The term “English” is derived from Anglisc, the speech of the Angles—one of the three Germanic tribes that invaded England during the fifth century. The English language is the primary language of several countries, including Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and many of its former colonies, and the United States, and the second language in a number of multilingual countries, including India, Singapore, and the Philippines.

With a Different Approach:

English is a language—originally the language of the people of England. Today, English is the main language of the United Kingdom, Ireland, the United States of America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and more than fifty other countries. (Interestingly, until as recently as 2017 English was NOT the official language of the USA, although it had long been the official language of several US states.)

Worldwide, there are over 400 million native speakers of English, and over one billion more people speak it as a second language. English is probably the third language in terms of number of native speakers (after Mandarin and Spanish); and probably the most widely spoken language on the planet taking into account native and non-native speakers.

Consequently English is sometimes described as a “world language” or a “global lingua franca”. It is the world’s most widely-used language in international business and telecommunications, newspaper and book publishing, scientific publishing, mass entertainment and diplomacy