This Happens Only in English

I recently read an article by @rodriguezpct about passions. One of my greatest passions is languages. I discovered it in my childhood when I wanted to know the meaning of the lyrics of the American songs I hummed at that time. I have always been a curious person, and I could not stay without discovering the meaning of what I "sang". After dabbling in the dictionary, I read the books with basic lessons, then the not-so-basic ones... and that's how I found myself, studying English at a time when there was no Youtube, Google Translate, or Wordreference. Today I want to dedicate my post to the most influential language in the world and the one that changed my life forever: English.

At least, a quarter of the world's population speaks some English. A total of 379 million have it as their native language and 753 million as a second tongue. It is an official language in more than sixty multilingual countries. Interestingly, although the United States has the largest native English-speaking population, the American country doesn’t include English (or any other language) as official from a federal level.

Due to its rich and complex history (which origins have a mixture of Celtics, Germanic, Roman, and French), modern-day English is now full of inconsistencies, along with inexplicable differences in spelling and pronunciation.

Although there are many reasons why English is such a popular and widespread language today, here are the most important ones.

The British Empire refers to the period from the late 15th to the 17th century until the 1960s, when England had control of vast territories and colonies all over the world. Basically, England had control of large parts of Europe, North America, Africa, and the Caribbean.

The second big push came with the rise of the United States in the 20th century, when the country became one of the top international movers and shakers in social, economic, and political affairs.

Finally, many of the most recent technological and scientific advances have come from English-speaking countries. There are many international words such as "Internet", "iPhone", "Facebook" and "Google".

There are many curious and interesting facts about English language, let me list some of them:

1. More people in the world have learned English as a second language than there are native English speakers.

2. More than half of the volume of information handled on the Internet is in English.

3. English is the most commonly used language in the sciences. It is the language of the air, which means that all pilots must identify themselves and speak English while flying, regardless of their origin. Also, this is the official language for maritime and aeronautical communications.

4. The most complex word in the English language is "set." This small word has over 430 definitions and requires a 60,000 words definition that covers 24 pages in the Oxford English Dictionary.

5. The word "good" has the most synonyms of any other word in the English language, at 380.

6. The longest common word with no vowels is "rhythms."

7. The first number spelled out that contains an "a" is one Thousand. The first number spelled out that includes a "b" is one Billion.

1. William Shakespeare added more than 1000 words to the English language during his lifetime. Terms like “Addiction”, “Cold-blooded”, “Break the ice” are just some of the fantastic words and phrases invented by this famous poet.

2. The word "good-bye" is a contraction of "God be with ye.”

3. The oldest English word still in use today is “town”.

4. The word "the" is the most commonly used English word overall, followed by "be", "to", "of", "and", "a", "in", "that", "have" and "I".

5. More English words begin with the letter “s” than any other letter.

6. Some of the oldest words in the English language are still very common today. They include "I", "love","black" , "mother" , "fire", "hand" and "hear". Many of these words date back from before the year 900.

7. English is the only major language that doesn’t have any organization guiding it, as opposed to the French Académie française, the Spanish Real Academia Española, and the German Rat für deutsche Rechtschreibung. These organizations are responsible for controlling the evolution of their respective language in terms of usage, vocabulary, and grammar.

There’s always something fascinating to learn about English. Many people will say that English is one of the most influential and important language in the world today. It has proven itself to be a greatly flexible and resistant language, that’s been constantly able to evolve, develop, and adjust itself to other vocabularies and cultures. Today, it is estimated that this language has approximately one million words, and about four thousand are added to the dictionary every year (although the average English speaker only knows between 20,000 and 30,000 words). It has absorbed and survived invasions and incursions, saved itself from being wiped out on numerous occasions, and has only ever gotten stronger – evidenced by its clear worldwide diversity to this day.

And you, do you speak English as your mother tongue? or did you learn it as a second language? please let me know in the comments.

N0014.2021-10-11