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English Language

English language

English is a West Germanic language that is spoken in the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, South Africa, and many other countries. English is now the third-most spoken native language worldwide (after Chinese and Hindi), with some 380 million speakers. It has lingua franca status in many parts of the world, due to the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th and 19th centuries and that of the United States from the 20th century to the present. Through the global influence of native English speakers in cinema, airlines, broadcasting, science, and the Internet in recent decades, English is now the most widely learned second language in the world. Many students worldwide are required to learn some English, and a working knowledge of English is required in many fields and occupations.

History

English is a West Germanic language that originated from the Old Saxon language brought to Britain by Germanic settlers from various parts of northwest Germany. The original Old English language was subsequently influenced by two successive waves of invasion. The first was by speakers of languages in the Scandinavian branch of the Germanic family, who colonised parts of Britain in the 8th and 9th centuries. The second wave was of the Normans in the 11th century, who spoke a variety of French. These two invasions caused English to become "creolised" to some degree (though it was never a full creole in the linguistic sense of the word); creolisation arises from the cohabitation of speakers of different languages, who develop a hybrid tongue for basic communication. Cohabitation with the Scandinavians resulted in a significant grammatical simplification and lexical enrichment of the Anglo-Friesian core of English; the later Norman occupation led to the grafting onto that Germanic core a more elaborate layer of words from the Romance branch of European languages; this new layer entered English through use in the courts and government. Thus, English developed into a "borrowing" language of considerable suppleness and huge vocabulary. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, around the year 449, Vortigern, King of the British Isles, invited the "Angle kin" (Angles led by Hengest and Horsa) to help him against the Picts. In return, the Angles were granted lands in the south-east. Further aid was sought, and in response "came men of Ald Seaxum of Anglum of Iotum" (Saxons, Angles, and Jutes). The Chronicle talks of a subsequent influx of settlers who eventually established seven kingdoms, known as the heptarchy. Modern scholarship considers most of this story to be legendary and politically motivated. These Germanic invaders dominated the original Celtic-speaking inhabitants, whose languages survived largely in Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, and Ireland. The dialects spoken by the invaders formed what would be called Old English, which resembled some coastal dialects in what are now the Netherlands and north-west Germany. Later, it was strongly influenced by the North Germanic language Norse, spoken by the Vikings who settled mainly in the north-east (see Jorvik). The new and the earlier settlers spoke languages from different branches of the Germanic family; many of their lexical roots were the same or similar, although their grammars were more distant, including the prefixes, suffixes and inflections of many of their words. The Germanic language of these Old English inhabitants of Britain would be partly creolised by the contact with Norse invaders. This resulted in a stripping away of much of the grammar of Old English, including gender and case, with the notable exception of the pronouns; thus, the language became simpler and plainer. The most famous work from the Old English period is the epic poem "Beowulf", by an unknown poet. For the 300 years following the Norman Conquest in 1066, the Norman kings and the high nobility spoke only a variety of French. A large number of Norman words were assimilated into Old English, with some words doubling for Old English words (for instance, ox/beef, sheep/mutton). The Norman influence reinforced the continual evolution of the language over the following centuries, resulting in what is now referred to as Middle English. Among the changes was a broadening in the use of a unique aspect of English grammar, the "continuous" tenses, with the suffix "-ing". During the 15th century, Middle English was transformed by the Great Vowel Shift, the spread of a standardised London-based dialect in government and administration, and the standardising effect of printing. Modern English can be traced back to around the time of William Shakespeare. The most well-known work from the Middle English period is Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales.

Classification and related languages

The English language belongs to the western subbranch of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European family of languages. The closest living relative of English is Scots (Lallans), a West Germanic language spoken mostly in Scotland and parts of Northern Ireland. Like English, Scots is a direct descendant of Old English, also known as Anglo-Saxon. After Scots, the next closest relative is Frisian—spoken in the Netherlands and Germany. Other less closely related living languages include Dutch, Afrikaans, German, Plattdüütsch and the Scandinavian languages. Many French words are also intelligible to an English speaker (pronunciations are not always identical, of course), because English absorbed a tremendous amount of vocabulary from French, via the Norman language after the Norman conquest and directly from French in further centuries; as a result, a substantial share of English vocabulary is quite close to the French, with some minor spelling differences (word endings, use of old French spellings, etc.), as well as occasional differences in meaning.

Geographic distribution

Norman conquest English is the second or third most widely spoken language in the world today; a total of 600–700 million people use English regularly. About 377 million people use English as their mother tongue, and an equal number of people use it as their second or foreign language. It is used widely in either the public or private sphere in more than 100 countries all over the world. In addition, the language has occupied a primary place in international academic and business communities. The current status of the English language compares with that of Latin in the past. English is the primary language in Antigua and Barbuda, Australia (Australian English), the Bahamas, Barbados (Caribbean English), Bermuda, Belize, Canada (Canadian English), the Cayman Islands, Dominica, the Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, Grenada, Guernsey, Guyana, Ireland (Irish English), Isle of Man, Jamaica (Jamaican English), Jersey, Montserrat, New Zealand (New Zealand English), Saint Helena, Saint Lucia, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, the Turks and Caicos Islands, the United Kingdom (various forms of British English), the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the United States. English is also an important minority language of South Africa (South African English), and in several other former colonies and current dependent territories of the United Kingdom and the United States, for example Guam and Mauritius. In Hong Kong, English is an official language and is widely used in business activities. It is taught from kindergarten, and is the medium of instruction for a few primary schools, many secondary schools and all universities. Substantial numbers of students acquire native-speaker level. It is so widely used and spoken that it is inadequate to say it is merely a second or foreign language, though there are still many people in Hong Kong with poor or no command of English. The majority of English native speakers (67 to 70 per cent) live in the United States. Although the U.S. federal government has no official languages, it has been given official status by 27 of the 50 state governments, most of which have declared English their sole official language. Hawaii, Louisiana, and New Mexico have also designated Hawaiian, French, and Spanish, respectively, as official languages in conjunction with English. In many other countries where English is not a major first language, it is an official language; these countries include Cameroon, Fiji, the Federated States of Micronesia, Ghana, Gambia, India, Kiribati, Lesotho, Liberia, Kenya, Namibia, Nigeria, Malta, the Marshall Islands, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Rwanda, the Solomon Islands, Samoa, Sierra Leone, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. English is the most widely learned and used foreign language in the world, and as such, many linguists believe it is no longer the exclusive cultural emblem of "native English speakers", but rather a language that is absorbing aspects of cultures worldwide as it grows in use. Others believe that there are limits to how far English can go in suiting everyone for communication purposes. It is the language most often studied as a foreign language in Europe (32.6 per cent), followed by French, German, and Spanish. It is also the most studied in Japan, South Korea and in the Republic of China (Taiwan), where it is compulsory for most high school students. See English as an additional language.

English as a global language

See also: English on the Internet Because English is so widely spoken, it has been referred to as a "global language". While English is not the official language in many countries, it is the language most often taught as a second language around the world. It is also, by international treaty, the official language for aircraft/airport communication. Its widespread acceptance as a first or second language is the main indication of its global status. There are numerous arguments for and against English as a global language. On one hand, having a global language aids in communication and in pooling information (for example, in the scientific community). On the other hand, it excludes those who, for one reason or another, are not fluent. It can also marginalise populations whose first language is not the global language, and lead to a cultural hegemony of the populations speaking the global language as a first language. Most of these arguments hold for any candidate for a global language, though the last two counter-arguments do not hold for languages not belonging to any ethnic group (like Esperanto). A secondary concern with respect to the spread of global languages (English, Spanish, etc.) is the resulting disappearance of minority languages, often along with the cultures and religions that are primarily transmitted in those languages. English has been implicated in a number of historical and ongoing so-called "language deaths" and "linguicides" around the world, many of which have also led to the loss of cultural heritage. In the Americas, Native American nations have been most strongly affected by this phenomenon.

Dialects and regional variants

The expansiveness of the British and the Americans has spread English throughout the globe. Because of its global spread, it has bred a variety of English dialects and English-based creoles and pidgins. The major varieties of English in most cases contain several subvarieties, such as Cockney within British English, Newfoundland English within Canadian English, and African American Vernacular English ("Ebonics") within American English. English is considered a pluricentric language, with no variety being clearly considered the only standard. Some consider Scots as an English dialect. Pronunciation, grammar and lexis differ, sometimes substantially. The Scottish dialect retains many German aspects including guttural pronunciations. Because of English's wide use as a second language, English speakers can have many different accents, which may identify the speaker's native dialect or language. For more distinctive characteristics of regional accents, see Regional accents of English speakers. For more distinctive characteristics of regional dialects, see List of dialects of the English language. Many countries around the world have blended English words and phrases into their everyday speech and refer to the result by a colloquial name that implies its bilingual origins, which parallels the English language's own addiction to loan words and borrowings. Named examples of these ad-hoc constructions, distinct from pidgin and creole languages, include Engrish, Wasei-eigo, Franglais and Spanglish. (See List of dialects of the English language for a complete list.) Europanto combines many languages but has an English core.

Constructed variants of English


- Basic English is simplified for easy international use. It is used by some aircraft manufacturers and other international businesses to write manuals and communicate. Some English schools in the Far East teach it as an initial practical subset of English.
- Special English is a simplified version of English used by the Voice of America. It uses a vocabulary of 1500 words.
- English reform is an attempt to improve collectively upon the English language.
- Seaspeak and the related Airspeak and Policespeak, all based on restricted vocabularies, were designed by Edward Johnson in the 1980s to aid international co-operation and communication in specific areas.
- European English is a new variant of the English language created to become the common language in Europe.

Sounds

Vowels

Notes: It is the vowels that differ most from region to region. Where symbols appear in pairs, the first corresponds to the sounds used in North American English, the second corresponds to English spoken elsewhere. #North American English lacks this sound; words with this sound are pronounced with or . According to The Canadian Oxford Dictionary (1998), this sound is present in Standard Canadian English. #Many dialects of North American English do not have this vowel. See cot-caught merger. #The North American variation of this sound is a rhotic vowel. #Many speakers of North American English do not distinguish between these two unstressed vowels. For them, roses and Rosa's are pronounced the same, and the symbol usually used is schwa . #This sound is often transcribed with or with . #The letter U can represent either /u/ or the iotated vowel /ju/.

Consonants

This is the English Consonantal System using symbols from the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). #The velar nasal is a non-phonemic allophone of /n/ in some northerly British accents, appearing only before /g/. In all other dialects it is a separate phoneme, although it only occurs in syllable codas. #The alveolar flap is an allophone of /t/ and /d/ in unstressed syllables in North American English and increasingly in Australian English. This is the sound of "tt" or "dd" in the words latter and ladder, which are homophones in North American English. This is the same sound represented by single "r" in some varieties of Spanish. #In some dialects, such as Cockney, the interdentals /θ/ and /ð/ are usually merged with /f/ and /v/, and in others, like African American Vernacular English, /ð/ is merged with /d/. In some Irish varieties, /θ/ and /ð/ become the corresponding dental plosives, which then contrast with the usual alveolar plosives. #The sounds are labialised in some dialects. Labialisation is never contrastive in initial position and therefore is sometimes not transcribed. #The voiceless velar fricative /x/ is used only by Scottish or Welsh speakers of English for Scots/Gaelic words such as loch or by some speakers for loanwords from German and Hebrew like Bach or Chanukah /xanuka/, or in some dialects such as Scouse (Liverpool) where the affricate [kx] is used instead of /k/ in words such as docker . Most native speakers have a great deal of trouble pronouncing it correctly when learning a foreign language. Most speakers use the sounds [k] and [h] instead. #Voiceless w is found in Scottish, Irish, some upper-class British, some eastern United States, and New Zealand accents. In all other dialects it is merged with /w/.

Voicing and Aspiration

Voicing and aspiration of stop consonants in English depend on dialect and context, but a few general rules can be given:
- Voiceless plosives and affricates (//, //, //, and //) are aspirated when they are word-initial or begin a stressed syllable and are not part of a consonant cluster—compare pin [] and spin [].
  - In some dialects, aspiration extends to unstressed syllables as well.
  - In other dialects, such as Indian English, most or all voiceless stops may remain unaspirated.
- Word-initial voiced plosives may be devoiced in some dialects.
- Word-terminal voiceless plosives may be unreleased or accompanied by a glottal stop in some dialects (e.g. many varieties of American English)—examples: tap [], sack [].
- Word-terminal voiced plosives may be devoiced in some dialects (e.g. some varieties of American English)—examples: sad [], bag []. In other dialects they are fully voiced in final position, but only partially voiced in initial position.

See also

International Phonetic Alphabet for English

Intonation

Tone groups

English is an Intonation language. This means that the pitch of the voice is used syntactically, for example, to convey surprise and irony, or to change a statement into a question. In English, intonation patterns are on groups of words, which are called tone groups, tone units, intonation groups or sense groups. Tone groups are said on a single breath and, as a consequence, are of limited length, more often being on average five words long or lasting roughly two seconds. The structure of tone groups can have a crucial impact on the meaning of what is said. For example: :- :- :-

Characteristics of intonation

Each tone group can be subdivided into syllables, which can either be stressed (strong) or unstressed (weak). There is always a strong syllable, which is stressed more than the others. This is called the nuclear syllable. For example: :That | was | the | best | thing | you | could | have | done! Here, all syllables are unstressed, except the syllables/words "best" and "done", which are stressed. "Best" is stressed harder and, therefore, is the nuclear syllable. The nuclear syllable carries the main point the speaker wishes to make. For example: :John had stolen that money. (... not I) :John had stolen that money. (... you said he hadn't) :John had stolen that money. (... he wasn't given it) :John had stolen that money. (... not this money) :John had stolen that money. (... not something else) The nuclear syllable is spoken louder than all the others and has a characteristic change of pitch. The changes of pitch most commonly encountered in English are the rising pitch and the falling pitch, although the fall-rising pitch and/or the rise-falling pitch are sometimes used. For example: :When do you want to be paid? :Nów? (rising pitch. In this case, it denotes a question: can I be paid now?) :Nòw (falling pitch. In this case, it denotes a statement: I choose to be paid now)

Grammar

English grammar is based on its Germanic roots, though some scholars during the 1700s and 1800s attempted to impose Latin grammar upon it, with little success. English is just slightly inflected, much less so than most Indo-European languages. It compensates for this by placing more grammatical information in auxiliary words and word order. Unlike most other Indo-European languages, modern nominal groups (nouns) in English do not carry gender, although an archaic form of gender is technically assigned as either masculine, feminine, neuter or common. Engendered nouns are only apparent in special cases, such as "I loved that ship as if she were my own", where the noun "ship" is referred to by its feminine pronoun.

Vocabulary

Almost without exception, Germanic words (which include all the basics such as pronouns and conjunctions) are shorter and more informal. Latinate words are often regarded as more elegant or educated. However, the excessive use of Latinate words is often mistaken for either pretentiousness (as in the stereotypical policeman's talk of "apprehending the suspect") or obfuscation (as in a military document which says "neutralise" when it means "kill"). George Orwell's essay Politics and the English Language gives a thorough treatment of this feature of English. An English speaker is often able to choose between Germanic and Latinate synonyms: "come" or "arrive"; "sight" or "vision"; "freedom" or "liberty"—and sometimes also between a word inherited through French and a borrowing direct from Latin of the same root word: "oversee", "survey" or "supervise". The richness of the language is that such synonyms have slightly different meanings, enabling the language to be used in a very flexible way to express fine variations or shades of thought. List of Germanic and Latinate equivalents In everyday speech the majority of words will normally be Germanic. If a speaker wishes to make a forceful point in an argument in a very blunt way, Germanic words will usually be chosen. A majority of Latinate words (or at least a majority of content words) will normally be used in more formal speech and writing, such as a courtroom or an encyclopedia article. English is noted for the vast size of its active vocabulary and its fluidity. English easily accepts technical terms into common usage and imports new words which often come into common usage. In addition, slang provides new meanings for old words. In fact this fluidity is so pronounced that a distinction often needs to be made between formal forms of English and contemporary usage. See also sociolinguistics.

Number of words in English

As the General Explanations at the beginning of the Oxford English Dictionary state: :The Vocabulary of a widely diffused and highly cultivated living language is not a fixed quantity circumscribed by definite limits.... there is absolutely no defining line in any direction: the circle of the English language has a well-defined centre but no discernible circumference. The vocabulary of English is undoubtedly vast, but assigning a specific number to its size is more a matter of definition than of calculation. Unlike other languages, there is no Academy to define officially accepted words. Neologisms are coined regularly in medicine, science and technology—some enter wide usage; others remain restricted to small circles. Foreign words used in immigrant communities often make their way into wider English usage. Archaic, dialectal, and regional words might be considered "English" or not. The Oxford English Dictionary (2nd edition) includes over 500,000 headwords, following a rather inclusive policy: :It embraces not only the standard language of literature and conversation, whether current at the moment, or obsolete, or archaic, but also the main technical vocabulary, and a large measure of dialectal usage and slang (Supplement to the OED, 1933). The difficulty of defining the number of words is compounded by the emergence of new versions of English, such as Asian English.

Word origins

One of the consequences of the French influence is that the vocabulary of English is, to a certain extent, divided between those words which are Germanic (mostly Old English) and those which are "Latinate" (Latin-derived, mostly from Norman French but some borrowed directly from Latin). A computerised survey of about 80,000 words in the old Shorter Oxford Dictionary (3rd ed.) was published in Ordered Profusion by Thomas Finkenstaedt and Dieter Wolff (1973) which estimated the origin of English words as follows:
- French, including Old French and early Anglo-French: 28.3%
- Latin, including modern scientific and technical Latin: 28.24%
- Old and Middle English, Old Norse, and Dutch: 25%
- Greek: 5.32%
- No etymology given: 4.03%
- Derived from proper names: 3.28%
- All other languages contributed less than 1% James D. Nicoll made the oft-quoted observation: "The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and riffle their pockets for new vocabulary." [http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=1990May15.155309.8892%40watdragon.waterloo.edu&oe=UTF-8&output=gplain]

Writing system

English is written using the Latin alphabet. The spelling system or orthography of English is historical, not phonological. The spelling of words often diverges considerably from how they are spoken, and English spelling is often considered to be one of the most difficult to learn of any language that uses an alphabet. See English orthography.

Basic sound-letter correspondence

Written accents

English includes some words which can be written with accent marks. These words have mostly been imported from other languages, usually French. But it is increasingly rare for writers of English to actually use the accent marks for common words, even in very formal writing, to the point where actually writing the accent may be interpreted as a sign of pretension—though this view is counterbalanced by the view that fine typography should preserve accents, especially where it makes a distinction in pronunciation (compare façade vs. facade which would rhyme with cascade). The strongest tendency to retain the accent is in words that are atypical of English morphology and therefore still perceived as slightly foreign. For example, café has a pronounced final e, which would be silent by the normal English pronunciation rules. Some examples: ångström, appliqué, attaché, blasé, bric-à-brac, café, cliché, crème, crêpe, façade, fiancé(e), flambé, naïve, né(e), papier-mâché, passé, piñata, protégé, raison d'être, résumé, risqué, über-, vis-à-vis, voilà. For a more complete list, see List of English words with diacritics. Some words such as rôle and hôtel were first seen with accents when they were borrowed into English, but now the accent is almost never used. The words were considered very French borrowings when first used in English, even accused by some of being foreign phrases used where English alternatives would suffice, but today their French origin is largely forgotten. The accent on "élite" has disappeared from most publications today, but Time magazine still uses it. For some words such as "soupçon" however, the only spelling found in English dictionaries (the OED and others) uses the diacritic. Italics, with appropriate accents, are generally applied to foreign terms that are uncommonly used in or have not been assimilated into English: for example, adiós, coup d'état, crème brûlée, pièce de résistance, raison d'être, über (übermensch), vis-à-vis. It is also possible to use a diaeresis to indicate a syllable break, but again this is often left out or a hyphen used instead. Examples: coöperate (or co-operate), daïs, naïve, noël, reëlect (or re-elect). One publication that still uses a diaeresis to indicate a syllable break is the New Yorker magazine. Written accents are also used occasionally in poetry and scripts for dramatic performances to indicate that a certain normally unstressed syllable in a word should be stressed for dramatic effect, or to keep with the meter of the poetry. This use is frequently seen in archaic and pseudoarchaic writings with the "-ed" suffix, to indicate that the "e" should be fully pronounced, as with cursèd. In certain older texts (typically in Commonwealth English), the use of ligatures is common in words such as archæology, œsophagus, and encyclopædia. Such words have Latin or Greek origin. Nowadays, the ligatures have been generally replaced in Commonwealth English by the separated letters "ae" and "oe" ("archaeology", "oesophagus") and in American English by "e" ("archeology", "esophagus"). However, the spellings "oeconomy" and "oecology" are now generally replaced by "economy" and "ecology" in Commonwealth English, making these spellings the same as in American English.

See also


- English literature
- Formal written English - regional differences
- List of languages
- Common phrases in various languages

Dialects


- American and British English differences
- English speaking Europe
- General American
- List of dialects of the English language

Pronunciation


- General American
- International Phonetic Alphabet for English
- List of words of disputed pronunciation
- Non-native pronunciations of English
- Phonemic differentiation in English
- Received Pronunciation
- Regional accents of English speakers
- Rhotic and non-rhotic accents

Social, cultural or political


- English as a lingua franca for Europe
- English as an additional language
- English on the Internet
- Foreign language influences in English
- Languages in the United States
- Lists of English words of international origin
- Anglosphere
- Anglo-Saxon

Grammar


- English declension
- English plural
- English verb conjugation
- Initial-stress-derived noun
- Present progressive tense

Usage


- Dictionary
- Like
- List of archaic English words and their modern equivalents
- List of unusual English words
- Longest word in English
- Misspelling
- Gender-neutral language
- Singular they
- Siamese twins (English language)

External links


- [http://www.abroadlanguages.com/al/english/ Learning English abroad] and online. With dictionaries, games, penpals, etc.
- [http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/routesofenglish/index.shtml BBC - Radio 4 - Routes of English]
- [http://www.englishtenseswithcartoons.com Short Discriptions of the English Tenses]
- [http://www.ego4u.com/ English Grammar Online] free exercises, explanations, games and teaching materials on English as a foreign language
- [http://www.eslbase.com/ TEFL] - Teaching English as a Foreign Language - information and advice
- http://www.teach-yourself-english.com/ Easy-going learning aid
- [http://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en Learning English Online] grammar, vocabulary, exercises, exams - English as a second language.
- [http://www.english.hb.pl Pako's English Page - Articles and advice on learning English]
- [http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=eng Ethnologue report for English]
- [http://www.LanguageMonitor.com LanguageMonitor] - Watchdog on contemporary English usage
- [http://www.vec.ca/english/1/english.cfm Development of English]
- [http://www.esu.org English Speaking Union]
- [http://www2.ignatius.edu/faculty/turner/languages.htm The World's Most Widely Spoken Languages]
- [http://www.antimoon.com/ Antimoon - How to learn English] - Advice and inspiration for learners of English.
- [http://www.zozanga.com/ Zozanga ESL - Learn Online English] How to learn English.
- [http://www.quiz-tree.com/English_Spelling_main.html Free English spelling quizzes]
- [http://inenglishofcourse.pl Conversation and Resource Point for Learners of English]
- [http://www.globalenglishsalon.com Global English Salon] - Listen to English online free.
- [http://www.loecsen.com/travel/discover_pop.php?lang=en&to_lang=2&learn-English/ Learn and listen to useful expressions in English] Each expression is presented with an audio recording and an illustration
- [http://www.whatdoesthatmean.com What Does That Mean?] A wiki based lexicon of English idioms from around the world
- [http://www1.ku-eichstaett.de/SLF/EngluVglSW/ELiX/bge.pdf Basic Global English]

Dictionaries


- [http://www.oed.com Oxford English Dictionary] The definitive record of the English language
- [http://dicts.info/dictlist1.php All free English dictionaries] Collection of many free English dictionaries.
- [http://dictionary.cambridge.org Cambridge Dictionary]
- [http://www.freelang.net/dictionary/french.html Freelang - French-English Dictionary made by Bertrand Cornu]

Further reading


- Baugh AC and Cable T. A history of the English language (5th ed), Rouledge, 2002 (ISBN 0415280990_
- Crystal, D. The Cambridge encyclopedia of the English language (2nd ed), Cambridge University Press, 2003 (ISBN 0521530334)
- Halliday, MAK. An introduction to functional grammar (2nd ed), London, Edward Arnold, 1994 (ISBN 0340557826)
- McArthur, T (ed). The Oxford Companion to the English Language, Oxford University Press, 1992 (ISBN 019214183X)
- Robinson, Orrin, "Old English and Its Closest Relatives", Stanford Univ Press, 1992 (ISBN 0-8047-2221-8) English language Category:Languages of Fiji Category:Languages of Guam Category:Languages of Hong Kong Category:Languages of Singapore Category:Languages of the Philippines Category:Languages of the United Kingdom Category:Languages of the United States Category:Languages of Canada Category:Languages of New Zealand Category:Languages of India als:Englische Sprache ko:영어 ms:Bahasa Inggeris zh-min-nan:Eng-gí ja:英語 nb:Engelsk språk simple:English language th:ภาษาอังกฤษ

West Germanic languages

West Germanic is the largest branch of the Germanic family of languages, including such languages as German, English and Dutch. The other families of Germanic are North Germanic and East Germanic.
Language classification
Indo-European languages
Germanic languages
West Germanic languages

History

From the time of their earliest attestation, the Germanic dialects are divided into three groups, West, East and North Germanic. Their exact relation is difficult to determine from the sparse evidence of runic inscriptions, and they remained mutually intelligible throughout the Migration period, so that some individual dialects are difficult to classify. The Western group would have formed as a dialect of Proto-Germanic in the late Jastorf culture (ca. 1st century BC). During the Middle Ages, the West Germanic languages were separated by the insular development of Middle English on one hand, and by the second Germanic sound shift on the continent on the other. The linguistic contact of the Viking settlers of the Danelaw with the Anglo-Saxons left traces in the English language, and is suspected to have facilitated the collapse of Old English grammar that resulted in Middle English from the 12th century. The second Germanic sound shift resulted in Upper German and Low German, with graded intermediate Central German dialects. By Early modern times, the span had extended into considerable differences, ranging from Highest Alemannic in the South (the Walliser dialect being the southernmost surviving German dialect) to Northern Low Saxon language and Frisian in the North, and although both extremes are considered German, they are hardly mutually intelligible. The southern dialects have completed the second sound shift, but remained closer to the Middle German vowel system, while the northern dialects remained unaffected by the consonant shift, but simplified the vowel system.

Family tree

Note that divisions between subfamilies of Germanic are rarely precisely defined; most form dialect continua, with adjacent dialects being mutually intelligible and more separated ones not.
- Anglo-Frisian
  - Old English
    - Middle English
      - Modern English (with a significant influx of words from Old French)
      - Scots
      - Cayman Islands English (not a creole)
      - Angloromani (with a significant influx of words from Romany)
  - Frisian (descending from Old Frisian)
    - West Frisian - Friesland, Netherlands
    - East or Saterland Frisian - Germany
    - North Frisian - Germany
- Low German (descending from Old Saxon / Old Low Franconian)
  - Low Franconian
    - Dutch
    - West Flemish
    - Limburgish
    - Afrikaans (with a significant influx of words from Malay and native African languages)
  - Plattdüütsch
    - West Low German
      - Northern Low Saxon language
      - Westphalian language
      - Eastphalian language
      - Westplatt
    - East Low German
      - Mecklenburgisch-Pommersch
      - Brandenburgisch
      - East Pomeranian
      - Low Prussian
      - Plautdietsch
- High Germanic languages
  - Standard German
  - Central German
    - East Central German
      - Lower Silesian
      - Upper Saxon
    - West Central German
      - Luxembourgeois
      - West Central German
      - Pennsylvania German
  - Upper German
    - Alemannic German
      - Swabian German
      - Low Alemannic German
      -
- Alemán Coloneiro
      -
- Alsatian language
      -
- Basel German
      - High Alemannic German
      -
- Bernese German
      -
- Zürich German
      - Highest Alemannic German
      -
- Walliser German
      -
  - Walser German
    - Austro-Bavarian
      - Bavarian
      - Cimbrian (with a heavy influx of words from Italian)
      - Mócheno
      - Hutterite German (spoken by Hutterites)
  - Yiddish (with a significant influx of words from Hebrew and Slavic languages and written in the Hebrew alphabet)
  - Wymysojer

See also


- List of West Germanic languages
- List of Germanic and Latinate equivalents Category:West Germanic languages

United Kingdom

:For other meanings of the terms "United Kingdom" and "UK" , see United Kingdom (disambiguation) and UK (disambiguation). :For an explanation of terms like England, (Great) Britain and United Kingdom see British Isles (terminology). The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (usually shortened to the United Kingdom or the UK) is a country located off the north-western coast of continental Europe, surrounded by the North Sea, the English Channel, the Celtic Sea, the Irish Sea, and the Atlantic Ocean. It is composed of four constituent parts: three constituent countries—England, Scotland, and Wales—on the island of Great Britain, and the province of Northern Ireland on the island of Ireland. The border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland forms the United Kingdom's principal international land border, although there is a nominal frontier with France in the middle of the Channel Tunnel. The UK has several overseas territories and the Crown dependencies of the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands come under the UK's sovereignty. The UK also has close relationships with the fifteen other Commonwealth Realms, as they all share the same head of state. The UK is also one of the largest member states of the European Union and a founding partner of both the UN and NATO.

Terminology


- United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland: The official name for the sovereign state
- United Kingdom: an abbreviation of United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
- Britain: an informal term that sometimes means United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and sometimes means Great Britain
- British: an informal term that sometimes means from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and sometimes means from Great Britain
- Great Britain (as a geographical term): the largest island of the British Isles
- Great Britain (as a political term): England + Wales + Scotland
- British Isles (as a geographical term): Great Britain + Ireland + many smaller surrounding islands. This term is disputed, please see below.
- Ireland (as a geographical term): the second largest island of the British Isles
- Ireland (as a political term): an abbreviation of the Republic of Ireland, a sovereign state on the island of Ireland
- Northern Ireland: a political region of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
- Ulster (as a geographical term): Often used to refer to Northern Ireland. It is derived from the Irish Language term 'Ulad.' It was one of the ancient Irish provinces (the others were Connaught, Leinster and Munster.). Although it is normally used to refer to Northern Ireland, Ulster also (traditionally) includes Counties Cavan, Monaghan and Donegal, which lie in the Republic of Ireland. The term Ulster is often favoured by the Protestant community.

History

Protestant Today's state is the latest of several unions formed over the last 1000 years. Scotland and England have existed as separate unified entities since the 10th century. Wales, under English control since the Statute of Rhuddlan in 1284, became part of the Kingdom of England by the Laws in Wales Act 1535. With the Act of Union 1707, the separate kingdoms of England and Scotland, having shared the same monarch since 1603, agreed to a permanent union as the Kingdom of Great Britain. The Act of Union 1800 united the Kingdom of Great Britain with the Kingdom of Ireland, which had been gradually brought under English control between 1169 and 1691, to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland was formed in 1922, after bitter fighting which echoes down to the current political strife, the Anglo-Irish Treaty partitioned Ireland into the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland, with the latter remaining part of the United Kingdom. As provided for in the treaty, Northern Ireland, which consists of six of the nine counties of the Irish province of Ulster, immediately opted out of the Free State and to remain in the UK. The nomenclature of the UK was changed in 1927 to recognise the departure of most of Ireland, with the current name being adopted. 1927 The United Kingdom, the dominant industrial and maritime power of the 19th century, played a leading role in developing Western world ideas of property, liberty, capitalism and parliamentary democracy - to say nothing of its part in advancing world literature and science. At its zenith, the British Empire stretched over one quarter of the Earth's surface and encompassed a third of its population. The first half of the 20th century saw the UK's strength seriously depleted from the effects of World War I and World War II. The second half witnessed the dismantling of the Empire and the UK rebuilding itself into a modern and prosperous nation. The UK has been a member of the European Union since 1973. Its attitude towards further integration is conservative, and there is significant Euroscepticism in UK politics. It has not chosen to adopt the Euro, owing to internal political considerations and the government's judgement of the prevailing economic conditions.

Government and politics

The United Kingdom is a constitutional monarchy, with executive power exercised on behalf of the Queen by the Prime Minister and other cabinet ministers who head departments. The cabinet, including the Prime Minister, and other ministers collectively make up Her Majesty's Government. These ministers are drawn from and are responsible to Parliament, the legislative body, which is traditionally considered to be "supreme" (that is, able to legislate on any matter and not bound by decisions of its predecessors). The UK is one of the few countries in the world today that does not have a codified constitution, relying instead on customs and separate pieces of constitutional law. While the monarch is Head of State and holds all executive power, it is the Prime Minister who is the head of government. The government is answerable chiefly to the House of Commons and the Prime Minister is drawn from this chamber of Parliament by constitutional convention. The majority of cabinet members will be from the House of Commons, the rest from the House of Lords. Ministers do not, however, legally have to come from Parliament, though that is the modern day custom. The British system of government has been emulated around the world - a legacy of the United Kingdom's colonial past - most notably in the other Commonwealth Realms. The Prime Minister is chosen as the MP who can command a majority in the House of Commons - usually the leader of the largest party or, if there is no majority party, the largest coalition. The current Prime Minister is Tony Blair of the Labour Party, who has been in office since 1997. In the United Kingdom the monarch has extensive theoretical powers, but his or her role is mainly, though not exclusively, ceremonial. The monarch is an integral part of Parliament (as the "Crown-in-Parliament") and theoretically gives Parliament the power to meet and create legislation. An Act of Parliament does not become law until it has been signed by the Queen (being given Royal Assent), although no monarch has refused to assent to a bill that has been approved by Parliament since Queen Anne in 1708. Although the abolition of the monarchy has been suggested several times, the popularity of the monarchy remains strong in spite of recent controversies. Support for a British republic usually fluctuates between 15% and 25% of the population, with roughly 10% undecided or indifferent [http://www.mori.com/mrr/2000/c000616.shtml]. The current monarch is Queen Elizabeth II who acceded to the throne in 1952 and was crowned in 1953. Parliament is the national legislature of the United Kingdom. It is the ultimate legislative authority in the United Kingdom, according to the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty. It is bicameral, composed of the elected House of Commons and the unelected House of Lords, whose members are mostly appointed. The House of Commons is the more powerful of the two houses. The House of Commons has 646 members who are directly elected from single-member constituencies based on population. The House of Lords has 724 members (though this number is not fixed): hereditary peers, life peers, and bishops of the Church of England. The Church of England is the established church of the state in England. established church]] The two largest political parties are the Labour Party and Conservative Party. The UK has long had a two-party system, but in the last 20 years the Liberal Democrats have re-emerged as a large third party. The electoral system used for general elections is first-past-the-post. The constitution of the United Kingdom is un-codified and partially unwritten, which means that no single document regulates how the government works, and unwritten constitutional conventions are used extensively. The constitution is based on the principle that Parliament is the ultimate sovereign body in the country. There has long been a widespread sense of national identity in the Celtic nations. Throughout the late 19th century the UK debated giving Ireland home rule. The Scottish National Party was founded in 1934, and Plaid Cymru (Party of Wales) in 1925. Referenda for devolution succeeded in 1997 for Scotland and Wales and in 1998 for Northern Ireland. In 1999, the Scottish Parliament and the National Assembly for Wales were established, the former having primary legislative power. Proportional representation is used for the elections, which has resulted in a Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition government in Scotland. Due to internal disagreements, the Northern Ireland Assembly has been suspended since 2002.

Subdivisions

The United Kingdom is a country that is divided into four constituent parts:
- England
- Scotland
- Northern Ireland
- Wales The constituent parts of the United Kingdom have administrative subdivisions as follows:
- The regions and administrative counties of England
- The council areas of Scotland
- The counties and county boroughs of Wales
- The districts of Northern Ireland The Laws in Wales Act 1535 incorporated Wales and England into England and Wales for legal purposes. Although all four have historically been divided into counties, England's population is an order of magnitude larger than the others so in recent years it has for some purposes been divided into nine intermediate-level Government Office Regions. Each region is made up of counties and unitary authorities, apart from London, which consists of London boroughs. Although at one point it was intended that each or some of these regions would be given its own regional assembly, the plan's future is uncertain, as of 2004, after the North East region rejected its proposed assembly in a referendum. Scotland consists of 32 Council Areas. Wales consists of 22 Unitary Authorities, styled as 10 County Boroughs, 9 Counties, and 3 Cities. Northern Ireland is divided into 26 Districts. Also sometimes associated with the United Kingdom, though not constitutionally part of the United Kingdom itself, are the Crown dependencies (the Bailiwicks of Jersey and Guernsey, and the Isle of Man) as self-governing possessions of the Crown, and a number of overseas territories under the sovereignty of the United Kingdom.

Military

The armed forces of the United Kingdom are known as the British Armed Forces or Her Majesty's Armed Forces, officially the Armed Forces of the Crown. Their Commander-in-Chief is the Queen and they are managed by the Ministry of Defence. Ministry of Defence The British Armed Forces are charged with protecting the United Kingdom and its overseas territories, promoting the United Kingdom's wider security interests, and supporting international peacekeeping efforts. They are active and regular participants in NATO and other coalition operations. The United Kingdom fields one of the most powerful and comprehensive military forces in the World. Its global power projection capabilities are second only to those of the United States Armed Forces. The British Army had a reported strength of 112,700 in 2004, including 7,600 women, and the Royal Air Force a strength of 53,400. The 40,900-member Royal Navy is in charge of the United Kingdom's independent strategic nuclear arm, which consists of four Trident Ballistic Missile Submarines, while the Royal Marines provide infantry units for amphibious assault and for specialist reinforcement forces in and beyond the NATO area. This puts total active duty military troops in the 210,000 range, currently deployed in over 80 countries. The UK's special forces, principally the SAS, provides elite commandos trained for quick, mobile, military responses; often where secrecy or covert operations are required. The Royal Navy is the second largest navy in the World in terms of gross tonnage. Despite the United Kingdom's wide ranging capabilities, recent pragmatic defence policy has a stated assumption that any large operation would be undertaken as part of a coalition. Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq (Granby, No-Fly-Zones, Desert Fox and Telic) may all be taken as precedent - indeed the last true war in which the British military fought alone was the Falklands War of 1982, in which military action was initiated by Argentina and the UK was fighting a defensive, rather than offensive, campaign. The British army has been actively involved in the Troubles in Northern Ireland. However, a programme of demilitarisation is being gradually implemented.

Geography

Troubles World Factbook Map of the United Kingdom]] Most of England consists of rolling lowland terrain, divided east from west by more mountainous terrain in the Northwest (Cumbrian Mountains of the Lake District) and north (the upland moors of the Pennines) and limestone hills of the Peak District by the Tees-Exe line. The lower limestone hills of the Isle of Purbeck, Cotswolds, Lincolnshire and chalk downs of the Southern England Chalk Formation. The main rivers and estuaries are the Thames, Severn and the Humber Estuary. The largest urban area is Greater London. Near Dover, the Channel Tunnel links the United Kingdom with France. There is no peak in England that is 1000 metres (3,300 ft) or greater. Wales is mostly mountainous, the highest peak being Snowdon at 1085 metres (3,560 ft) above sea level. North of the mainland is the island of Anglesey. The largest and capital city is Cardiff, located in South Wales. Scotland's geography is varied, with lowlands in the south and east and highlands in the north and west, including Ben Nevis, the UK's highest mountain at 1343 metres (4,406 ft). There are many long and deep-sea arms, firths, and lochs. A multitude of islands west and north of Scotland are also included, notably the Hebrides, Orkney Islands and Shetland Islands. The largest city is Glasgow. Northern Ireland, making up the north-eastern part of Ireland, is mostly hilly. The main cities are Belfast ('Beal Feirste' in Irish) and Londonderry / Derry ('Doire' in Irish). The province is home to one of the UK’s World Heritage Sites, the Giant's Causeway, which consists of more than 40,000 six-sided basalt columns up to 40 feett (12 m) high. In total it is estimated that the UK includes around 1098 small islands, some being natural and some being crannogs, a type of artificial island which was built in past times using stone and wood, gradually enlarged by natural waste building up over time.

Economy

artificial island The United Kingdom, a leading trading power and financial centre, has an essentially capitalist economy, the fourth largest in the world in terms of market exchange rates and the sixth largest by purchasing power parity (PPP) exchange rates. Over the past three decades, the government has greatly reduced public ownership by means of privatisation programmes, and has contained the growth of the Welfare State. Agriculture is intensive, highly mechanised, and efficient by European standards, producing about 60% of food needs with only 1% of the labour force. The UK has large coal, natural gas, and oil reserves; primary energy production accounts for 10% of GDP, one of the highest shares of any industrial state. Services, particularly banking, insurance and business services, account for by far the largest proportion of GDP. Industry continues to decline in importance, although the UK is still Europe's largest manufacturer of armaments, petroleum products, personal computers, televisions, and mobile telephones. Tourism is also important: with over 24 million tourists a year, between China (33) and Austria (19.1), the United Kingdom is ranked as the sixth major tourist destination in the world. The Blair government has put off the question of participation in the Euro system, citing five economic tests that would need to be met before they recommend that the UK adopts the Euro, and hold a referendum.

Society

Demographics

At the April 2001 census, the United Kingdom's population was 58,789,194, the third-largest in the European Union (behind Germany and metropolitan France) and the twenty-first largest in the world. Its overall population density is one of the highest in the world. Almost one-third of the population lives in England's prosperous south-east and is predominantly urban and suburban--with about 7.2 million in the capital of London. The United Kingdom's high literacy rate (99%) is attributable to universal public education introduced for the primary level in 1870 and secondary level in 1900 (except in Scotland where it was introduced in 1696). Education is mandatory from ages five through sixteen. referendum The Church of England and the Church of Scotland function as the official national religions in their respective countries, but most religions found in the world are represented in the United Kingdom. Anglicanism is the state religion that has been established in England since 1534 during the reign of King Henry VIII. During his reign, England broke ties with the Roman Catholic church and established the Church of England as the offical religion of England. Reforms to the nature of the church's relationship to the state have been ongoing, especially concerning the nature of the House of Lords and the appointment of a fixed amount of the lordships going to Lords Temporal, bishops of the Church of England. A group of islands close to continental Europe, the British Isles have been subject to many invasions and migrations, especially from Scandinavia and the continent, including Roman occupation for several centuries. Contemporary Britons are descended mainly from the varied ethnic stocks that settled there before the eleventh century. The pre-Celtic, Celtic, Roman, Anglo-Saxon, and Norse influences were blended on Great Britain under the Normans, Scandinavian Vikings who had lived in Northern France. Although Celtic languages persist in Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, the predominant language is English, which is a West Germanic language descended from Old English, featuring a large amount of borrowings from Norman French.The other indigenous languages include the Celtic languages; Welsh, the closely related Irish and Scots Gaelic, and the Cornish language; as well as Lowland Scots, which is closely related to English; Romany; and British Sign Language (Northern Ireland Sign Language is also used in Northern Ireland). Celtic dialectal influences from Cumbric persisted in Northern England for many centuries, most famously in a unique set of numbers used for counting sheep. Recent immigrants, especially from the Commonwealth, speak many other languages, including Bengali, Cantonese, Hindi, Punjabi and Urdu. The United Kingdom has the largest number of Hindi speaking peoples outside of the Indian sub continent.

Culture

Urdu The United Kingdom contains many of the world's leading universities, including the University of Cambridge, the University of Oxford and the University of London (which incorporates, amongst others, Imperial College and University College London), and has produced many great scientists and engineers including Sir Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin and Isambard Kingdom Brunel; the nation is credited with many inventions including the locomotive, vaccination, television, vacuum, and both the internal combustion and the jet engine. The English language has spread to all corners of the world (primarily because of the country’s empire) and is referred to as a ‘global language’. It is now taught as a second language more than any other around the world. Over the next few decades, it is estimated that approximately half the world’s population will be proficient in the language. Playwright William Shakespeare is arguably the most famous writer in the history of the English language; other well-known writers from the United Kingdom include the Brontë sisters (Charlotte, Emily, and Anne), Jane Austen, William Thackeray, J. R. R. Tolkien, John Milton, H. G. Wells and Charles Dickens. Important poets include Lord Byron, Robert Burns, Lord Tennyson and William Blake. Notable composers from the United Kingdom have included William Byrd, John Taverner, William Lawes, John Dowland, Thomas Tallis, and Henry Purcell from the 16th and early 17th centuries, and, more recently, Sir Edward Elgar, Sir Arthur Sullivan (most famous for working with librettist Sir W. S. Gilbert), Ralph Vaughan Williams and Benjamin Britten in the 19th and 20th. George Frideric Handel spent most of his composing life in England. The BBC is the oldest and perhaps the most respected broadcasting network on the globe, with the BBC World Service radio channel and its news output held in particularly high regard. The other main television networks are ITV, Channel 4, five (TV) and Sky Television. Popular programmes in the UK include the three soaps Eastenders, Coronation Street and Emmerdale, as well as the comedy news quiz Have I Got News For You and Reality TV shows Big Brother and The X Factor. Various British TV formats have been exported to other nations, notably Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?, The Weakest Link and The Office. The UK was, with the US, one of the two main contributors in the development of rock and roll, and the UK has provided some of the most famous rock stars, including the Beatles, Queen, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, the Rolling Stones, The Who and many others. The UK was at the forefront of punk rock music in the 1970s with bands such as the Sex Pistols and The Clash, and the subsequent rebirth of heavy metal with bands such as Motörhead and Iron Maiden. In mid to late '90s, the Britpop phenomenon has seen bands such as Oasis, Blur, Radiohead and Coldplay gain international fame. The UK is also at the forefront of electronica, with British artists such as Aphex Twin, Talvin Singh, Nitin Sawhney and Lamb at the cutting edge. The United Kingdom was also associated with music from the Caribbean, with a large number of Jamaicans and other Caribbean nationals being present in the UK.

Sport

A great number of major sports originated in the United Kingdom, including football, golf, cricket, rugby, tennis and boxing. The national sport of the UK is association football, but the UK does not compete as a nation in any major football tournament. Instead, the home nations compete individually as England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. It is because of this unique four-team arrangement that the UK currently does not compete in football events at the Olympic Games. However, a united team will probably take part in the 2012 Summer Olympic Games, as these are hosted in London. The English and Northern Irish football associations have confirmed participation in this team while the Scottish FA and the Welsh FA have declined to participate. The UK also hosts many world-renowned football clubs, such as Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal in England and Rangers and Celtic in Scotland. Clubs compete in national leagues and competitions and some go on to compete in European competitions. Both forms of rugby are national sports. Rugby League originates from and is generally played in the North of England, whilst Rugby Union is played all over Britain. In Rugby League the UK plays as one nation - Great Britain - whilst in union it is represented by the four nations. England are the current holders of the Rugby Union World Cup. Every four years the British and Irish Lions (comprising the best players from England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland) tour other countries. Cricket is also played in the UK, although it is focussed in England. The Wimbledon Championships are an international tennis event held in Wimbledon in south London every summer and are seen as the most prestigious of the tennis calendar. Golf is one of the most popular participation sports played in the UK and St Andrews in Scotland is the sport's home course.

Miscellaneous topics

External links


- [http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/state/nations/ BBC Nations] History of the nations within the UK.
- [http://www.bbc.co.uk British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)]
- [http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/uk.html CIA World Factbook: UK.]
- [http://www.direct.gov.uk Gateway to UK governmental services and websites.]
- [http://www.number-10.gov.uk Number 10 Downing Street]
- [http://www.statistics.gov.uk Office of National Statistics]
- [http://www.opsi.gov.uk Office of Public Sector Information] Source for all UK legislation 1987-present (successor to Her Majesty's Stationery Office).
- [http://www.macs.hw.ac.uk/britishisles/ The British Isles] Independent view of the UK.
- [http://www.royal.gov.uk The British Monarchy]
- [http://www.parliament.uk/ The United Kingdom Parliament]
- [http://www.statistics.gov.uk/StatBase/Product.asp?vlnk=5703&Pos=&ColRank=1&Rank=272 Official Yearbook of the UK] factbook produced by the Office for National Statistics (years 2000 to 2005 available online).
- [http://www.ukcities.co.uk UK Cities] lists a variety of useful resources for every city in the UK.
- [http://www.justuk.org UK travel guide] United Kingdom for travellers.
- [http://www.world66.com/europe/unitedkingdom World66 Guide to United Kingdom] A travel guide written by its users.
- [http://www.multimap.co.uk www.multimap.co.uk] provides online maps and aerial photographs of the UK.
- [http://www.streetmap.co.uk www.streetmap.co.uk] an alternative to multimap.
- [http://www.freeworldmaps.net/europe/united-kingdom/map.html Physical map of United Kingdom.]
- [http://www.upmystreet.com www.upmystreet.com] detailed localised information about places in the United Kingdom.
- [http://www.parks.it/world/UK/Eindex.html UK Parks] National parks, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty and other protected areas. ----
Category:British Isles Category:European countries Category:European Union member states Category:Members of the Commonwealth of Nations Category:Monarchies A als:Grossbritannien und Nordirland zh-min-nan:Liân-ha̍p Ông-kok ko:영국 ms:United Kingdom ja:イギリス simple:United Kingdom th:สหราชอาณาจักร

Canada

Canada is the second largest country in the world in terms of area, extending from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean with claims extending to the North Pole. The northern-most country on the mainland of North America, Canada has land borders only with the United States. Governed as a parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy, Canada is a federation of ten provinces with three territories. Initially constituted in 1867, the country's constitution was patriated in 1982 from the United Kingdom. Canada's head of state is its monarch, currently Queen Elizabeth II, who is represented in Canada by the Governor General, presently Michaëlle Jean. The head of government is the Prime Minister, currently Paul Martin; his minority government recently lost a vote of non-confidence in the Canadian House of Commons and asked for the dissolution of the Parliament by the Governor General, who then issued a Royal proclamation authorising the issue of election writs, and stating a federal election will take place on 2006 January 23. Canada's official languages are English and French. As of 2005, its official population estimate is approximately 32.4 million [http://www.statcan.ca/english/edu/clock/population.htm].

Overview

The capital city is Ottawa, Ontario, the seat of Canada's Parliament. The Governor General, the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Loyal Opposition, and the Speaker of the House of Commons have official residences in the National Capital Region.National Capital Region, Ontario.]] Originally a union of British colonies with significant French influence and entitled as a "dominion", Canada is a founding member of the United Nations, the Commonwealth of Nations, and La Francophonie. Canada defines itself as a bilingual and multicultural nation:
- English is the official (and majority) language in most provinces of Canada.
- French is the official language of Quebec, an official language of New Brunswick, and is spoken in various areas throughout the country.
- Several Aboriginal languages have official status in the Northwest Territories; Inuktitut is the majority language in Nunavut and has official status there. Canada is a technologically advanced and industrialized nation. It is a net exporter of energy because of its large fossil fuel deposits, nuclear energy generation, and hydroelectric power capacity. Its diversified economy relies heavily on an abundance of natural resources and trade, particularly with the United States, with which it has had a long and complex relationship. Canada has ten provinces and three territories: Canada's major cities that are not capital cities include Montreal, Quebec; Vancouver, British Columbia; and Calgary, Alberta.

Canada's name

The name Canada is believed to come from the Huron-Iroquois word kanata, which means "village" or "settlement". In 1535, locals used the word to tell Jacques Cartier the way to Stadacona, site of present-day Quebec City. Cartier used Canada to refer not only to Stadacona, but also to the entire area subject to Donnacona, Chief at Stadacona; by 1547, maps began referring to this and the surrounding area as Canada.

History

Aboriginal tradition holds that the First Peoples have inhabited parts of what is now called Canada since the dawn of time. Archaeological records show that these lands have been inhabited for at least 10,000 years. Several Viking expeditions occurred circa AD 1000, with evidence of settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows. British claims to North America date from 1497, when John Cabot reached what he called Newfoundland, though it is unclear whether Cabot landed in current Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, or Maine. French claims date from explorations by Jacques Cartier (from 1534) and Samuel de Champlain (from 1603). Neither Cabot's nor Cartier's explorations left any permanent settlers behind. On August 5, 1583, Sir Humphrey Gilbert claimed Newfoundland as England's first overseas colony under Royal Charter of Queen Elizabeth I. In 1604, French settlers were the first Europeans to settle permanently in what is now Canada. After an unsuccessful winter in St. Croix Island (today in Maine), they settled Port-Royal in what is now the Annapolis Valley in Nova Scotia, but moved to found Quebec City in 1608. The current Acadians are descendants of settlers who came later in the same century and re-founded Port-Royal. New France was generally the name given to the French colonies of Canada and Acadia (and later Louisiana).Louisiana, depicts British General Wolfe's final moments during the Battle of the Plains of Abraham in 1759.]] British settlements were established along the Atlantic seaboard and around Hudson Bay. As these colonies expanded, a struggle for control of North America took place between 1689 and 1763 (see French and Indian Wars), exacerbated by wars in Europe between France and Great Britain. France progressively lost territo