English ranks as one of the most popular languages in the world in terms of both the number of people who speak it and also the number of people looking to learn it each year.
And those are just two of the facts associated with a language that’s now been adopted for communication around the world. Want to know some more fun bits of trivia? Here are 15 fascinating facts about English.
Widely spoken
Around 1.5 billion people speak English, making it the most widely spoken language in the world. That’s about 18.5 per cent of the world’s population who can speak English.
Secondary success
Interestingly, for most English speakers, it’s a secondary language. In fact, only around 400 million people speak English as their native language, while it’s a second or subsequent language for over 1 billion people.
Native popularity
While English is the most commonly spoken language overall in the world, it is not the most common native language. In terms of native languages, more people speak Chinese Mandarin and Spanish, making English the third most commonly spoken native language globally.
It’s official
English is the co-official language of the United Nations, the European Union, the International Olympic Committee and also the International Space Station.
Lots of countries
English is the official, administrative or cultural language in 88 countries and territories.
Say what now?
Speakers of English are called ‘anglophones’
And the winner is…
The United States and India have the most English speakers, with an estimated 350 million total English speakers in the US, and 265 million English speakers in India.
Common ground
English has also become the de facto language used in diplomacy, science, technology, international trade, logistics, tourism, aviation, entertainment, and the Internet.
No one standard
No singular national authority sets the standard for how English can be used. As a result, it’s known as a ‘pluricentric’ language.
A few other ingredients
It might be called English, but lots of its words are ‘borrowed’ or influenced by other languages. In fact, about one third of words in the English language can be traced to an array of other languages including French, Latin, Sanskrit, Japanese, Spanish and more.
A whole lot of words
Adults who speak English as their native language know on average 20,000-35,000 words.
Still learning
English speakers reportedly learn on average one new English word a day until they reach middle age, and then the learning reportedly stops.
But wait there’s more
English is a living language, which means it is actively spoken and written. It is also growing, with approximately 1000 words added to the dictionary each year.
One in a million
It’s a bit hard to quantify, but estimates suggest there are more than 1 million words in the English language. Seems like a lot to learn, doesn’t it? But you can take comfort in the fact this high figure actually accounts for multiple forms of the same word and also words that aren’t commonly used in modern English.
But what do you mean?
Ever been caught out with a word that has more than one meaning? Well, consider this. The verb ‘set’ reportedly has over 430 senses in the Oxford English Dictionary (1989), making it the word with the most meanings, according to Guinness World Records.
Want to learn English?
Have you got your heart ‘set’ on discovering just some of the 1 million English words on offer? Or would you like to master at least 20,000? Australia has a range of English courses available, allowing you to study in an immersive environment. You can search the options available here.