INSTALL.md
for instructions.English | |
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Pronunciation | /ˈɪŋɡlɪʃ/[1] |
Region | British Isles (historically) Worldwide |
Ethnicity | Anglo-Saxons (historically) Lowland Scots (historically) |
360–400million (2006)[2] L2 speakers: 750million; as a foreign language: 600–700 million[2][3][circular reference] | |
Indo-European
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Old English
| |
| |
Manually coded English (multiple systems) | |
Official status | |
Official language in | |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-1 | en |
ISO 639-2 | eng |
ISO 639-3 | eng |
Glottolog | stan1293 [4] |
Linguasphere | 52-ABA |
Regions where English is a majority native language Regions where English is official but not a majority native language | |
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For a guide to IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. |
Part of a series on |
The English language |
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Phonology |
Dialects |
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Teaching |
Higher category:Language |
80–100% | 40–60% | 0–20% |
Labial | Dental | Alveolar | Post- alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nasal | m | n | ŋ | ||||||||||
Stop | p | b | t | d | tʃ | dʒ | k | ɡ | |||||
Fricative | f | v | θ | ð | s | z | ʃ | ʒ | h | ||||
Approximant | l | ɹ* | j | w |
RP | GA | Word |
---|---|---|
iː | i | need |
ɪ | bid | |
e | ɛ | bed |
æ | back | |
ɑː | ɑ | bra |
ɒ | box | |
ɔ, ɑ | cloth | |
ɔː | paw | |
uː | u | food |
ʊ | good | |
ʌ | but | |
ɜː | ɜr | bird |
ə | comma |
RP | GA | Word |
---|---|---|
eɪ | bay | |
əʊ | oʊ | road |
aɪ | cry | |
aʊ | cow | |
ɔɪ | boy |
RP | GA | word |
---|---|---|
ɪə | ɪɹ | peer |
eə | ɛɹ | pair |
ʊə | ʊɹ | poor |
Varieties of Standard English and their features[161] | ||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Phonological features | United States | Canada | Republic of Ireland | Northern Ireland | Scotland | England | Wales | South Africa | Australia | New Zealand |
father–bother merger | yes | yes | ||||||||
/ɒ/ is unrounded | yes | yes | yes | |||||||
/ɜːr/ is pronounced [ɚ] | yes | yes | yes | yes | ||||||
cot–caught merger | possibly | yes | possibly | yes | yes | |||||
fool–full merger | yes | yes | ||||||||
/t, d/flapping | yes | yes | possibly | often | rarely | rarely | rarely | rarely | yes | often |
trap–bath split | possibly | possibly | yes | yes | yes | often | yes | |||
non-rhotic (/r/-dropping after vowels) | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | |||||
close vowels for /æ, ɛ/ | yes | yes | yes | |||||||
/l/ can always be pronounced [ɫ] | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | ||||
/ɑːr/ is fronted | possibly | yes | yes |
Lexical set | RP | GA | Can | Sound change |
---|---|---|---|---|
THOUGHT | /ɔː/ | /ɔ/ or /ɑ/ | /ɑ/ | cot–caught merger |
CLOTH | /ɒ/ | lot–cloth split | ||
LOT | /ɑ/ | father–bother merger | ||
PALM | /ɑː/ | |||
BATH | /æ/ | /æ/ | trap–bath split | |
TRAP | /æ/ |
The | chairman | of | the | committee | and | the | loquacious | politician | clashed | violently | when | the | meeting | started. |
Det. | Noun | Prep. | Det. | Noun | Conj. | Det. | Adj. | Noun | Verb | Advb. | Conj. | Det. | Noun | Verb |
Person | Subjective case | Objective case | Dependent possessive | Independent possessive | Reflexive |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1st p. sg. | I | me | my | mine | myself |
2nd p. sg. | you | you | your | yours | yourself |
3rd p. sg. | he/she/it | him/her/it | his/her/its | his/hers/its | himself/herself/itself |
1st p. pl. | we | us | our | ours | ourselves |
2nd p. pl. | you | you | your | yours | yourselves |
3rd p. pl. | they | them | their | theirs | themselves |
Inflection | Strong | Regular |
---|---|---|
Plain present | take | love |
3rd person sg. present | takes | loves |
Preterite | took | loved |
Plain (infinitive) | take | love |
Gerund–participle | taking | loving |
Past participle | taken | loved |
Present | Preterite | |
---|---|---|
First person | I run | I ran |
Second person | You run | You ran |
Third person | John runs | John ran |
Future | |
---|---|
First person | I will run |
Second person | You will run |
Third person | John will run |
The dog | bites | the man |
S | V | O |
The man | bites | the dog |
S | V | O |
He | hit | him |
S | V | O |
An example of an Essex male with a working-class Estuary accent of the region around London (Russell Brand). | |
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An example of an English female with a Received Pronunciation or 'Standard British' accent. | |
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An example of a Renfrewshire male with a Scottish accent. | |
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An example of a woman with a supraregional Irish accent (Mary Robinson). | |
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An example of a Midwestern U.S. male with a general American accent (Emery Emery). | |
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An example of a Texan male with a Southern U.S. accent (George W. Bush). | |
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An example of an Ontario woman with a standard Canadian accent (Margaret Atwood) | |
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An example of a male with a general Australian accent. | |
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An example of a male with a South African accent. | |
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An example of a woman with an educated Nigerian accent (Chimamanda Adichie) | |
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An example of a North Indian woman with an Indian accent (Vandana Shiva) | |
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How many words are there in the English language? There is no single sensible answer to this question. It's impossible to count the number of words in a language, because it's so hard to decide what actually counts as a word.
Controllers working on stations serving designated airports and routes used by international air services shall demonstrate language proficiency in English as well as in any other language(s) used by the station on the ground.
The problem with trying to number the words in any language is that it's very hard to agree on the basics. For example, what is a word?
The working languages at the UN Secretariat are English and French.