Lines Matching refs:who
1124 "Whatever their origin, these Germanic dialects eventually coalesced to a degree (there remained geographical variation) and formed what is today called Old English. Old English loosely resembles some coastal dialects in what are now northwest Germany and the Netherlands (i.e., Frisia). Throughout the history of written Old English, it retained a synthetic structure closer to that of Proto-Indo-European, largely adopting West Saxon scribal conventions, while spoken Old English became increasingly analytic in nature, losing the more complex noun case system, relying more heavily on prepositions and fixed word order to convey meaning. This is evident in the Middle English period, when literature was to an increasing extent recorded with spoken dialectal variation intact, after written Old English lost its status as the literary language of the nobility. It is postulated that the early development of the language was influenced by a Celtic substratum.[5][6] Later, it was influenced by the related North Germanic language Old Norse, spoken by the Vikings who settled mainly in the north and the east coast down to London, the area known as the Danelaw.\n" +
1142 "Over 380 million people speak English as their first language. English today is probably the third largest language by number of native speakers, after Mandarin Chinese and Spanish.[9][10] However, when combining native and non-native speakers it is probably the most commonly spoken language in the world, though possibly second to a combination of the Chinese Languages, depending on whether or not distinctions in the latter are classified as \"languages\" or \"dialects.\"[11][12] Estimates that include second language speakers vary greatly from 470 million to over a billion depending on how literacy or mastery is defined.[13][14] There are some who claim that non-native speakers now outnumber native speakers by a ratio of 3 to 1.[15]\n" +
1144 "The countries with the highest populations of native English speakers are, in descending order: United States (215 million),[16] United Kingdom (58 million),[17] Canada (17.7 million),[18] Australia (15 million),[19] Ireland (3.8 million),[17] South Africa (3.7 million),[20] and New Zealand (3.0-3.7 million).[21] Countries such as Jamaica and Nigeria also have millions of native speakers of dialect continuums ranging from an English-based creole to a more standard version of English. Of those nations where English is spoken as a second language, India has the most such speakers ('Indian English') and linguistics professor David Crystal claims that, combining native and non-native speakers, India now has more people who speak or understand English than any other country in the world.[22] Following India is the People's Republic of China.[23]\n" +
