Autora: Verónica Amaro Bermejo
The world of languages is fascinating. Every language has got its own history. Please find below some interesting curiosities about the English Language.
English is the most internationally recognized language in the world. However, Chinese is the most spoken followed by Spanish.
United States is the country with the most English speakers, second is India, Third is Pakistan, and, fourth is Nigeria. The United Kingdom (UK) would be in a fifth position where the majority of the population speaks English.
English language comes originally from the North East of Germany and the Nederland. It is the only important language does not have a “Royal Academic” or any organization looking after it. In France there is “Académie Francaise”, in Spain exists the “Real Academia de la Lengua Española (RAE)” and German has “Rat fiir deutsche Rechtscheiburg”. These organizations are responsible for controlling the development of their languages, in terms of vocabulary, use and grammar.
By the other hand, more than 80 per cent of the information, stores computers worldwide, is in English.
The British accent started to be used in London and its surrounding area during the American Revolution.
English is the official language in 77 countries which includes more than 50 colonies. The first English Dictionary was written in 1755.
There are approximately 1.000.000 words in English (just for you to know, there are only 88.000 words in Spanish, quoted from RAE). Nonetheless, officially you will only find 350.000 in dictionaries. Moreover, an average English speaker uses a maximum of 2.800 words daily.
The English alphabet only has 26 letters and 44 different sounds. This is one of the reasons Spanish speakers have so many problems when it comes to English pronunciation. A continuing problem for Spaniards is that their language is phonetic, whereas English is not.
Finally, I hope you have found this information useful and that you are able to use it sometime in the future!
