Конспект лекций по дисциплине «История языка (англ.)» для студентов специальности «Иностранная филология»

Languages are classified according with their origin from a common linguistic ancestor.

English belongs to the Germanic or Teutonic group of languages which is one of the twelve groups of the Indo European (IE) linguistic family. Most of the area of Europe (it’s approximately 50 countries) where English is the state language.

The Germanic languages in the modern world are as follows: English- in Great Britain, Ireland, the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the South African Republic and former British colonies; German- in Germany republic, Austria, Luxemburg, Liechtenstein, part of Switzerland; Netherlandish- in the Netherlands and Belgium; Afrikaans- in the South African Republic; Danish- in Denmark; Swedish- in Sweden and Finland; Norwegian- in Norway etc.

There is a distinction between separate languages and dialects. Dutch and Flemish were named as separate languages; Frisian and Faroese are treated as dialects because they are spoken over small, politically dependent areas. Norwegian has mixed up with Danish. There is a difference between British English and American English. That is why they are treated as 2 independent languages. It is difficult to count the number of people speaking Germanic languages, especially what English is concerned which in many countries is one of two languages in a bilingual community as an example Canada (French and English ). But we can say that the total number of people speaking Germanic languages approaches 440 million. All the Germanic languages are related through their common origin and joint development at the early stages of history.