According to the Ethnologue, there are almost one billion speakers of English as a first or second language.[3] English is spoken as a first or a second language in many countries, with most native speakers being in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Ireland. It "has more non-native speakers than any other language, is more widely dispersed around the world and is used for more purposes than any other language". Its large number of speakers, plus its worldwide presence, have made English a common language (lingua franca) "of the airlines, of the sea and shipping, of computer technology, of science and indeed of (global) communication generally".[4]
Modern English evolved from Early Modern English which was used from the beginning of the Tudor period until the Interregnum and Stuart Restoration in England.[5] By the late 18th century, the British Empire had facilitated the spread of Modern English through its colonies and geopolitical dominance. Commerce, science and technology, diplomacy, art, and formal education all contributed to English becoming the first truly global language. Modern English also facilitated worldwide international communication. English was adopted in North America, India, parts of Africa, Australia, and many other regions. In the post-colonial period, some newly created nations that had multiple indigenous languages opted to continue using Modern English as the official language to avoid the political difficulties inherent in promoting one indigenous language above another.[6][7]
The following is an outline of the major changes in Modern English compared to its previous form (Middle English), and also some major changes in English over the course of the 20th century. Note, however, that these are generalizations, and some of these may not be true for specific dialects:
The meet–meat merger in most dialects: making the words "meat", "threat" and "great" have three different vowels, although all three words once rhymed.
The foot–strut split: so that "cut" and "put", and "pudding" and "budding" no longer rhyme; and "putt" and "put" are no longer homophones.
The lot–cloth split: the vowel in words like "cloth" and "off" is pronounced with the vowel in "thought", as opposed to the vowel used in "lot".
disuse of the T–V distinction (thou, ye). Contemporary Modern English usually retains only the formal second-person personal pronoun, "you" (ye), used in both formal and informal contexts.
use of auxiliary verbs becomes mandatory in interrogative sentences.
Changes in alphabet and spelling were heavily influenced by the advent of printing and continental printing practices.
The letter thorn (þ), which began to be replaced by th as early as Middle English, finally fell into disuse. In Early Modern English printing, thorn was represented with the Latin y, which appeared similar to thorn in blackletter typeface (𝖞). The last vestige of the letter was in ligatures of thorn, ye (thee), yt (that), yu (thou), which were still seen occasionally in the King James Bible of 1611 and in Shakespeare's folios.
The letters i and j, previously written as a single letter, began to be distinguished; likewise for u and v. This was a common development of the Latin alphabet during this period.
^Lewis, M. Paul; Simons, Gary F.; Fennig, Charles D., eds. (2016). "English". Ethnologue. SIL International. Retrieved 22 February 2016. Total users in all countries: 942,533,930 (as L1: 339,370,920; as L2: 603,163,010)
^ abcdefghijklmnoLeech, Geoffrey; Hundt, Marianne; Mair, Christian; Smith, Nicholas (2009). Change in Contemporary English: A Grammatical Study. Cambridge University Press. pp. 18–19.