Zóny pre každého študenta

English as the world language

English as the world language, languages and language education 

· Foreign languages and language learning
Studying foreign languages is important for everybody. We have many reasons [1] to study them. We need it for travelling abroad [2], for reading foreign materials, for business communication etc. That is why people all around the world try to study foreign languages. They can understand one another. There are many occasions for studying languages such as courses, videos or cassette recorders. In our country especially German, English, French, Italy and Russian languages are learned. But the most important language for the world communication is English.

· English as the world language
English is the ‘lingua franca’ [3] language - it means that it is the most spoken language in the world (like Latin in the Middle Ages). English is the mother tongue for approximately 4 420 million people, but also the important official language (e.g. in south Asia) and the second language (it means you learn to speak with). The most important differences are in:

1. Regional varieties
a) national standards (five types: British English, American English, Australian English, Indian 
English and African English)
  - pronunciation - e.g. [r] ® [a:  X  c] 
  -  vocabularies (shop - store; lift - elevator 5; can - tin 6, maize - corn 7, fall - autumn, sick - ill,
  post - mail, tube - subway, stone - rock, lorry - truck etc.)
  - spelling
  - grammar
b) dialects

4. Medium
a) spoken (mimic, voice)
  b) written (more explicit)
 
5. Attitude (stylistics)
  - formal - neutral - informal

2. Education and social standing 
  a) standard (BBC English - higher educated)
b) no (sub-) standard (in the streets)
 
3. Subject matters (topics)
  - register (vocabulary)
 
· Development of the English language
The first Celtic inhabitants come to the British Isles in about 800 - 700 BC and the most important survival of this inhabitants is the existence of three languages: Welsh, and Irish and Scottish Gaelic. These languages are still spoken by some people in Wales, especially in western countries (e.g. in Cornwall) and in Scotland Highlands (for example in Welsh - Wales = Cymru, Good morning = Bore da, Thank you = Diolch; in Irish Gaelic - Dublin = Daile Atha Cliath, Good morning = Dia duit, Thank you = Go Raibh Maith Agat).
The Roman occupation started in AD 43 and lasted nearly 400 years but only few people adopt the Latin and only the British upper tribes (nobility) became romanised.

In the 5th and 6th century the first invasions of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes brought a language called Old English.
The Scandinavian invasions from the 8th to 10th century added some words from Old Norse and finally the Norman invasion in 1066 brought the impact of the Norman French language.
Until 1400 English language lost most of its inflections and grammar became generally simplified. It was recognised as ’(Modern) English’ and has been used by all social classes. In 16th century English language adopted many Latin words. 

·  Indo-European languages
  Indo-European language is about 6 000 years old and has origin in southern Russia. It is extinct now but it was the ancestor of many modern languages.
  The Indo-European tribes travelled to the north-west into Europe and to the south-east into Iran and India. The languages of Europe have been taken across the oceans to America, Australia and Africa.
 
Summary of most important Indo-European languages (native speakers - in millions):
Germanic: north (Scandinavian): Icelandic, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish
west (German): German (118), English (420), Yiddish, Dutch, Afrikaans, Flemish etc.
Celtic: Irish Gaelic, Scottish Gaelic, Welsh, Cornish, Breton
Romance: Portuguese (164), Spanish (296), French (114), Italian (63), Rumanian
Slavonic: south: Slovene, Serbo-Croatian, Macedonian, Bulgarian
  west: Czech, Slovak, Polish (41), Kashubian
  east: Russian (285), Ukrainian, Belorussian
Iranian: west: Persian, Kurdish
east: Patho, Osettic
Indian: Bengali (171), Hindu (300), Sinhalse, Nepali
Baltic: Lithuaian, Latvian
Greek, Albanian, Armenian
 
- the largest number of people speak Chinese - about 720 million

[1] příčin, důvodů
[2] cizina, zahraničí
[3] z lat. - přeneseně společný, nejpoužívanější jazyk
4 přibližně
5 výtah
6 konzerva
7 kukuřice

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