many Norse words: sky, egg, cake, skin, leg, window, husband, fellow, skill, anger, flat, ugly, get, give, take, raise, call, they, their, them.
Celtic words survived in place and river names (Devon, Dover, Kent, Severn, Thames).
Old English did not sound or look like English today. Native English speakers now would have great difficulty understanding Old English. Nevertheless, about half of the most commonly used words in Modern English have Old English roots.
The best known example of Old English is the poem Beowulf. Old English was used until about 1100.

William the Conqueror, the Duke of Normandy, invaded and conquered England and the Anglo-Saxons in 1066 AD. The new overlords spoke a dialect of Old French known as Anglo-Norman. French became the language of the Norman aristocracy, the language of the Royal Court and the ruling classes. For a period there was a kind of linguistic class division, where the lower classes spoke English and the upper classes spoke French.
Because the English underclass tended the cattle and cooked for the Norman upper class, the words for most domestic animals are English (ox, cow, calf, sheep, swine, deer) while the words for the meats derived from them are French (beef, veal, mutton, pork, bacon, venison).

The Germanic form of plurals (house, housen; shoe, shoen) was resplaced by the French method of making plurals: adding an «s» (house, houses; shoe, shoes). Only a few words have retained their Germanic plurals: men, oxen, feet, teeth, children.
During the Hundred Years War with France it became evident that soldiers and their commanders in the English army spoke two different languages. What is more, the commanders spoke the language of their enemies. So the king ordered English to be spoken in his army.
In the 14th century English became dominant in Britain again, but with many French words added. This language is called Middle English. It was the language of the great poet Chaucer (1340-1400). It would still be difficult for native English speakers to understand that language today. The Middle English period came to a close around 1500 AD with the rise of Modern English.

The next wave of innovation in English came with the Renaissance. The revival of classical scholarship brought many classical Latin and Greek words into the Language. From the 16th century the British had contact with many peoples from around the world. Many new words entered the language.
Borrowed words include names of animals (giraffe, tiger, zebra), clothing (pyjama, turban), food (chocolate, orange), scientific and mathematical terms (algebra, geography), drinks (tea, coffee), sports (checkmate, golf, billiards), vehicles (chariot, car, coach), music and art (piano, theatre), weapons (pistol, trigger, rifle), political and military terms (commando, admiral, parliament), and astronomical names (Saturn, Uranus).

Many students would be surprised to learn that Shakespeare wrote in modern English. But his English has much more in common with the language today than it does with the language of Chaucer. Many familiar words and phrases were coined or first recorded by Shakespeare. He created about 2,000 words and many idioms.
The major factor in the development of Modern English was the invention of the printing press. William Caxton brought the printing press to England in 1476. Books became cheaper and as a result, literacy became more common. Publishing for the masses became a profitable business. Works in English became more common. The printing press brought standardization to English. The dialect of London, where most publishing houses were located, became the standard. Spelling and grammar were fixed. The first English dictionary was published in 1604.