English as a world language

•    English is the world’s most widely used language. As a mother tongue, it is spoken by more than 300 million people - the UK, the USA, Canada, Australia, the Caribbean, the Irish Republic, New Zealand, etc.
•    Of course, millions of people use it as a second of foreign language. It is the main foreign language taught within the most school systems. It is also the language of much TV and radio broadcasting, etc.
•    However, in Shakespeare's time, for example, only a few million people spoke English and it was unknown to the rest of the world. It has become a world language because of its establishment as a mother tongue outside England. This exporting of English began in the17th century with the first settlements in North America and continued in the following centuries with the settlements in India, Australia, etc.
•    English belongs to the Indo-European language family, to the group of Germanic languages.
Fields in which English is used:
IT; politics and diplomacy; sports; science; music; air traffic control; international shopping; business trade; advertising etc.
Why people learn a foreign language:
To find a better job, we have to, to be able to read the books, to be able to communicate, traveling, listening music, understand the song lyric, films, internet, work abroad, study abroad.
How we can learn a foreign language:
At school, watching films, listening, reading, go to the country and be there for some time, courses, keep in touch with native speakers, au-pair.
Historical development of English:
In the historical development of English we distinguish 3 periods
1)    Old English period (500 – 1150) – had many inflections
2)    Middle English period (1150-1500) – many inflections disappeared – English become much easy
3)    Modern English period (since 1500) – influenced by W. Shakespeare
Development of English vocabulary
Is closely connected with the History of British Isles
Celtic influence:
•    Can be considered to be the original inhabitants, the language of whom can still be heard in Welsh, Scottish and Irish Gaelic.
•    Later, the Celts were driven out by the Romans and other nations followed suit in invading the county.
•    Place names such as Kent, Thames, Leeds
Latin influence
•    In 43 AD the Romans came, esp. soldiers, merchants and Christian missionaries.
•    Eg. Ceaster – city; index, infancy, conspiracy, contradiction… (scholarly vocab)
Anglo-Saxons influence
•    Came around 400 AD
•    Most frequently used words eg. : be, have, do, say, take, good, day, to, at…

Scandinavian influence
•    Old Danish, Old Norse
•    Result of the Vikings raids on Britain (began in 787)
•    Eg. Family names ending in –son (Robinson, Richardson, Jackson)
French influence
•    After the Battle of Hastings (1066) William the Conqueror invaded the country, French aristocracy started to rule England, there were also many mixed French- English marriages.
•    French borrowings are e.g. Soldier, mountain, fashion, passion, sausage, parliament...
Others:
•    Turkish – yoghurt
•    Spanish – cargo
•    German – hamburger, frankfurter
•    Czech – pistol, robot
Basic characteristics of English
•    Simple in form – very few inflections (adjectives do not change according to the noun)
•    Flexibility – the same word can be used as a noun, verb (drink, smile, look…)
•    Openness of vocabulary – easily creates new compounds, receives words from other languages