ENGLISH LANGUAGE

English has developed over the course of more than 1,400 years. The earliest forms of English, a set of West Germanic 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 and was a period in which the language was influenced by French. 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.

        About 20 percent of the world's population speaks English as a first or secondary language, about 1.5 billion people. If you include people who use it, that brings the estimate up to about a third of the world, or more than 2 billion of the world's 7.6 billion people (2017). Only about 360 million people speak it as their first language, though.There are now estimated to be 1.5 billion English speakers globally: 375 million who speak English as their first language, 375 million as a second language and 750 million .

           With so many sources behind its evolution, English is malleable, with words also being invented regularly as well. Robert Burchfield, in "The English Language" calls the language "a fleet of juggernaut trucks that goes on regardless. No form of linguistic engineering and no amount of linguistic legislation will prevent the myriads of change that lie ahead."