Name	Old French
Familycolor	Indo-European
Region	northern France, parts of Belgium (Wallonia) and Switzerland, England, Ireland, Kingdom of Sicily, Principality of Antioch, Kingdom of Cyprus
Extinct	evolved into Middle French by the 14th century
Fam1	Indo-European
Fam2	Italic
Fam3	Romance
Fam4	Italo-Western
Fam5	Western
Fam6	Gallo-Iberian
Fam7	Gallo-Romance
Fam8	Gallo-Rhaetian
Fam9	Oïl
Iso2	fro
Iso3	fro
Notice	IPA}}

Old French (franceis, françois, romanz; Modern French ) was the Romance dialect continuum spoken in territories that span roughly the northern half of modern France and parts of modern Belgium and Switzerland from the 9th century to the 14th century. It was then known as the langue d'oïl (oïl language) to distinguish it from the langue d'oc (Occitan language, also then called Provençal), whose territory bordered that of Old French to the south. The Norman dialect was also spread to England, Ireland, the Kingdom of Sicily and the Principality of Antioch in the Levant.

Grammar and phonology

Historical influences

Gaulish

Gaulish, one of the survivors of the continental Celtic languages in Roman times, slowly became extinct during the long centuries of Roman dominion. Only several dozen words (perhaps 200) of Gaulish etymology survive in modern French, for example chêne, ‘oak tree’ and charrue ‘plough'; Delamarre (2003, pp. 389–90) lists 167. Due to the expansion of the Roman Empire, Latin began to be spoken more often, explaining the limited influence and longevity of Gaulish.

Latin

Old French began when the Roman Empire conquered Gaul during the campaigns of Julius Caesar, which were almost complete by 51 BC. The Romans introduced Latin to southern France by 120 BC when it came under Roman occupation.

Beginning with Plautus's time (254–184 BC), the phonological structure of classical Latin underwent change, which would eventually yield vulgar Latin, the common spoken language of the western Roman empire. This latter form differed strongly from its classical counterpart in phonology; it was the ancestor of the Romance languages, including Old French. Some Gaulish words influenced Vulgar Latin and, through this, other Romance languages. For example, classical Latin equus was replaced in common parlance by vulgar Latin caballus, derived from Gaulish caballos (Delamare 2003 p. 96), giving Modern French cheval, Catalan cavall, Occitan caval (chaval), Italian cavallo, Portuguese cavalo, Spanish caballo, Romanian cal, and (borrowed from Anglo-Norman) English cavalry and chivalry.

Frankish

The Old Frankish language had a significant influence on the vocabulary, syntax, and the pronunciation of Old French after the conquest, by the Germanic tribe of the Franks, of the portions of Roman Gaul that are now France and Belgium during the Migration Period. The name français is derived from the name of this tribe. A number of other Germanic peoples, including the Burgundians and the Visigoths, were active in the territory at that time; the Germanic languages spoken by the Franks, Burgundians, and others were not written languages, and at this remove it is often difficult to identify from which specific Germanic source a given Germanic word in French is derived. Philologists such as Pope (1934) estimate that perhaps fifteen percent of the vocabulary of modern French derives from Germanic sources, including a large number of common words like haïr ‘to hate’, bateau ‘boat’, and hache ‘axe’. It has been suggested that the passé composé and other compound verbs used in French conjugation are also the result of Germanic influences.

Other Germanic words in Old French appeared as a result of Norman, i.e. Viking, settlements in Normandy during the 10th century. The settlers spoke Old Norse and their settlement was legitimised and made permanent in 911 under Rollo of Normandy.

Earliest written Old French

At the third Council of Tours in 813, priests were ordered to preach in the vernacular language (either Romance or Germanic), since the common people could no longer understand formal Latin.

The earliest documents said to be written in French after the Reichenau and Kassel glosses (8th and 9th centuries) are the Oaths of Strasbourg (treaties and charters into which King Charles the Bald entered in 842):

The second-oldest document in Old French is the Eulalia sequence, which is important for linguistic reconstruction of Old French pronunciation due to its consistent spelling.

The royal House of Capet, founded by Hugh Capet in 987, inaugurated the development of northern French culture in and around Ile-de-France, which slowly but firmly asserted its ascendency over the more southerly areas of Aquitaine and Tolosa (Toulouse). The Capetians' Langue d'oïl, the forerunner of modern standard French, did not begin to become the common speech of the entire nation of France, however, until after the French Revolution.

Phonology

Old French was constantly changing and evolving. However, the form in the late 12th century, as attested in a great deal of mostly poetic writings, can be considered standard. The writing system at this time was more phonetic than that used in most subsequent centuries. In particular, all written consonants (including final ones) were pronounced, except for s preceding non-stop consonants and t in et, and final e was pronounced . The phonological system can be summarised as follows:

Consonants

{|class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;" |+ Old French consonants |- ! ! Bilabial ! Labio-dental ! Dental/alveolar ! Postalveolar/palatal ! Velar ! Glottal |- ! Nasal |      | |      |      | | |- ! Plosive |   | |   | |   | |- ! Fricative | |   |   | | | () |- ! Affricate | | |   |   | | |- ! Lateral | | | | | | |- ! Trill | | | | | | |}

Notes:

The affricates /ts/, /dz/, /tʃ/, /dʒ/ became fricatives ([s], [z], [ʃ], [ʒ]) in Middle French. /ts/ was written as c, ç, -z, as in cent, chançon, priz ("a hundred, song, price"). /dz/ was written as -z-, as in doze "twelve".

/ʎ/ (l mouillé), as in conseil, travaillier ("advice, to work"), became /j/ in Modern French.

/ɲ/ appeared not only in the middle of a word, but also at the end, as in poing "hand". At the end of a word, /ɲ/ was later lost, leaving a nasalized vowel.

/h/ was found only in Germanic loanwords and was later lost. In native Latin words, /h/ was lost early on, as in om, uem, from Latin homō.

Vowels

In Old French, the nasal vowels were not separate phonemes, but occurred as allophones of the oral vowels before a nasal consonant. This nasal consonant was fully pronounced; thus bon was pronounced /bõn/ (Modern French [bɔ̃]). Nasal vowels were present even in open syllables before nasals, where Modern French has oral vowels, as in bone /bõnə/ (Modern French bonne [bɔn]).

Monophthongs

{|class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;" |+ Old French vowels |- !colspan=2|   ! Front || Central || Back |- |- !rowspan=2| Close !oral |   ||rowspan=2|   || |- !nasal | ||   |- !rowspan=2| Close-mid !oral | ||rowspan=2| ||   |- !nasal | ||| |- !colspan=2| Open-mid | ||   || |- !rowspan=2| Open !oral | ||rowspan=2|   ||rowspan=2|   |- !nasal | |}

Notes: /o/ had formerly existed, but closed to /u/; it would later appear again when /aw/ monophthongized, and also when closed in certain positions (e.g. when followed by original /s/ or /z/, but not by /ts/, which later became /s/).

Diphthongs and triphthongs

{|class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;" |+ Late Old French diphthongs and triphthongs |- !   ! IPA || Example || Meaning |- !colspan=4| f a l l i n g |- !rowspan=4| Oral || || chevaus || horse |- | || toit || roof |- | || coup || blow |- | ~ || neveu || nephew |- !rowspan=2| Nasal | || plein || full |- | || loing || far |- !colspan=4| r i s i n g |- !rowspan=3| Oral | || pié || foot |- | || fruit || fruit |- | ~ || cuer || heart |- !rowspan=3| Nasal | || bien || well |- | || juignet || July |- | || cuens || count (nom. sg.) |- !colspan=4| t r i p h t h o n g sstress always falls on middle vowel |- !rowspan=3| Oral | || beaus || beautiful |- | || dieu || god |- | || jueu || Jew |}

Notes: In Early Old French (up to about the mid-12th century), the spelling ‹ai› represented a diphthong , instead of the later monophthong , and ‹ei› represented the diphthong , which became /oj/ in Late Old French. In Early Old French the diphthongs described above as "rising" may have been falling diphthongs (/ie̯/, /yj/, /ue̯/). In earlier works with vowel assonance, the diphthong written ‹ie› did not assonate with any pure vowels, suggesting that it cannot have simply been . The pronunciation of the vowels written ‹ue› and ‹eu› is debated. In very early Old French, they represented (and were written as) , and by Middle French, they had both merged as , but it is unclear what the transitional pronunciations were.

Grammar

Nouns

Old French maintained a two-case system, with a nominative case and an oblique case, for longer than did some other Romance languages (e.g. Spanish and Italian). Case distinctions, at least in the masculine gender, were marked on both the definite article and on the noun itself. Thus, the masculine noun li voisins, "the neighbour" (Latin VICÍNU(S) > Proto-Romance */veˈtsinu(s)/ > OF voisins ; Modern French le voisin) was declined as follows:

{|class="wikitable" ! colspan=2| !! Latin !! Old French |- ! rowspan=2|Singular !! Nominative | || li voisins |- ! Oblique | || le voisin |- ! rowspan=2|Plural !! Nominative | || li voisin |- ! Oblique | || les voisins |- |}

In later Old French, these distinctions became moribund. As in most other Romance languages, it was the oblique case form that usually survived to become the modern French form: l'enfant (the child) represents the old oblique; the OF nominative was li enfes. But in some cases where there were significant differences between nominative and oblique forms, the nominative form survives, or sometimes both forms survive with different meanings:

Both li sire (nominative, Latin SÉNIOR) and le seigneur (oblique, Latin SENIÓRE(M)) survive in the vocabulary of later French as different ways to refer to a feudal lord.

Modern French sœur "sister" is the nominative form (OF suer < Latin nominative SÓROR); the OF oblique form seror (< Latin nominative SORÓREM), no longer survives.

Modern French prêtre "priest" is the nominative form (OF prestre < ); the OF oblique form prevoire, later provoire (< ) survives only in the Paris street name Rue des Prouvaires. Modern French indefinite pronoun on "one" continues OF nominative om "man" (< ); homme "man" continues the oblique form (OF ome < ).

In a few cases where the only distinction between forms was the nominative -s ending, the -s was preserved in spelling to distinguish otherwise homonymous words. An example is fils "son" (< Latin nominative FILIUS), spelled as such to distinguish it from fil "wire". In this case, a later spelling pronunciation has resulted in the modern pronunciation (earlier ).

As in Spanish and Italian, the neuter gender was eliminated, and old neuter nouns became masculine. Some Latin neuter plurals were re-analysed as feminine singulars, though; for example, Latin GAUDIU(M) was more widely used in the plural form GAUDIA, which was taken for a singular in Vulgar Latin, and ultimately led to modern French la joie, "joy" (feminine singular).

Nouns were declined in the following declensions:

la citéz la cité rowspan="2"

		Class I (feminine)	Class II (masculine)
		!Class I normal	Class Ia	Class I normal	!Class IIa
colspan="2"	meaning	! "woman" !! "thing" !! "city" !! "neighbor" !! "servant" !! "father"
sg.	!nominative	rowspan="2"	la fame	la riens	|	li voisins	li sergenz	li pere
!oblique	la rien	|	le voisin	le sergent	le pere
pl.	!nominative	rowspan="2">les fames	les riens ||	les citéz	li voisin	li sergent	li pere
!oblique	les voisins	les sergenz

la none le baron li baron les barons

	Class III (both)
	!Class IIIa	!Class IIIb	!Class IIIc	Class IIId
meaning	"singer" !! "baron" !! "nun" !! "sister" !! "child" !! "priest" !! "lord" !! "count"
sg.	!nominative	li chantere	li ber	|	la suer	li enfes	li prestre	li sire	li cuens
!oblique	le chanteor	|	la nonain	la seror	l'enfant	le prevoire	le seigneur	le conte
pl.	!nominative	li chanteor	|	les nones	les serors	li enfant	li prevoire	li seigneur	li conte
!oblique	les chanteors	|	les nonains	les serors	les enfanz	les prevoires	les seigneurs	les contes

Class I is derived from the Latin first declension. Class Ia mostly comes from feminine third-declension nouns in Latin. Class II is derived from the Latin second declension. Class IIa generally stems from second-declension nouns ending in -ER and from third-declension masculine nouns; note that in both cases, the Latin nominative singular did not end in -S, and this is preserved in Old French.

Those classes show various analogical developments, like -es from the accusative instead of -Ø (-e after a consonant cluster) in Class I nominative plural (Latin -ae), li pere instead of *li peres (Latin illi patres) in Class IIa nominative plural, modelled on Class II, etc.

Class III nouns show a separate form in the nominative singular that does not occur in any of the other forms. IIIa nouns ended in -ÁTOR, -ATÓREM in Latin, and preserve the stress shift; IIIb nouns likewise had a stress shift from -O to -ÓNEM. IIIc nouns are an Old French creation and have no clear Latin antecedent. IIId nouns represent various other types of third-declension Latin nouns with stress shift or irregular masculine singular (SÓROR, SORÓREM; ÍNFANS, INFÁNTEM; PRÉSBYTER, PRESBÝTEREM; SÉNIOR, SENIÓREM; CÓMES, CÓMITEM).

Regular feminine forms of masculine nouns are formed by adding an 'e' to the masculine stem, apart from when the masculine stem already ends in e. For example bergier (shepherd) becomes bergiere (Modern French berger and bergère).

Adjectives

Adjectives agree in terms of number, gender and case with the noun they are qualifying. Thus a feminine plural noun in the nominative case requires any qualifying adjectives to be feminine, plural and in the nominative case. For example, in femes riches, riche has to be in the feminine plural form.

Adjectives can be divided into three declensional classes:

Class I corresponding roughly to Latin 1st and 2nd declension adjectives

Class II corresponding roughly to Latin 3rd declension adjectives

Class III containing primarily the descendants of Latin synthetic comparative forms in -ior, -iōrem.

Class I adjectives have a feminine singular form (nominative and oblique) ending in -e. This class can be further subdivided into two subclasses based on the masculine nominative singular form. Class Ia adjectives have a masculine nominative singular ending in -s: :E.g. bon "good" (< Latin bonus, > modern French bon) :{| class="wikitable" ! ! colspan="2" style="text-align: center;" | Masculine ! colspan="2" style="text-align: center;" | Feminine ! Neuter |- ! || Singular || Plural || Singular || Plural || Singular |- ! Nominative | bons || bon | rowspan="2" | bone || rowspan="2" | bones | bon |- ! Oblique | bon || bons || — |} For Class Ib adjectives, the masculine nominative singular ends in -e, like the feminine. This subclass contains descendants of Latin 2nd and 3rd declension adjectives ending in -er in the nominative singular. :E.g. aspre "harsh" (< Latin asper, > modern French âpre) :{| class="wikitable" ! ! colspan="2" style="text-align: center;" | Masculine ! colspan="2" style="text-align: center;" | Feminine ! Neuter |- ! || Singular || Plural || Singular || Plural || Singular |- ! Nominative | rowspan="2" | aspre | aspre | rowspan="2" | aspre || rowspan="2" | aspres | aspre |- ! Oblique | aspres || — |}

For Class II adjectives, the feminine singular is not marked by the ending -e. :E.g. granz "big, great" (< Latin grandis, > modern French grand) :{| class="wikitable" ! ! colspan="2" style="text-align: center;" | Masculine ! colspan="2" style="text-align: center;" | Feminine ! Neuter |- ! || Singular || Plural || Singular || Plural || Singular |- ! Nominative | granz || grant | granz/grant || rowspan="2" | granz | grant |- ! Oblique | grant || granz || grant || — |} An important subgroup of Class II adjectives are the present participial forms in -ant.

Class III adjectives exhibit stem alternation resulting from stress shift in the Latin imparisyllabic declension, and a distinct neuter form: :E.g. mieudre "better" (< Latin melior, > modern French meilleur) :{| class="wikitable" ! ! colspan="2" style="text-align: center;" | Masculine ! colspan="2" style="text-align: center;" | Feminine ! Neuter |- ! || Singular || Plural || Singular || Plural || Singular |- ! Nominative | mieudre(s) || meillor | mieudre || rowspan="2" | meillors | mieuz |- ! Oblique | meillor || meillors || meillor || — |}

Verbs

Verbs in Old French show the same extreme phonological deformations as other Old French words. Morphologically, however, Old French verbs are extremely conservative, preserving intact most of the Latin alternations and irregularities that had been inherited in Proto-Romance. Old French has much less analogical reformation than in Modern French, and significantly less than the oldest stages of other languages (e.g. Old Spanish), despite the fact that the various phonological developments in Gallo-Romance and Proto-French led to complex alternations in the majority of commonly-used verbs.

For example, the Old French verb laver "to wash" is conjugated je lef, tu leves, il leve in the present indicative and je lef, tu les, il let in the present subjunctive, in both cases regular phonological developments from Latin indicative and subjunctive . This paradigm is typical in showing the phonologically regular but morphologically irregular alternations of most paradigms:

The alternation je lef ~ tu leves is a regular result of final devoicing, triggered by loss of final /o/ but not /a/.

The alternation laver ~ tu leves is a regular result of the diphthongization of stressed (but not unstressed) open syllable /a/ into /ae/ > > .

The alternation je lef ~ tu les ~ il let in the subjunctive is a regular result of the simplification of the final clusters /fs/,/ft/ resulting from loss of /e/ in final syllables.

Modern French, on the other hand, has je lave, tu laves, il lave in both indicative and subjunctive, reflecting significant analogical developments: analogical borrowing of unstressed vowel /a/; analogical -e in the first singular (from verbs like j'entre, where the -e is regular); and wholesale replacement of the subjunctive with forms modeled on -ir/-oir/-re verbs. All of these serve to eliminate the various alternations in the Old French verb paradigm. Even modern "irregular" verbs are not immune from analogy: For example, Old French je vif, tu vis, il vit (vivre "to live") has yielded to modern je vis, tu vis, il vit, eliminating the "unpredictable" -f in the first-person singular.

The simple past also shows extensive analogical reformation and simplification in Modern French as compared with Old French.

The Latin pluperfect was preserved in very early Old French as a past tense with a value similar to a preterite or imperfect. For example, the Sequence of Saint Eulalia (878 AD) has past-tense forms such as avret (< Latin ), voldret (< Latin ), alternating with past-tense forms from the Latin perfect (continued as the modern "simple past"). Old Occitan also preserved this tense, with a conditional value; Spanish still preserves this tense (the -ra imperfect subjunctive), as does Portuguese (in its original value as a pluperfect indicative).

Verb alternations

In Latin, stress was determined automatically by the number of syllables in a word and the length of those syllables. This resulted in certain automatic stress shifts between related forms in a paradigm, depending on the nature of the suffixes added. For example, in "I think", the first syllable was stressed, while in "we think", the second syllable was stressed. In many Romance languages, vowels diphthongized in stressed syllables under certain circumstances, but not in unstressed syllables, resulting in alternations in verb paradigms: e.g. Spanish pienso "I think" vs. pensamos "we think" (pensar "to think"), or cuento "I tell" vs. contamos "we tell" (contar "to tell").

In the development of French, no fewer than five vowels diphthongized in stressed, open syllables. Combined with other stress-dependent developments, this yielded 15 or so types of alternations in so-called strong verbs in Old French. For example, /a/ diphthongized to /ai/ before nasal consonants in stressed, open syllables, but not in unstressed syllables, yielding aim "I love" (Latin ) but amons "we love" (Latin ).

The different types are as follows: {|class="wikitable" |+Vowel alternations in Old French verbs |- ! colspan=2|Vowel alternation !! rowspan=2|Environment !! colspan=4|Example (-er conjugation) !! colspan=4|Example (other conjugation) |- ! Stressed !! Unstressed !! Latin etymon !! 3rd singularpres. ind. !! Infinitive !! meaning !! Latin etymon !! 3rd singularpres. ind. !! Infinitive/ Other Form !! meaning |- | /e/ || /a/ || free /a/ || || leve || laver || "to wash" || > || pert || parir || "to give birth" |- | /ãj̃/ || /ã/ || free /a/ + nasal || || aime || amer || "to love" || || maint || manoir || "to remain" |- | /je/ || /e/ || palatal + free /a/ || || achieve || achever || "to achieve" || colspan=4| |- | /i/ || /e/ || palatal + /a/ + palatal || || conchie || concheer || "to shit out?" || || gist || gesir || "to lie (down)" |- | /a/ || /e/ || palatal + blocked /a/ || || achate || acheter || "to buy" || > || chiet || cheoir || "to fall" |- | /a/ || /e/ || intertonic /a/ + palatal? || || travaille || traveillier || "to work" || colspan=4| |- | /je/ || /e/ || free || || lieve || lever || "to raise" || || siet || seoir || "to sit" |- | /jẽ/ || /ẽ/ || free + nasal ||colspan=4| || || crient || cremant || "to fear" |- | /i/ || /oj/ || + palatal || || prise || proisier || "to value" || || ist || oissir || "to go out" |- | /ɛ/ || /e/ || intertonic + double cons. || || apele || apeler || "to call" || colspan=4| |- | /oj/ || /e/ || free || > || adoise || adeser || "to touch" || colspan=4| |- | /ẽj̃/ || /ẽ/ || free + nasal || || meine || mener || "to lead" || colspan=4| |- | /i/ || /e/ || palatal + free || colspan=4| || colspan=4| |- | /oj/ || /i/ || intertonic + palatal || || charroie || charrier || "?" || colspan=4| |- | /we/ || /u/ || free || || trueve || trouver || "to find" || > || muert || mourir || "to die" |- | /uj/ || /oj/ || + palatal || || apuie || apoiier || "to lean" || colspan=4| |- | /ew/ || /u/ || free || || demeure || demourer || "to stay" || > || queust || cousdre || "to sew" |- | /u/ || /e/ || intertonic blocked || || courouce || courecier || "to get angry" || colspan=4| |- | /ũ/ || /ã/ || intertonic blocked + nasal || || chalonge || chalengier || "to challenge" || colspan=4| |- |}

In Modern French the verbs in the -er class have been systematically leveled. Generally the "weak" (unstressed) form predominates, but there are some exceptions (e.g. modern aimer/nous aimons). The only remaining alternations are in verbs like acheter/j'achète and jeter/je jette, where unstressed alternates with stressed , and in (largely learned) verbs like adhérer/j'adhère, where unstressed alternates with stressed . Many of the non-er verbs have become obsolete and many of the remaining verbs have been leveled. A few alternations remain, however, in what are now known as irregular verbs, such as je tiens, nous tenons or je meurs, nous mourons.

Some verbs had a more irregular alternation between different-length stems, with a longer stressed stem alternating with a shorter unstressed stem. This was a regular development stemming from the loss of unstressed intertonic vowels, which remained when stressed: j'aiu/aidier "help" < j'araison/araisnier "speak to" < je deraison/deraisnier "argue" < je desjun/disner "dine" < je manju/mangier "eat" < je parol/parler "speak" <

The alternation of je desjun, disner is particularly complicated; it appears that > Italo-Western Romance > (preliminary intertonic loss) > (triphthong reduction) > (metaphony) > (further intertonic loss and other proto-French developments). Note the both of the stems have become full verbs in modern French, déjeuner "to have lunch" and dîner "to dine". Furthermore, déjeuner does not derive directly from je desjun (< with total loss of unstressed ). Instead, it comes from Old French , based on the alternative form je desjeün (< with loss only of , likely influenced by jeûner "to fast" < Old French jeüner < je jeün "I fast" < , where is an initial rather than intertonic syllable and hence the vowel cannot disappear).

Example of a regular -er verb

Imperfect dur dures dure durons durez durent

rowspan="3" colspan="1"
Indicative				Subjunctive		Conditional	Imperative
Present	Simple Past	|	Future	Present	Imperfect	Present			Present
je	|	durai	duroie	durerai	dur	durasse	dureroie
tu	|	duras	durois	dureras	durs	durasses	durerois	dure
il	|	dura	duroit	durera	durt	durast	dureroit
nous	|	durames	duriiens/-ïons	durerons	durons	durissons/-issiens	dureriions/-ïons	durons
vous	|	durastes	duriiez	dureroiz/-ez	durez	durissoiz/-issez/-issiez	dureriiez/-ïez	durez
ils	|	durerent	duroient	dureront	durent	durassent	dureroient

Non-finite forms:

Infinitive: durer

Present participle: durant

Past Participle: duré

Auxiliary verb: avoir

Example of a regular -ir verb

Imperfect fenis fenis fenist fenissons fenissez fenissent

rowspan="3" colspan="1"
Indicative				Subjunctive		Conditional	Imperative
Present	Simple Past	|	Future	Present	Imperfect	Present			Present
je	|	feni	fenissoie	fenirai	fenisse	fenisse	feniroie
tu	|	fenis	fenissoies	feniras	fenisses	fenisses	fenirois	fenis
il	|	feni(t)	fenissoit	fenira	fenisse(t)	fenist	feniroit
nous	|	fenimes	fenissiiens	fenirons	fenissons	feniss-ons/-iens	feniriiens	fenissons
vous	|	fenistes	fenissiiez	fenir-oiz/-ez	fenissez	feniss-oiz/-ez/-iez	feniriiez	fenissez
ils	|	fenirent	fenissoient	feniront	fenissent	fenissent	feniroient

Non-finite forms: Infinitive: fenir

Present participle: fenissant

Past Participle: feni(t)

Auxiliary verb: avoir

Example of a regular -re verb

Imperfect cor cors cort corons corez corent

rowspan="3" colspan="1"
Indicative				Subjunctive		Conditional	Imperative
Present	Simple Past	|	Future	Present	Imperfect	Present			Present
je	|	corui	coroie	corrai	core	corusse	corroie
tu	|	corus	coroies	corras	cores	corusses	corroies	cor
il	|	coru(t)	coroit	corra	core(t)	corust	corroit
nous	|	corumes	coriiens	corrons	corons	coruss-ons/-iens	corriiens	corons
vous	|	corustes	coriiez	corr-oiz/-ez	corez	coruss-oiz/-ez/-iez	corriiez	corez
ils	|	corurent	coroient	corront	corent	corussent	corroient

Non-finite forms: Infinitive: corre

Present participle: corant

Past Participle: coru(t)

Auxiliary verb: estre

Examples of the auxiliary verbs

avoir (to have)

Imperfect ai ais (later as) ai (later a) avons avez ont

rowspan="3" colspan="1"
Indicative				Subjunctive		Conditional	Imperative
Present	Simple Past	|	Future	Present	Imperfect	Present			Present
je	|	eus	avoie	aurai	ai	eusse	auroie
tu	|	eus	avois	auras	ais	eusses	aurois	ave
il	|	eut	avoit	aura	ai	eusst	auroit
nous	|	eumes	aviens/-ïons	aurons	aions	eussons/-issiens	auravons/-ïons	avons
vous	|	eustes	aviez	auroiz/-ez	aiez	eussoiz/-issez/-issiez	auravez/-ïez	avez
ils	|	eurent	avoient	auront	ont	eussent	auroient

Non-finite forms:

Infinitive: avoir (earlier aveir)

Present participle: aiant

Past Participle: eut

Auxiliary verb: avoir

estre (to be)

Imperfect suis es, ies est somes, esmes estes sont

rowspan="3" colspan="1"
Indicative				Subjunctive		Conditional	Imperative
Present	Simple Past	|	Future	Present	Imperfect	Present			Present
je	|	fui	(i)ere ; esteie > estoie	(i)er; serai; estrai	seie > soie	fusse	soi	sereie > seroie; estreie > estroie
tu	|	fus	(i)eres ; esteies > estoies	(i)ers; seras; estras	seies > soies	fusses	sereies > seroies; estreies > estroies	seies > soies
il	|	fu(t)	(i)ere(t), (i)ert ; esteit > estoit	(i)ert; sera(t); estra(t)	seit > soit	fust	sereit > seroit; estreit > estroit
nous	|	fumes	eriiens, erions ; estiiens, estions	(i)ermes; serons; estrons	seiiens, seions > soiiens, soions	fuss-ons/-iens	seriiens, serions; estriiens, estrions	seiiens > soiiens, seions > soions
vous	|	fustes	eriiez ; estiiez	--; sere(i)z; estre(i)z	seiiez > soiiez	fuss-eiz/-ez/-iez	seriiez; estriiez	seiiez > soiiez
ils	|	furent	(i)erent ; esteient > estoient	(i)erent; seront; estront	seient > soient	fussent	sereient > seroient; estreient > estroient

Non-finite forms:

Infinitive: estre

Present participle: estant

Past Participle: esté(t)

auxiliary verb: avoir

Other parts of speech

Adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions and interjections are generally invariable. One notable exception being the adverb tot (same as modern French tout; all, every).

Dialects

Since Old French did not consist of a single standard, competing administrative varieties were propagated by the provincial courts and chanceries.

The French of Paris was one of a number of standards, including:

the Burgundian of Burgundy, then an independent duchy whose capital was at Dijon;

the Picard language of Picardy, whose principal cities were Calais and Lille. It was said that the Picard language began at the east door of Notre-Dame de Paris, so far-reaching was its influence;

Old Norman, spoken in Normandy, whose principal cities were Caen and Rouen. The Norman conquest of England brought many Norman-speaking aristocrats into the British Isles. Most of the older Norman (sometimes called "French") words in the English language reflect the influence of this variety of Oïl language which became a conduit for the introduction into the Anglo-Norman realm, as did Anglo-Norman control of Anjou and Gascony and other continental possessions. The Anglo-Norman language reflected a shared culture on both sides of the English Channel. Ultimately, this language declined and fell, becoming Law French, a jargon spoken by lawyers, which was used in English law until the reign of Charles II. Norman, however, still survives in Normandy and the Channel Islands as a regional language;

the Walloon language, centered around Namur in present-day Wallonia;

the Gallo language of Brittany, the Romance language of the Duchy of Brittany;

the Lorrain, the Romance language of the Duchy of Lorraine.

Derived languages

This Oïl language is the ancestor of several languages spoken today, including:

Berrichon

Bourguignon-Morvandiau

Champenois

Franc-Comtois

French

**French-based creole languages

*Acadian French

*Belgian French

*Cajun French

*Metropolitan French (Metropolitan France)

*Quebec French

*Swiss French

Gallo language

Lorrain

Norman

*Dgèrnésiais

*Jèrriais

Picard

Poitevin

Saintongeais

Walloon

Literature

See also

History of French

Languages of France

Anglo-Norman literature

History of the English language

Bartsch's law

Notes

References

External links

Old French on the Web- Old French on the Web

Old French Online from the University of Texas at Austin

Dictionnaire mediéval - a wiki dictionary for Middle French words and phrases

GdfEdic, GdfCEdic, GdfLexEdic - an electronic version of dictionary of the Old French of Frédéric Godefroy: Dictionnaire de l'ancienne langue française.

Category:French language French, Old Category:Old French

cs:Starofrancouzština de:Altfranzösische Sprache eo:Malnovfranca lingvo fr:Ancien français is:Fornfranska it:Antico francese la:Lingua Francogallica antiqua li:Aajdfrans mk:Старофранцуски јазик nl:Oudfrans ja:古フランス語 no:Gammelfransk nds:Ooltfranzöösch pl:Język starofrancuski pt:Francês antigo ru:Старофранцузский язык simple:Old French sv:Fornfranska wa:Vî lingaedje d' oyi zh:古法語

Name	English
Familycolor	Indo-European
Pronunciation
Region	(see below)
Speakers	First language: 309–400 million Second language: 199 million–1.4 billionOverall: 500 million–1.8 billion
Fam2	Germanic
Fam3	West Germanic
Fam4	Anglo–Frisian
Fam5	Anglic
Script	English alphabet (Latin script)
Nation	54 countries27 non-sovereign entitiesUnited NationsEuropean UnionCommonwealth of Nations CoE NATO NAFTA OAS OIC PIF UKUSA
Iso1	en |iso2eng |iso3eng |lingua52-ABA
Map	Anglospeak.svg
Mapcaption	,
Notice	IPA }}

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria. Following the economic, political, military, scientific, cultural, and colonial influence of Great Britain and the United Kingdom from the 18th century, via the British Empire, and of the United States since the mid-20th century, it has been widely dispersed around the world, become the leading language of international discourse, and has acquired use as lingua franca in many regions. It is widely learned as a second language and used as an official language of the European Union and many Commonwealth countries, as well as in many world organizations. It is the third most natively spoken language in the world, after Mandarin Chinese and Spanish.

Historically, English originated from the fusion of languages and dialects, now collectively termed Old English, which were brought to the eastern coast of Great Britain by Germanic (Anglo-Saxon) settlers by the 5th century – with the word English being derived from the name of the Angles. A significant number of English words are constructed based on roots from Latin, because Latin in some form was the lingua franca of the Christian Church and of European intellectual life. The language was further influenced by the Old Norse language due to Viking invasions in the 8th and 9th centuries.

The Norman conquest of England in the 11th century gave rise to heavy borrowings from Norman-French, and vocabulary and spelling conventions began to give the superficial appearance of a close relationship with Romance languages to what had now become Middle English. The Great Vowel Shift that began in the south of England in the 15th century is one of the historical events that mark the emergence of Modern English from Middle English.

Owing to the significant assimilation of various European languages throughout history, modern English contains a very large vocabulary. The Oxford English Dictionary lists over 250,000 distinct words, not including many technical or slang terms, or words that belong to multiple word classes.

Significance

Modern English, sometimes described as the first global lingua franca, is the dominant language or in some instances even the required international language of communications, science, information technology, business, seafaring, aviation, entertainment, radio and diplomacy. Its spread beyond the British Isles began with the growth of the British Empire, and by the late 19th century its reach was truly global . Following British colonisation from the 16th to 19th centuries, it became the dominant language in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The growing economic and cultural influence of the US and its status as a global superpower since World War II have significantly accelerated the language's spread across the planet. English replaced German as the dominant language of science Nobel Prize laureates during the second half of the 20th century (compare the Evolution of Nobel Prizes by country).

A working knowledge of English has become a requirement in a number of fields, occupations and professions such as medicine and computing; as a consequence over a billion people speak English to at least a basic level (see English language learning and teaching). It is one of six official languages of the United Nations.

One impact of the growth of English is the reduction of native linguistic diversity in many parts of the world. Its influence continues to play an important role in language attrition. Conversely, the natural internal variety of English along with creoles and pidgins have the potential to produce new distinct languages from English over time.

History

English is a West Germanic language that originated from the Anglo-Frisian and Old Saxon dialects brought to Britain by Germanic settlers from various parts of what is now northwest Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands. Up to that point, in Roman Britain the native population is assumed to have spoken the Celtic language Brythonic alongside the acrolectal influence of Latin, from the 400-year Roman occupation.

One of these incoming Germanic tribes was the Angles, whom Bede believed to have relocated entirely to Britain. The names 'England' (from Engla land "Land of the Angles") and English (Old English Englisc) are derived from the name of this tribe—but Saxons, Jutes and a range of Germanic peoples from the coasts of Frisia, Lower Saxony, Jutland and Southern Sweden also moved to Britain in this era.

Initially, Old English was a diverse group of dialects, reflecting the varied origins of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of Great Britain but one of these dialects, Late West Saxon, eventually came to dominate, and it is in this that the poem Beowulf is written.

Old English was later transformed by two waves of invasion. The first was by speakers of the North Germanic language branch when Halfdan Ragnarsson and Ivar the Boneless started the conquering and colonisation of northern parts of the British Isles in the 8th and 9th centuries (see Danelaw). The second was by speakers of the Romance language Old Norman in the 11th century with the Norman conquest of England. Norman developed into Anglo-Norman, and then Anglo-French – and introduced a layer of words especially via the courts and government. As well as extending the lexicon with Scandinavian and Norman words these two events also simplified the grammar and transformed English into a borrowing language—more than normally open to accept new words from other languages.

The linguistic shifts in English following the Norman invasion produced what is now referred to as Middle English, with Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales being the best known work.

Throughout all this period Latin in some form was the lingua franca of European intellectual life, first the Medieval Latin of the Christian Church, but later the humanist Renaissance Latin, and those that wrote or copied texts in Latin commonly coined new terms from Latin to refer to things or concepts for which there was no existing native English word.

Modern English, which includes the works of William Shakespeare and the King James Bible, is generally dated from about 1550, and when the United Kingdom became a colonial power, English served as the lingua franca of the colonies of the British Empire. In the post-colonial period, some of the newly created nations which had multiple indigenous languages opted to continue using English as the lingua franca to avoid the political difficulties inherent in promoting any one indigenous language above the others. As a result of the growth of the British Empire, English was adopted in North America, India, Africa, Australia and many other regions, a trend extended with the emergence of the United States as a superpower in the mid-20th century.

Classification and related languages

The English language belongs to the Anglo-Frisian sub-group of the West Germanic branch of the Germanic family, a member of the Indo-European languages. Modern English is the direct descendant of Middle English, itself a direct descendant of Old English, a descendant of Proto-Germanic. Typical of most Germanic languages, English is characterised by the use of modal verbs, the division of verbs into strong and weak classes, and common sound shifts from Proto-Indo-European known as Grimm's Law. The closest living relatives of English are the Scots language (spoken primarily in Scotland and parts of Ireland) and Frisian (spoken on the southern fringes of the North Sea in Denmark, the Netherlands, and Germany).

After Scots and Frisian come those Germanic languages that are more distantly related: the non-Anglo-Frisian West Germanic languages (Dutch, Afrikaans, Low German, High German), and the North Germanic languages (Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic, and Faroese). With the (partial) exception of Scots, none of the other languages is mutually intelligible with English, owing in part to the divergences in lexis, syntax, semantics, and phonology, and to the isolation afforded to the English language by the British Isles, although some, such as Dutch, do show strong affinities with English, especially to earlier stages of the language. Isolation has allowed English and Scots (as well as Icelandic and Faroese) to develop independently of the Continental Germanic languages and their influences over time.

In addition to isolation, lexical differences between English and other Germanic languages exist due to heavy borrowing in English of words from Latin and French. For example, compare "exit" (Latin), vs. Dutch uitgang, literally "out-going" (though outgang survives dialectally in restricted usage) and "change" (French) vs. German Änderung (literally "alteration, othering"); "movement" (French) vs. German Bewegung ("be-way-ing", i.e. "proceeding along the way"); etc. Preference of one synonym over another also causes differentiation in lexis, even where both words are Germanic, as in English care vs. German Sorge. Both words descend from Proto-Germanic *karō and *surgō respectively, but *karō has become the dominant word in English for "care" while in German, Dutch, and Scandinavian languages, the *surgō root prevailed. *Surgō still survives in English, however, as sorrow.

Despite lexical borrowing, English retains classification as a Germanic language due to its structure and grammar. Non-native words are incorporated into a Germanic system of conjugation, declension, and syntax (For example, the word reduce is borrowed from Latin redūcere; however, in English we say "I reduce"/"I reduced"/"I will reduce" rather than "redūcō"/"redūxī"/"redūcam"). Furthermore, in English, all basic grammatical particles added to nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs are Germanic. For nouns, these include the normal plural marker -s/-es, and the possessive markers -'s and -s' . For verbs, these include the third person present ending -s/-es (e.g. he stands/he reaches ), the present participle ending -ing, the simple past tense and past participle ending -ed, and the formation of the English infinitive using to (e.g. "to drive"; cf. Old English tō drīfenne). Adverbs generally receive an -ly ending, and adjectives and adverbs are inflected for the comparative and superlative using -er and -est (e.g. fast/faster/fastest), or through a combination with more and most. These particles append freely to all English words regardless of origin (tsunamis; communicates; to buccaneer; during; bizarrely) and all derive from Old English. Even the lack or absence of affixes, known as zero or null (-Ø) affixes, derive from endings which previously existed in Old English (usually -e, -a, -u, -o, -an, etc.), that later weakened to -e, and have since ceased to be pronounced and spelt (e.g. Modern English "I sing" = I sing-Ø < I singe < Old English ic singe; "we thought" = we thought-Ø < we thoughte(n) < Old English wē þōhton).

Although the syntax of English is somewhat different from that of other West Germanic languages with regards to the placement and order of verbs (for example, "I have never seen anything in the square" = German Ich habe nie etwas auf dem Platz gesehen, and the Dutch Ik heb nooit iets op het plein gezien, where the participle is placed at the end), English syntax continues to adhere closely to that of the North Germanic languages, which are believed to have influenced English syntax during the Middle English Period (e.g., Danish Jeg har aldrig set noget på torvet; Icelandic Ég hef aldrei séð neitt á torginu). As in most Germanic languages, English adjectives usually come before the noun they modify, even when the adjective is of Latinate origin (e.g. medical emergency, national treasure). Also, English continues to make extensive use of self-explaining compounds (e.g. streetcar, classroom), and nouns which serve as modifiers (e.g. lamp post, life insurance company), traits inherited from Old English (See also Kenning).

The kinship with other Germanic languages can also be seen in the tensing of English verbs (e.g. English fall/fell/fallen/will or shall fall, West Frisian fal/foel/fallen/sil falle, Dutch vallen/viel/gevallen/zullen vallen, German fallen/fiell/gefallen/werden fallen), the comparatives of adjectives and adverbs (e.g. English good/better/best, West Frisian goed/better/best, Dutch goed/beter/best, German gut/besser/best), and the large amount of cognates (e.g. English wet, Scots weet, West Frisian wiet, Swedish våt; English send, Dutch zenden, German senden; English meaning, Swedish mening, Icelandic meining, etc.). It also gives rise to false friends (e.g. English time vs Norwegian time, meaning "hour"; English gift vs German Gift, meaning "poison"), while differences in phonology can obscure words that really are related (tooth vs. German Zahn; compare also Danish tand). Sometimes both semantics and phonology are different (German Zeit ("time") is related to English "tide", but the English word, through a transitional phase of meaning "period"/"interval", has come primarily to mean gravitational effects on the ocean by the moon, though the original meaning is preserved in forms like tidings and betide, and phrases such as to tide over).

Many North Germanic words entered English due to the settlement of Viking raiders and Danish invasions which began around the 9th century (see Danelaw). Many of these words are common words, often mistaken for being native, which shows how close-knit the relations between the English and the Scandinavian settlers were (See below: Old Norse origins). Dutch and Low German also had a considerable influence on English vocabulary, contributing common everyday terms and many nautical and trading terms (See below: Dutch and Low German origins).

Finally, English has been forming compound words and affixing existing words separately from the other Germanic languages for over 1500 years and has different habits in that regard. For instance, abstract nouns in English may be formed from native words by the suffixes "‑hood", "-ship", "-dom" and "-ness". All of these have cognate suffixes in most or all other Germanic languages, but their usage patterns have diverged, as German "Freiheit" vs. English "freedom" (the suffix "-heit" being cognate of English "-hood", while English "-dom" is cognate with German "-tum"). The Germanic languages Icelandic and Faroese also follow English in this respect, since, like English, they developed independent of German influences.

Many French words are also intelligible to an English speaker, especially when they are seen in writing (as pronunciations are often quite different), because English absorbed a large vocabulary from Norman and French, via Anglo-Norman after the Norman Conquest, and directly from French in subsequent centuries. As a result, a large portion of English vocabulary is derived from French, with some minor spelling differences (e.g. inflectional endings, use of old French spellings, lack of diacritics, etc.), as well as occasional divergences in meaning of so-called false friends: for example, compare "library" with the French librairie, which means bookstore; in French, the word for "library" is bibliothèque. The pronunciation of most French loanwords in English (with the exception of a handful of more recently borrowed words such as mirage, genre, café; or phrases like coup d’état, rendez-vous, etc.) has become largely anglicised and follows a typically English phonology and pattern of stress (compare English "nature" vs. French nature, "button" vs. bouton, "table" vs. table, "hour" vs. heure, "reside" vs. résider, etc.).

Geographical distribution

Approximately 375 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. 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").

Estimates that include second language speakers vary greatly from 470 million to over a billion depending on how literacy or mastery is defined and measured. Linguistics professor David Crystal calculates that non-native speakers now outnumber native speakers by a ratio of 3 to 1.

The countries with the highest populations of native English speakers are, in descending order: United States (215 million), United Kingdom (61 million), Canada (18.2 million), Australia (15.5 million), Nigeria (4 million), Ireland (3.8 million), South Africa (3.7 million), and New Zealand (3.6 million) 2006 Census.

Countries such as the Philippines, Jamaica and Nigeria also have millions of native speakers of dialect continua 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'). 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.

Countries in order of total speakers

96% 125,344,736 79,000,000 59,600,000 48,800,000 25,246,220 18,172,989

Country	Comment
United States of America	251,388,301	|	215,423,557	35,964,744	262,375,152	Source: US Census 2000: Language Use and English-Speaking Ability: 2000, Table 1. Figure for second language speakers are respondents who reported they do not speak English at home but know it "very well" or "well". Note: figures are for population age 5 and older
India	|	12%	226,449	86,125,221 second language speakers. 38,993,066 third language speakers	1,028,737,436	Figures include both those who speak English as a second language and those who speak it as a third language. 2001 figures. The figures include English speakers, but not English users.
Nigeria	|	53%	4,000,000	>75,000,000	148,000,000	Figures are for speakers of Nigerian Pidgin, an English-based pidgin or creole. Ihemere gives a range of roughly 3 to 5 million native speakers; the midpoint of the range is used in the table. Ihemere, Kelechukwu Uchechukwu. 2006. "A Basic Description and Analytic Treatment of Noun Clauses in Nigerian Pidgin." Nordic Journal of African Studies 15(3): 296–313.
United Kingdom	|	98%	58,100,000	1,500,000	60,000,000	Source: Crystal (2005), p. 109.
Philippines	|	58%	3,427,000	43,974,000	84,566,000	Total speakers: Census 2000, text above Figure 7. 63.71% of the 66.7 million people aged 5 years or more could speak English. Native speakers: Census 1995, as quoted by Andrew González in The Language Planning Situation in the Philippines, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 19 (5&6), 487–525. (1998). Ethnologue lists 3.4 million native speakers with 52% of the population speaking it as an additional language.
Canada	|	85%	17,694,830	7,551,390	29,639,030	Source: 2001 Census – Knowledge of Official Languages and Mother Tongue. The native speakers figure comprises 122,660 people with both French and English as a mother tongue, plus 17,572,170 people with English and not French as a mother tongue.
Australia	|	92%	15,581,329	2,591,660	19,855,288	Source: 2006 Census. The figure shown in the first language English speakers column is actually the number of Australian residents who speak only English at home. The additional language column shows the number of other residents who claim to speak English "well" or "very well". Another 5% of residents did not state their home language or English proficiency.

Countries where English is a major language

English is the primary language in Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, the British Indian Ocean Territory, the British Virgin Islands, Canada, the Cayman Islands, Dominica, the Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, Grenada, Guam, Guernsey, Guyana, Ireland, the Isle of Man, Jamaica, Jersey, Montserrat, Nauru, New Zealand, Pitcairn Islands, Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Singapore, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, Trinidad and Tobago, the Turks and Caicos Islands, the United Kingdom and the United States.

In some countries where English is not the most spoken language, it is an official language; these countries include Botswana, Cameroon, the Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Gambia, Ghana, India, Kenya, Kiribati, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malta, the Marshall Islands, Mauritius, Namibia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Palau, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines (Philippine English), Rwanda, Saint Lucia, Samoa, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, the Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka, Sudan, South Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

It is also one of the 11 official languages that are given equal status in South Africa (South African English). English is also the official language in current dependent territories of Australia (Norfolk Island, Christmas Island and Cocos Island) and of the United States (American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands), and the former British colony of Hong Kong. (See List of countries where English is an official language for more details.)

English is not an official language in the United States. Although the United States federal government has no official languages, English has been given official status by 30 of the 50 state governments. Although falling short of official status, English is also an important language in several former colonies and protectorates of the United Kingdom, such as Bahrain, Bangladesh, Brunei, Cyprus, Malaysia, and the United Arab Emirates.

English as a global language

Because English is so widely spoken, it has often been referred to as a "world language", the lingua franca of the modern era, and while it is not an official language in most countries, it is currently the language most often taught as a foreign language. Some linguists believe that it is no longer the exclusive cultural property of "native English speakers", but is rather a language that is absorbing aspects of cultures worldwide as it continues to grow. It is, by international treaty, the official language for aerial and maritime communications. English is an official language of the United Nations and many other international organisations, including the International Olympic Committee.

English is the language most often studied as a foreign language in the European Union, by 89% of schoolchildren, ahead of French at 32%, while the perception of the usefulness of foreign languages amongst Europeans is 68% in favour of English ahead of 25% for French. Among some non-English speaking EU countries, a large percentage of the adult population can converse in English – in particular: 85% in Sweden, 83% in Denmark, 79% in the Netherlands, 66% in Luxembourg and over 50% in Finland, Slovenia, Austria, Belgium, and Germany.

Books, magazines, and newspapers written in English are available in many countries around the world, and English is the most commonly used language in the sciences with Science Citation Index reporting as early as 1997 that 95% of its articles were written in English, even though only half of them came from authors in English-speaking countries.

This increasing use of the English language globally has had a large impact on many other languages, leading to language shift and even language death, and to claims of linguistic imperialism. English itself is now open to language shift as multiple regional varieties feed back into the language as a whole.

Dialects and regional varieties

The expansion of the British Empire and—since World War II—the influence of the United States have spread English around the world. Because of that global spread, English has developed a host of English dialects and English-based creole languages and pidgins.

Several educated native dialects of English have wide acceptance as standards in much of the world,. In the United Kingdom much emphasis is placed on Received Pronunciation, an educated dialect of South East England. General American, which is spread over most of the United States and much of Canada, is more typically the model for the American continents and areas (such as the Philippines) that have had either close association with the United States, or a desire to be so identified. In Oceania, the major native dialect of Australian English is spoken as a first language by the vast majority of the inhabitants of the Australian continent, with General Australian serving as the standard accent. The English of neighbouring New Zealand as well as that of South Africa have to a lesser degree been influential native varieties of the language.

Aside from these major dialects, there are numerous other varieties of English, which include, in most cases, several subvarieties, such as Cockney, Scouse and Geordie within British English; Newfoundland English within Canadian English; and African American Vernacular English ("Ebonics") and Southern American English within American English. English is a pluricentric language, without a central language authority like France's Académie française; and therefore no one variety is considered "correct" or "incorrect" except in terms of the expectations of the particular audience to which the language is directed.

Scots has its origins in early Northern Middle English and developed and changed during its history with influence from other sources, but following the Acts of Union 1707 a process of language attrition began, whereby successive generations adopted more and more features from Standard English, causing dialectalisation. Whether it is now a separate language or a dialect of English better described as Scottish English is in dispute, although the UK government now accepts Scots as a regional language and has recognised it as such under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. There are a number of regional dialects of Scots, and pronunciation, grammar and lexis of the traditional forms differ, sometimes substantially, from other varieties of English.

English speakers have many different accents, which often signal the speaker's native dialect or language. For the most distinctive characteristics of regional accents, see Regional accents of English, and for a complete list of regional dialects, see List of dialects of the English language. Within England, variation is now largely confined to pronunciation rather than grammar or vocabulary. At the time of the Survey of English Dialects, grammar and vocabulary differed across the country, but a process of lexical attrition has led most of this variation to die out.

Just as English itself has borrowed words from many different languages over its history, English loanwords now appear in many languages around the world, indicative of the technological and cultural influence of its speakers. Several pidgins and creole languages have been formed on an English base, such as Jamaican Patois, Nigerian Pidgin, and Tok Pisin. There are many words in English coined to describe forms of particular non-English languages that contain a very high proportion of English words.

Constructed varieties of English

Basic English is simplified for easy international use. Manufacturers and other international businesses tend to write manuals and communicate in Basic English. Some English schools in Asia teach it as a practical subset of English for use by beginners.

E-Prime excludes forms of the verb to be.

English reform is an attempt to improve collectively upon the English language.

Manually Coded English constitutes a variety of systems that have been developed to represent the English language with hand signals, designed primarily for use in deaf education. These should not be confused with true sign languages such as British Sign Language and American Sign Language used in Anglophone countries, which are independent and not based on English.

Seaspeak and the related Airspeak and Policespeak, all based on restricted vocabularies, were designed by Edward Johnson in the 1980s to aid international cooperation and communication in specific areas. There is also a tunnelspeak for use in the Channel Tunnel.

Simplified Technical English was historically developed for aerospace industry maintenance manuals and is now used in various industries.

Special English is a simplified version of English used by the Voice of America. It uses a vocabulary of only 1500 words.

Phonology

Vowels

It is the vowels that differ most from region to region. Length is not phonemic in most varieties of North American English.

!International Phonetic Alphabet

IPA !	word
monophthongs
	bd
	bd
	bd
	bd
	bx
	ped
	br
	gd
	bed
	bd
	bd
	Ros's
	ross
colspan="2" style="text-align:left; background:#dedede"	diphthongs
	bed
	bde
	cr
	c
	b
	b
	f

Notes for vowels

Consonants

This is the English consonantal system using symbols from the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).

!	bilabial consonant>Bilabial	labiodental consonant>Labio-dental	interdental consonant>Dental	alveolar consonant>Alveolar	postalveolar consonant>Post-alveolar	palatal consonant>Palatal	velar consonant>Velar	Labial-velar consonant>Labial-velar	glottal consonant>Glottal
nasal consonant>Nasal
Stop consonant>Plosive
affricate consonant>Affricate
fricative consonant>Fricative
flap consonant>Flap					style="text-align:center;" | is an allophone of and in unstressed syllables in North American English and Australian English. This is the sound of tt or dd in the words latter and ladder, which are homophones for many speakers of North American English. In some accents such as Scottish English and Indian English it replaces . This is the same sound represented by single r in most varieties of Spanish.|group=cn|name=c2}}
approximant consonant>Approximant
lateral consonant>Lateral

Notes for consonants

Voicing and aspiration

Voicing and aspiration of stop consonants in English depend on dialect and context, but a few general rules can be given: Voiceless plosives and affricates (, , , and ) are aspirated when they are word-initial or begin a stressed syllable compare pin and spin , crap and scrap .

* In some dialects, aspiration extends to unstressed syllables as well.

* In other dialects, such as Indian English, all voiceless stops remain unaspirated.

Word-initial voiced plosives may be devoiced in some dialects.

Word-terminal voiceless plosives may be unreleased or accompanied by a glottal stop in some dialects; examples: tap , sack . Word-terminal voiced plosives may be devoiced in some dialects (e.g. some varieties of American English) examples: sad , bag . In other dialects, they are fully voiced in final position, but only partially voiced in initial position.

Supra-segmental features

Tone groups

English is an intonation language. This means that the pitch of the voice is used syntactically; for example, to convey surprise or irony, or to change a statement into a question.

In English, intonation patterns are on groups of words, which are called tone groups, tone units, intonation groups, or sense groups. Tone groups are said on a single breath and, as a consequence, are of limited length, more often being on average five words long or lasting roughly two seconds. For example:

: Do you need anything? : I don't, no : I don't know (contracted to, for example, or I dunno in fast or colloquial speech that de-emphasises the pause between 'don't' and 'know' even further)

Characteristics of intonation—stress

English is a strongly stressed language, in that certain syllables, both within words and within phrases, get a relative prominence/loudness during pronunciation while the others do not. The former kind of syllables are said to be accentuated/stressed and the latter are unaccentuated/unstressed. Stress can also be used in English to distinguish between certain verbs and their noun counterparts. For example, in the case of the verb contract, the second syllable is stressed: ; in case of the corresponding noun, the first syllable is stressed: . Vowels in unstressed syllables can also change in quality, hence the verb contract often becomes (and indeed is listed in Oxford English Dictionary as) . In each word, there can be only one principal stress, but in long words, there can be secondary stress(es) too, e.g. in civilisation , the 1st syllable carries the secondary stress, the 4th syllable carries the primary stress, and the other syllables are unstressed.

Hence in a sentence, each tone group can be subdivided into syllables, which can either be stressed (strong) or unstressed (weak). The stressed syllable is called the nuclear syllable. For example:

: That | was | the | best | thing | you | could | have | done!

Here, all syllables are unstressed, except the syllables/words best and done, which are stressed. Best is stressed harder and, therefore, is the nuclear syllable.

The nuclear syllable carries the main point the speaker wishes to make. For example:

: John had not stolen that money. (... Someone else had.) : John had not stolen that money. (... Someone said he had. or... Not at that time, but later he did.) : John had not stolen that money. (... He acquired the money by some other means.) : John had not stolen that money. (... He had stolen some other money.) : John had not stolen that money. (... He had stolen something else.)

Also

: I did not tell her that. (... Someone else told her) : I did not tell her that. (... You said I did. or... but now I will) : I did not tell her that. (... I did not say it; she could have inferred it, etc) : I did not tell her that. (... I told someone else) : I did not tell her that. (... I told her something else)

This can also be used to express emotion:

: Oh, really? (...I did not know that) : Oh, really? (...I disbelieve you. or... That is blatantly obvious)

The nuclear syllable is spoken more loudly than the others and has a characteristic change of pitch. The changes of pitch most commonly encountered in English are the rising pitch and the falling pitch, although the fall-rising pitch and/or the rise-falling pitch are sometimes used. In this opposition between falling and rising pitch, which plays a larger role in English than in most other languages, falling pitch conveys certainty and rising pitch uncertainty. This can have a crucial impact on meaning, specifically in relation to polarity, the positive–negative opposition; thus, falling pitch means, "polarity known", while rising pitch means "polarity unknown". This underlies the rising pitch of yes/no questions. For example:

: When do you want to be paid? : Now? (Rising pitch. In this case, it denotes a question: "Can I be paid now?" or "Do you desire to pay now?") : Now. (Falling pitch. In this case, it denotes a statement: "I choose to be paid now.")

Grammar

English grammar has minimal inflection compared with most other Indo-European languages. For example, Modern English, unlike Modern German or Dutch and the Romance languages, lacks grammatical gender and adjectival agreement. Case marking has almost disappeared from the language and mainly survives in pronouns. The patterning of strong (e.g. speak/spoke/spoken) versus weak verbs (e.g. love/loved or kick/kicked) inherited from its Germanic origins has declined in importance in modern English, and the remnants of inflection (such as plural marking) have become more regular.

At the same time, the language has become more analytic, and has developed features such as modal verbs and word order as resources for conveying meaning. Auxiliary verbs mark constructions such as questions, negative polarity, the passive voice and progressive aspect.

Vocabulary

The English vocabulary has changed considerably over the centuries.

Like many languages deriving from Proto-Indo-European (PIE), many of the most common words in English can trace back their origin (through the Germanic branch) to PIE. Such words include the basic pronouns I, from Old English ic, (cf. German Ich, Gothic ik, Latin ego, Greek ego, Sanskrit aham), me (cf. German mich, mir, Gothic mik, mīs, Latin mē, Greek eme, Sanskrit mam), numbers (e.g. one, two, three, cf. Dutch een, twee, drie, Gothic ains, twai, threis (þreis), Latin ūnus, duo, trēs, Greek oinos "ace (on dice)", duo, treis), common family relationships such as mother, father, brother, sister etc. (cf. Dutch moeder, Greek meter, Latin mater, Sanskrit matṛ; mother), names of many animals (cf. German Maus, Dutch muis, Sanskrit mus, Greek mus, Latin mūs; mouse), and many common verbs (cf. Old High German knājan, Old Norse knā, Greek gignōmi, Latin gnoscere, Hittite kanes; to know).

Germanic words (generally words of Old English or to a lesser extent Old Norse origin) tend to be shorter than Latinate words, and are more common in ordinary speech, and include nearly all the basic pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions, modal verbs etc. that form the basis of English syntax and grammar. The shortness of the words is generally due to syncope in Middle English (e.g. OldEng hēafod > ModEng head, OldEng sāwol > ModEng soul) and to the loss of final syllables due to stress (e.g. OldEng gamen > ModEng game, OldEng ǣrende > ModEng errand), not because Germanic words are inherently shorter than Latinate words (the lengthier, higher-register words of Old English were largely forgotten following the subjugation of English after the Norman Conquest, and most of the Old English lexis devoted to literature, the arts, and sciences ceased to be productive when it fell into disuse. Only the shorter, more direct, words of Old English tended to pass into the Modern language.) Consequently, those words which tend to be regarded as elegant or educated in Modern English are usually Latinate. However, the excessive use of Latinate words is considered at times to be either pretentious or an attempt to obfuscate an issue. George Orwell's essay "Politics and the English Language", considered an important scrutinisation of the English language, is critical of this, as well as other perceived misuses of the language.

An English speaker is in many cases able to choose between Germanic and Latinate synonyms: come or arrive; sight or vision; freedom or liberty. In some cases, there is a choice between a Germanic derived word (oversee), a Latin derived word (supervise), and a French word derived from the same Latin word (survey); or even words derived from Norman French (e.g., warranty) and Parisian French (guarantee), and even choices involving multiple Germanic and Latinate sources are possible: sickness (Old English), ill (Old Norse), infirmity (French), affliction (Latin). Such synonyms harbor a variety of different meanings and nuances. Yet the ability to choose between multiple synonyms is not a consequence of French and Latin influence, as this same richness existed in English prior to the extensive borrowing of French and Latin terms. Old English was extremely resourceful in its ability to express synonyms and shades of meaning on its own, in many respects rivaling or exceeding that of Modern English (synonyms numbering in the thirties for certain concepts were not uncommon). Take for instance the various ways to express the word "astronomer" or "astrologer" in Old English: tunglere, tungolcræftiga, tungolwītega, tīdymbwlātend, tīdscēawere. In Modern English, however, the role of such synonyms has largely been replaced in favour of equivalents taken from Latin, French, and Greek. Familiarity with the etymology of groups of synonyms can give English speakers greater control over their linguistic register. See: List of Germanic and Latinate equivalents in English, Doublet (linguistics).

An exception to this and a peculiarity perhaps unique to a handful of languages, English included, is that the nouns for meats are commonly different from, and unrelated to, those for the animals from which they are produced, the animal commonly having a Germanic name and the meat having a French-derived one. Examples include: deer and venison; cow and beef; swine/pig and pork; and sheep/lamb and mutton. This is assumed to be a result of the aftermath of the Norman conquest of England, where an Anglo-Norman-speaking elite were the consumers of the meat, produced by lower classes, which happened to be largely Anglo-Saxon, though this same duality can also be seen in other languages like French, which did not undergo such linguistic upheaval (e.g. boeuf "beef" vs. vache "cow"). With the exception of beef and pork, the distinction today is gradually becoming less and less pronounced (venison is commonly referred to simply as deer meat, mutton is lamb, and chicken is both the animal and the meat over the more traditional term poultry. (Use of the term mutton, however, remains, especially when referring to the meat of an older sheep, distinct from lamb; and poultry remains when referring to the meat of birds and fowls in general. Use of the term swineflesh for pork, is also widespread, especially in religious contexts)

There are Latinate words that are used in everyday speech. These words no longer appear Latinate and oftentimes have no Germanic equivalents. For instance, the words mountain, valley, river, aunt, uncle, move, use, push and stay ("to remain") are Latinate. Likewise, the inverse can occur: acknowledge, meaningful, understanding, mindful, behaviour, forbearance, behoove, forestall, allay, rhyme, starvation, embodiment come from Anglo-Saxon, and allegiance, abandonment, debutant, feudalism, seizure, guarantee, disregard, wardrobe, disenfranchise, disarray, bandolier, bourgeoisie, debauchery, performance, furniture, gallantry are of Germanic origin, usually through the Germanic element in French, so it is oftentimes impossible to know the origin of a word based on its register.

English easily accepts technical terms into common usage and often imports new words and phrases. Examples of this phenomenon include contemporary words such as cookie, Internet and URL (technical terms), as well as genre, über, lingua franca and amigo (imported words/phrases from French, German, Italian, and Spanish, respectively). In addition, slang often provides new meanings for old words and phrases. In fact, this fluidity is so pronounced that a distinction often needs to be made between formal forms of English and contemporary usage.

Number of words in English

The General Explanations at the beginning of the Oxford English Dictionary states:

The current FAQ for the OED further states: }}

The vocabulary of English is undoubtedly vast, but assigning a specific number to its size is more a matter of definition than of calculation. Unlike other languages such as French (the Académie française), German (Rat für deutsche Rechtschreibung), Spanish (Real Academia Española) and Italian (Accademia della Crusca), there is no academy to define officially accepted words and spellings. Neologisms are coined regularly in medicine, science, technology and other fields, and new slang is constantly developed. Some of these new words enter wide usage; others remain restricted to small circles. Foreign words used in immigrant communities often make their way into wider English usage. Archaic, dialectal, and regional words might or might not be widely considered as "English".

The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition (OED2) includes over 600,000 definitions, following a rather inclusive policy:

}}

The editors of Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged (475,000 main headwords) in their preface, estimate the number to be much higher. It is estimated that about 25,000 words are added to the language each year.

The Global Language Monitor announced that the English language had crossed the 1,000,000-word threshold on 10 June 2009. The announcement was met with strong scepticism by linguists and lexicographers, though a number of non-specialist reports accepted the figure uncritically. However, in December 2010 a joint Harvard/Google study found the language to contain 1,022,000 words and was expanding at the rate of 8,500 words per year. The findings came from the computer analysis of 5,195,769 digitised books. The difference between the Google/Harvard estimate and that of the Global Language Monitor is about thirteen thousandth of one percent.

Comparisons of the vocabulary size of English to that of other languages are generally not taken very seriously by linguists and lexicographers. Besides the fact that dictionaries will vary in their policies for including and counting entries, what is meant by a given language and what counts as a word do not have simple definitions. Also, a definition of word that works for one language may not work well in another, with differences in morphology and orthography making cross-linguistic definitions and word-counting difficult, and potentially giving very different results. Linguist Geoffrey K. Pullum has gone so far as to compare concerns over vocabulary size (and the notion that a supposedly larger lexicon leads to "greater richness and precision") to an obsession with penis length.

Word origins

One of the consequences of the French influence is that the vocabulary of English is, to a certain extent, divided between those words that are Germanic (mostly West Germanic, with a smaller influence from the North Germanic branch) and those that are "Latinate" (derived directly from Latin, or through Norman French or other Romance languages). The situation is further compounded, as French, particularly Old French and Anglo-French, were also contributors in English of significant numbers of Germanic words, mostly from the Frankish element in French (see List of English Latinates of Germanic origin).

The majority (estimates range from roughly 50% to more than 80%) of the thousand most common English words are Germanic. However, the majority of more advanced words in subjects such as the sciences, philosophy and mathematics come from Latin or Greek, with Arabic also providing many words in astronomy, mathematics, and chemistry.

1st 1,000 97% 3% 0 0

+ Source of the most frequent 7,476 English words		1st 100	|	2nd 1,000	then on
Germanic	|	57%	39%	36%
Italic	|	36%	51%	51%
Hellenic	|	4%	4%	7%
Others	|	3%	6%	6%
Source:

Numerous sets of statistics have been proposed to demonstrate the proportionate origins of English vocabulary. None, as of yet, is considered definitive by most linguists.

A computerised survey of about 80,000 words in the old Shorter Oxford Dictionary (3rd ed.) was published in Ordered Profusion by Thomas Finkenstaedt and Dieter Wolff (1973) that estimated the origin of English words as follows:

Langue d'oïl, including French and Old Norman: 28.3%

Latin, including modern scientific and technical Latin: 28.24%

Germanic languages (including words directly inherited from Old English; does not include Germanic words coming from the Germanic element in French, Latin or other Romance languages): 25%

Greek: 5.32%

No etymology given: 4.03%

Derived from proper names: 3.28%

All other languages: less than 1%

A survey by Joseph M. Williams in Origins of the English Language of 10,000 words taken from several thousand business letters gave this set of statistics:

French (langue d'oïl): 41%

"Native" English: 33%

Latin: 15%

Old Norse: 2%

Dutch: 1%

Other: 10%

French origins

A large portion of English vocabulary is of French or Langues d'oïl origin, and was transmitted to English via the Anglo-Norman language spoken by the upper classes in England in the centuries following the Norman Conquest. Words of Norman-French origin include competition, mountain, art, table, publicity, police, role, routine, machine and force. As a result of the length of time they have been in use in English, these words have been anglicised to fit English rules of phonology, pronunciation and spelling.

Some French words were adopted during the 17th to 19th centuries, when French was the dominant language of Western international politics and trade. These words can normally be distinguished because they retain French rules for pronunciation and spelling, including diacritics, are often phrases rather than single words, and are sometimes written in italics. Examples include façade, table d'hôte and affaire de cœur. These words and phrases retain their French spelling and pronunciation because historically their French origin was emphasised to denote the speaker as educated or well-travelled at a time when education and travelling was still restricted to the middle and upper classes, and so their use implied a higher social status in the user. (See also: French phrases used by English speakers).

Old Norse origins

Many words of Old Norse origin have entered the English language, primarily from the Viking colonisation of eastern and northern England between 800–1000 CE during the Danelaw. These include common words such as anger, awe, bag, big, birth, blunder, both, cake, call, cast, cosy, cross, cut, die, dirt, drag, drown, egg, fellow, flat, flounder, gain, get, gift, give, guess, guest, gust, hug, husband, ill, kid, law, leg, lift, likely, link, loan, loose, low, mistake, odd, race (running), raise, root, rotten, same, scale, scare, score, seat, seem, sister, skill, skin, skirt, skull, sky, stain, steak, sway, take, though, thrive, Thursday, tight, till (until), trust, ugly, want, weak, window, wing, wrong, the pronoun they (and its forms), and even the verb are (the present plural form of to be) through a merger of Old English and Old Norse cognates. More recent Scandinavian imports include angstrom, fjord, geyser, kraken, litmus, nickel, ombudsman, saga, ski, slalom, smorgasbord, and tungsten.

Dutch and Low German origins

Many words describing the navy, types of ships, and other objects or activities on the water are of Dutch origin. Yacht, skipper, cruiser, flag, freight, furlough, breeze, hoist, iceberg, boom, duck ("fabric, cloth"), and maelstrom are examples. Other words pertain to art and daily life: easel, etch, slim, staple (Middle Dutch stapel "market"), slip (Middle Dutch slippen), landscape, cookie, curl, shock, aloof, boss, brawl (brallen "to boast"), smack (smakken "to hurl down"), shudder, scum, peg, coleslaw, waffle, dope (doop "dipping sauce"), slender (Old Dutch slinder), slight, gas, pump. Dutch has also contributed to English slang, e.g. spook, and the now obsolete snyder (tailor) and stiver (small coin).

Words from Low German include bluster, cower, dollar, drum, geek, grab, lazy, mate, monkey, mud, ogle, orlop, paltry, poll, poodle, prong, scurvy, smug, smuggle, trade.

Writing system

Since around the 9th century, English has been written in the Latin alphabet, which replaced Anglo-Saxon runes. The spelling system, or orthography, is multilayered, with elements of French, Latin and Greek spelling on top of the native Germanic system; it has grown to vary significantly from the phonology of the language. The spelling of words often diverges considerably from how they are spoken.

Though letters and sounds may not correspond in isolation, spelling rules that take into account syllable structure, phonetics, and accents are 75% or more reliable. Some phonics spelling advocates claim that English is more than 80% phonetic. However, English has fewer consistent relationships between sounds and letters than many other languages; for example, the letter sequence ough can be pronounced in 10 different ways. The consequence of this complex orthographic history is that reading can be challenging.

It takes longer for students to become completely fluent readers of English than of many other languages, including French, Greek, and Spanish. "English-speaking children take up to two years more to learn reading than do children in 12 other European countries."(Professor Philip H K Seymour, University of Dundee, 2001) "[dyslexia] is twice as prevalent among dyslexics in the United States (and France) as it is among Italian dyslexics. Again, this is seen to be because of Italian's 'transparent' orthography." (Eraldo Paulesu and 11 others. Science, 2001)

Basic consonant sound-letter correspondence

t, th (rarely) thyme, Thames

IPA	Alphabetic representation
	p
	b
	| th thing (African American, New York)
	d
	c (+ a, o, u, consonants), k, ck, ch, qu (rarely) conquer, kh (in foreign words)
	g, gh, gu (+ a, e, i), gue (final position)
	m
	n
	n (before g or k), ng
	f, ph, gh (final, infrequent) laugh, rough
	v
	th thick, think, through
	th that, this, the
	s, c (+ e, i, y), sc (+ e, i, y), ç often c (façade/facade)
	z, s (finally or occasionally medially), ss (rarely) possess, dessert, word-initial x xylophone
	sh, sch (some dialects) schedule (plus words of German origin), ti (before vowel) portion, ci/ce (before vowel) suspicion, ocean; si/ssi (before vowel) tension, mission; ch (esp. in words of French origin); rarely s/ss before u sugar, issue; chsi in fuchsia only
	medial si (before vowel) division, medial s (before "ur") pleasure, zh (in foreign words), z before u azure, g (in words of French origin) (+e, i, y) genre, j (in words of French origin) bijou
	kh, ch, h (in foreign words)
	h (syllable-initially, otherwise silent), j (in words of Spanish origin) jai alai
	ch, tch, t before u future, culture
	j, g (+ e, i, y), dg (+ e, i, consonant) badge, judg(e)ment
	r, wr (initial) wrangle
	y (initially or surrounded by vowels), j hallelujah
alveolar lateral approximant	l	l
	w
	wh (pronounced hw)

Written accents

Unlike most other Germanic languages, English has almost no diacritics except in foreign loanwords (like the acute accent in café), and in the uncommon use of a diaeresis mark (often in formal writing) to indicate that two vowels are pronounced separately, rather than as one sound (e.g. naïve, Zoë). Words such as décor, café, résumé/, entrée, fiancée and naïve are frequently spelled both with or without diacritics.

Some English words retain diacritics to distinguish them from others, such as animé, exposé, lamé, öre, pâté, piqué, and rosé, though these are sometimes also dropped (for example, résumé/, is often spelt resume in the United States). To clarify pronunciation, a small number of loanwords may employ a diacritic that does not appear in the original word, such as maté, from Spanish yerba mate, or Malé, the capital of the Maldives, following the French usage.

Formal written English

A version of the language almost universally agreed upon by educated English speakers around the world is called formal written English. It takes virtually the same form regardless of where it is written, in contrast to spoken English, which differs significantly between dialects, accents, and varieties of slang and of colloquial and regional expressions. Local variations in the formal written version of the language are quite limited, being restricted largely to minor spelling, lexical and grammatical differences between British, American, Canadian and Australian English.

Basic and simplified versions

To make English easier to read, there are some simplified versions of the language. One basic version is named Basic English, a constructed language with a small number of words created by Charles Kay Ogden and described in his book Basic English: A General Introduction with Rules and Grammar (1930). The language is based on a simplified version of English. Ogden said that it would take seven years to learn English, seven months for Esperanto, and seven weeks for Basic English. Thus, Basic English may be employed by companies that need to make complex books for international use, as well as by language schools that need to give people some knowledge of English in a short time.

Ogden did not include any words in Basic English that could be said with a combination of other words, and he worked to make the vocabulary suitable for speakers of any other language. He put his vocabulary selections through a large number of tests and adjustments. Ogden also simplified the grammar but tried to keep it normal for English users. Although it was not built into a program, similar simplifications were devised for various international uses.

Another version, Simplified English, exists, which is a controlled language originally developed for aerospace industry maintenance manuals. It offers a carefully limited and standardised subset of English. Simplified English has a lexicon of approved words and those words can only be used in certain ways. For example, the word close can be used in the phrase "Close the door" but not "do not go close to the landing gear".

See also

Changes to Old English vocabulary

English for Academic Purposes

English language in Europe

English language learning and teaching

Language Report

Lists of English words

Teaching English as a foreign language

The Adventure of English (film)

The Story of English

References

Bibliographic

Cercignani, Fausto, Shakespeare's Works and Elizabethan Pronunciation, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1981.

Kenyon, John Samuel and Knott, Thomas Albert, A Pronouncing Dictionary of American English, G & C Merriam Company, Springfield, Mass, USA,1953.

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External links

Accents of English from Around the World (University of Edinburgh) Hear and compare how the same 110 words are pronounced in 50 English accents from around the world – instantaneous playback online

;Dictionaries

Collection of English bilingual dictionaries

dict.org

Dictionary of American Regional English

English language word roots, prefixes and suffixes (affixes) dictionary

Oxford's online dictionary

Merriam-Webster's online dictionary

Macquarie Dictionary Online

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Background	solo_singer
Name	Jackie Evancho
Birth name	Jacqueline Marie Evancho
Birth date	April 09, 2000
Origin	Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Voice type	Mezzo-soprano
Occupation	Singer
Instrument	Vocals, violin, piano
Label	SYCO (2010-present)Columbia (2010–present)
Years active	2009–present
Genre	Classical crossover
Website	}}

Jacqueline Marie "Jackie" Evancho ( ; born April 9, 2000) is an American singer. She gained popularity after performing in the fifth season of the America's Got Talent competition at the age of 10, and finishing in second place. With the subsequent release of her O Holy Night EP, she became the best-selling debut artist of 2010, and she went on the following year to contend for the top position on American album charts with her Sony Music debut, entitled "Dream With Me". In addition to performing vocal music, Evancho plays the violin and piano, and writes song lyrics. Evancho impressed musician David Foster with her large outpouring of original lyrics; and she co-wrote the title track on "Dream With Me", a record that Foster produced.

Early life

Evancho was born to Michael and Lisa Evancho. She has an older brother Jacob, a younger brother Zachary, and a younger sister Rachel. She resides in Richland Township, a suburb of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Evancho started singing when she first watched the musical The Phantom of the Opera on DVD. Her mother heard her singing songs from the musical and allowed her to enter the 2008 Kean Idol, a local talent contest. She sang "Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again", finishing, on the cusp of her 8th birthday, as first runner-up; the winner was 20 years old. Eventually Evancho participated in other talent contests and started a YouTube channel. She began taking vocal lessons for a short period of time when she was 8, in June 2008, after her success in the 2008 Kean Idol contest. She was also a member of the Children's Festival Chorus of Pittsburgh during its 2008–09 season.

Evancho competed in Las Vegas in the 15th annual U.S.A. World Showcase Talent Competition in early 2009, in which the winner received $100,000 and the opportunity to create a demo CD. She was invited to perform at the U.S. Open Tennis Championships in New York City, but due to scheduling conflicts with America's Got Talent, she could not attend.

Career

Prelude to a Dream

In November 2009, Evancho released her independent debut album called Prelude to a Dream. The album featured mainly covers of songs such as Andrea Bocelli's "Con te partirò" and "The Prayer", Josh Groban's "To Where You Are", Martina McBride's "Concrete Angel", and a rendition of "Amazing Grace" among others. The album debuted on The Billboard 200 at #121 on the chart dated August 28, 2010. It also debuted at #2 on iTunes and Billboard Classical Albums Chart. Prelude to a Dream'' is no longer marketed as of September 2010. Her father has given the following reason for the withdrawal:

Because the CD was recorded about a year and [a] half ago and her current voice no longer sounds like what it did then [due to vocal maturity...], we decided to withdraw Prelude to a Dream and will be concentrating on new material as part of her progress.

It has become a collector's item; copies of the CD have received final winning bids of over $1,500 on eBay auctions.

America's Got Talent

Evancho was accepted as a contestant on the fifth season of the America's Got Talent TV show by placing first in a YouTube competition sponsored by the television show. On August 10, 2010, Evancho performed "O mio babbino caro" by Giacomo Puccini. The aria is also on her debut album. She received a standing ovation after her performance, and she was awarded a trip to Universal Studios Florida for receiving the most fan votes from the submissions to the show from YouTube. However, after Evancho's performance, there were online accusations that her performance had been lip-synched. One judge, Howie Mandel, requested that Evancho sing a random voice exercise on the next evening's live show as proof that it was her voice that was heard. On that episode, it was also revealed that she had advanced to the semifinal round.

Her semifinal performance was Andrea Bocelli and Sarah Brightman's "Time To Say Goodbye". She advanced to the Top 10, where on September 7, 2010, she performed "Pie Jesu" from Andrew Lloyd Webber's Requiem and was voted into the Final 4.

Her final competition performance was her rendition of Charles Gounod's "Ave Maria" on September 14. On September 15, the season finale, Evancho performed "Time To Say Goodbye" with Sarah Brightman. At the end of the episode, Evancho was announced the runner-up, finishing second to Michael Grimm. Evancho performed in 10 of the 25 cities scheduled for the America's Got Talent road show.

O Holy Night

Evancho's first release on a major record label was a Columbia Records EP entitled O Holy Night. It was released on November 16, 2010 and reached rank #1 on Amazon's bestsellers in music during pre-orders on October 19, 2010. It was ranked #3 for the entire year 2010 on Amazon. "O Holy Night" debuted at #2 on the Billboard 200, making her the top-selling debut artist for 2010, and the youngest female solo artist to debut in the top 10. Evancho also debuted at #1 on Billboard's Classical Albums Chart. The album has sold 381,000 copies in its first two weeks. 239,000 copies were sold in its first week and 142,000 in its second week. On December 10, 2010, the album was certified platinum by the RIAA with an excess of a million copies in the US, making her the youngest solo artist to go platinum. In Canada, it debuted at #1 on the Canadian Classical Albums Chart.

Evancho's first stop in promoting the album was on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno on September 23, 2010, where she gave her first late-night interview with Jay Leno. She appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show on October 19, 2010 (the day of the EP's release) along with singers Susan Boyle and Debby Boone. During this appearance, she was asked with whom she wanted to perform a duet. She named Josh Groban, Charlotte Church, and Andrea Bocelli among the artists that she would like to collaborate with in the future, later adding Lady Gaga, also saying that writing is her favorite subject. She sang "Pie Jesu" during the show. The episode also showed tape that was shot by Oprah's crew at Evancho's home and school. Evancho performed on The Today Show on November 9, 2010 which also featured a brief interview.

Other performances

Evancho performed in the My Macy's Holiday Parade presented by WPXI in Pittsburgh on November 27. Evancho appeared in an episode of the final season of the Wizards of Waverly Place. Her first music video is also being created.

She appeared on The View on November 15, 2010, and at about that time was ranked #1 on the British site Classical-Crossover.co.uk. "She is just truly blessed with a voice that's phenomenal", said composer and conductor Tim Janis, who invited Evancho to perform in his American Christmas Carol show on 2 December 2010 at Carnegie Hall in New York City. She would have been the youngest female vocal soloist ever to have performed there, but her parents withdrew her from the appearance some weeks prior to the date.

On November 30, 2010, Evancho sang "Silent Night" with Katherine Jenkins on NBC's Christmas Tree Lighting Special, "Christmas in Rockefeller Center".

On December 9, 2010, Evancho performed at the National Christmas Tree Lighting event in Washington, D.C., singing "O Holy Night".

She performed "Pie Jesu" on the 27th annual Disney Parks Christmas Day Parade which aired on ABC television December 25, 2010.

On January 1, 2011, Evancho performed the American national anthem at the NHL Winter Classic at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh, while Steven Page performed the Canadian national anthem.

On February, 18, 2011, Evancho performed with the Houston Chamber Choir and on March 12, 2011 at the 2011 Festival of the Arts Boca along with the young stars of the Metropolitan Opera. Evancho performed during Muhammad Ali's "Celebrity Fight Night" charity event in Phoenix on March 19, 2011.

On March 29, 2011, it was officially announced that Evancho's second full-length feature album, Dream With Me, would be released on June 14, 2011.

On June 4, 2011, she performed at the finale of Britain's Got Talent.

Evancho has also commenced a series of performances with symphony orchestras, beginning with the Sun Valley Orchestra on July 31, followed by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra on August 5, and the Ravinia Festival Orchestra on August 7. Other planned performances include the Omaha Symphony Orchestra on August 26, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra on August 31, The Pittsburgh Opera on October 16, and a performance at Avery Fisher Hall in New York on November 7. Meantime she has produced a DVD entitled Dream With Me In Concert, from her performance at the Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota.

Critical reception

Christopher Hahn, General Director of the Pittsburgh Opera said Evancho's performance of "O mio babbino caro" was "spellbinding". "It's very unusual for a young child to have a voice that sounded so rich and developed." "I thought she was just lovely, sweetly compelling." "She is compelling," said Hahn. "It is quite unusual to hear a young girl with that level of warmth and roundness." Hahn called Evancho's performance of Pie Jesu strong, with seamless delivery. "Her phrasing was lovely, which she needed for that piece."

Composer Tim Janis said "[Jackie's] voice is so pure and natural, there's no flaw in it. People say 'I can hear her potential coming,' but no, it's here, it's now." "She is just truly blessed with a voice that's phenomenal." America's Got Talent judge Piers Morgan said that Evancho has more talent than any act he has seen after witnessing her version of "Ave Maria": "I have never seen an act, on this show or the British show or any of the other talent shows in the world, with more potential than Jackie Evancho. That was perfection. Perfection!"

Claudia Benack, Assistant Professor of Musical Theater at Carnegie Mellon University said that "[Jackie] has an unusually adult feel for the repertoire...I think she's very good."

Etta Cox, a jazz singer and instructor from Pittsburgh, said: "Her voice just doesn't fit her body. I've never heard a voice like that in a 10-year-old, and I've been teaching voice for many years. The maturity of her voice is incredible for someone her age."

Discography

;Studio Albums

2009: Prelude to a Dream

2011: Dream With Me

;EPs

2010: O Holy Night

;DVD

2011: Dream With Me In Concert

References

External links

Jackie Evancho at Classical Crossover UK

Category:2000 births Category:21st-century American people Category:American child singers Category:American female singers Category:America's Got Talent contestants Category:American sopranos Category:Columbia Records artists Category:Living people Category:Musicians from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Category:Opera crossover singers Category:Participants in American reality television series Category:People from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

bg:Джаки Иванко de:Jackie Evancho es:Jackie Evancho fr:Jackie Evancho it:Jackie Evancho pt:Jackie Evancho ru:Иванко, Джеки sv:Jackie Evancho

birth date	August 07, 1975
birth place	Benoni, Transvaal Province, South Africa
years active	1995–present
occupation	Actress, producer, director, fashion model
website	Official website
partner	Stuart Townsend (2000–2010; separated) }}

Charlize Theron (; born 7 August 1975) is a South African actress, film producer and former fashion model.

She rose to fame in the late 1990s following her roles in 2 Days in the Valley, Mighty Joe Young, The Devil's Advocate and The Cider House Rules. She received critical acclaim and an Academy Award for her portrayal of serial killer Aileen Wuornos in the film Monster, for which she became the first South African to win an Academy Award in a major acting category. She received another Academy Award nomination for her performance in North Country.

Early life

Theron was born in Benoni, in the then Transvaal Province of South Africa, the only child of Gerda Jacoba Aletta (née Maritz; born 27 January 1953) and Charles Jacobus Theron (27 November 1947 – 21 June 1991). Her mother is of German descent and her father was of Occitan and Dutch ancestry; Theron is descended from early Huguenot settlers, and Boer War figure Daniel Theron was her great-great uncle. "Theron" is an Occitan surname (originally spelled Théron) pronounced in Afrikaans as "Tronn", although she has said that the way it is pronounced in South Africa is "Thrown". She changed the pronunciation when she moved to the U.S.

Although fluent in English, her first language is Afrikaans. She grew up on her parents' farm in Benoni, near Johannesburg. Her father died on 21 June 1991, after he was shot by Theron's mother. Theron's father, who suffered from alcoholism, physically attacked her mother and threatened both women while being drunk. The shooting was legally adjudged to have been self-defence and her mother faced no charges.

Theron attended Putfontein Primary School (Laerskool Putfontein). At the age of thirteen, Theron was sent to boarding school and began her studies at the National School of the Arts in Johannesburg.

Career

At the age of sixteen, Theron travelled to Milan on a one-year modelling contract, after winning a local competition. She went to New York with Pauline's Model Management. She decided to remain after her contract ended, attending the Joffrey Ballet School, where she trained as a ballet dancer. A knee injury closed this career path when Theron was 19.

Unable to dance, Theron flew to Los Angeles on a one-way ticket her mother bought her. During her early months there, she went to a bank to cash a cheque her mother had sent her to help with the rent. When the teller refused to cash it, Theron immediately started a shouting match with her. Afterwards, a talent agent in line behind her handed her his business card and subsequently introduced her to some casting agents and also an acting school. She later fired him as her manager after he kept sending her scripts for films similar to Showgirls and Species. After several months in the city, she was cast in her first film part, a non-speaking role in the direct-to-video film Children of the Corn III (1995). Her fist speaking role was a supporting but significant part in 2 Days in the Valley. Larger roles in widely released Hollywood films followed, and her career expanded in the late 1990s with box office successes like The Devil's Advocate (1997), Mighty Joe Young (1998), and The Cider House Rules (1999). She was on the cover of the January 1999 issue of Vanity Fair as the "White Hot Venus".

After appearing in a few notable films, Theron starred as the serial killer Aileen Wuornos in Monster (2003). Film critic Roger Ebert called it "one of the greatest performances in the history of the cinema". For this role, Theron won the Academy Award for Best Actress at the 76th Academy Awards in February 2004, as well as the SAG Award and the Golden Globe Award. She is the first South African to win an Oscar for Best Actress. The Oscar win pushed her to The Hollywood Reporter's 2006 list of highest-paid actresses in Hollywood; earning $10,000,000 for both her subsequent films, North Country and Æon Flux, she ranked seventh, behind Halle Berry, Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore, Renée Zellweger, Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman.

On 30 September 2005, Theron received her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In the same year, she starred in the financially unsuccessful science fiction thriller Æon Flux.

Theron received Best Actress Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations for her lead performance in the drama North Country. Ms. magazine also honoured her for this performance with a feature article in its Fall 2005 issue. She also received the 2005 Spike Video Game Award for Best Performance by a Human Female for her voiceover work in the Æon Flux video game.

In 2005 Theron portrayed Rita, Michael Bluth's (Jason Bateman) love interest, on the third season of Fox's critically acclaimed television series Arrested Development. She also received Golden Globe and Emmy nominations for her role of Britt Ekland in the 2004 HBO movie The Life and Death of Peter Sellers.

In 2008 Theron was named the Hasty Pudding Theatricals Woman of the Year. That year she also starred with Will Smith in Hancock, a film that grossed $227.9M in the U.S. and $396.4M internationally, and in late 2008 she was asked to be a UN Messenger of Peace by the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon.

In October 2009, Theron was cast to star in a sequel to the Mad Max films, titled Mad Max: Road Fury, which will commence filming at Broken Hill in New South Wales, Australia in late 2010.

On 4 December 2009, Theron co-presented the draw for the 2010 FIFA World Cup in Cape Town, South Africa, accompanied by several other celebrities of South African origin. During rehearsals she drew an Ireland ball instead of France as a joke at the expense of FIFA, referring to Thierry Henry's handball controversy in the play off match between France and Ireland. The stunt alarmed FIFA enough for it to fear she might do it again in front of a live global audience.

As reported on Piers Morgan Tonight on 2 July 2011, Theron's movies have earned a combine total of 800 Million dollars.

Theron has been cast in the role of The Wicked Queen in Snow White and the Huntsman.

Personal life

Theron lives in the Los Angeles area. She separated from her partner of almost a decade, Irish actor Stuart Townsend (with whom she starred in the 2004 film Head in the Clouds as well as in the 2002 film Trapped), in January 2010.

Theron became a naturalised citizen of the United States in May 2007.

She signed with William Morris Endeavour in 2009 and is represented by CEO Ari Emanuel.

Health concerns

While filming Æon Flux in Berlin, Germany, Theron suffered a herniated disc in her neck, which occurred as a result of her suffering a fall while filming a series of back handsprings. This required her to wear a neck collar for a month.

In July 2009 Theron was diagnosed with a serious stomach virus, thought to be contracted while travelling outside the United States. She was hospitalised at Cedars-Sinai Hospital and she finished convalescing in her own home.

Promotional deals

Having signed a deal with John Galliano in 2004, Theron replaced Estonian model Tiiu Kuik as the spokeswoman in the J'ADORE advertisements by Christian Dior. Galliano has reputedly cited her as a muse and has been creating couture dresses for her to wear to formal red carpet events such as the Academy Awards and the Golden Globe Awards.

From October 2005 to December 2006 Theron earned $3,000,000 for the use of her image in a worldwide print media advertising campaign for Raymond Weil watches. In February 2006, she and her loan-out corporation were sued by Weil for breach of contract. The lawsuit was settled on 4 November 2008.

Activism

Theron is involved in women's rights organisations, and has marched in pro-choice rallies.

Theron also is a supporter of animal rights and active member of PETA. She appeared in a PETA ad for their anti-fur campaign. She is a supporter of same-sex marriage and attended a march to support that in Fresno, California, on 30 May 2009.

In July 2009 it was announced that Theron's Africa Outreach Project (CTAOP) would form a coalition with LAFC Soccer Club to give soccer fields to rural areas in South Africa. LAFC Chelsea, one of the United States's most successful and prominent youth soccer clubs, made a three-year commitment to help build a community-wide soccer programme for the schools in the Umkhanyakude District. This help includes uniforms, cleats, balls and equipment, along with professional training for local coaches, referees and administrators. The soccer league training will also include life-saving health education administered through a CTAOP-funded mobile health program. With the 2010 FIFA World Cup on African soil for the very first time, CTAOP wants to put a spotlight on the urgent need to provide sustainable health, education and recreational resources to remote areas where HIV/AIDS rates are unacceptably high.

Don Sheppards, president of LAFC Chelsea, said:

In December 2009, CTAOP and TOMS Shoes partnered to create a limited edition unisex shoe. The shoe was made from vegan-materials and was inspired by the African Baobab tree, whose silhouette was embroidered on blue and orange canvas. 10,000 pairs were given to destitute children, and a portion of the proceeds went direcly to CTAOP.

Filmography

+ Films
! Year	! Title	! Role	Notes
1995	Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest	Young Woman	Uncredited
1996	2 Days in the Valley	Helga Svelgen
1996	That Thing You Do!	Tina Powers
1997	Hollywood Confidential	Sally	TV film
1997		Billie Tyler
1997		Mary Ann Lomax
1998		Supermodel
1998		Jill Young	Nominated—Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress
1999		Jillian Armacost
1999		Candy Kendall
2000	Reindeer Games	Ashley Mercer
2000		Erica Stoltz
2000		Adele Invergordon
2000	Men of Honor	Gwen Sunday
2001		Sara Deever
2001		Laura Kensington
2001	15 Minutes	Rose Heam
2002		Karen Jennings
2002	Waking Up in Reno	Candy Kirkendall
2003		Stella Bridger
2003		Aileen Wuornos	Academy Award for Best ActressBroadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best ActressCentral Ohio Film Critics Association Award for Best ActressChicago Film Critics Association Award for Best ActressDallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association Award for Best ActressGolden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture DramaIndependent Spirit Award for Best First FeatureIndependent Spirit Award for Best Lead FemaleLas Vegas Film Critics Society Award for Best ActressNational Board of Review Award for Best Breakthrough Performance by an ActressNational Society of Film Critics Award for Best ActressSan Francisco Film Critics Circle Award for Best ActressSatellite Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture DramaScreen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role - Motion PictureSilver Bear for Best Actress (tied with Catalina Sandino Moreno for Maria full of Grace)Vancouver Film Critics Circle Award for Best ActressNominated—BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading RoleNominated—London Film Critics Circle Award for Best ActressNominated—Irish Film & Television Award for Best International Actress
2004		Britt Ekland	Nominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actress In A Mini-series or Motion Picture Made for TelevisionNominated—Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress - Miniseries or a MovieNominated—Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie
2004	Head in the Clouds	Gilda Bessé
2005		Josey Aimes	Women Film Critics Circle
2005		[[Æon Flux
2007	In the Valley of Elah	Det. Emily Sanders
2008		Joleen	Also producer
2008		Mary Embrey	Nominated—Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress
2008	Battle in Seattle	Ella	Stuart Townsend directing
2009		Sylvia	Nominated—Saturn Award for Best Actress
2009		Wife
2009		Narrator
2011		Mavis Gary	Post-production
2012		The Queen	Filming
2012		Meredith Vickers	Filming

+ Television
! Year	! Title	! Role	Notes
2005		Rita	5 episodes
2006	Robot Chicken	Daniel's Mom / Mother / Waitress	1 episode

+ Music Videos
! Year	! Title	! Role	Notes
2010		Mysterious and dangerous rescuer	Song by Brandon Flowers

References

External links

Charlize Theron at AskMen

Charlize Africa Outreach Project (CTAOP)

Category:1975 births Category:Afrikaner people Category:American activists Category:American film actors Category:American people of South African descent Category:Article Feedback Pilot Category:Best Actress Academy Award winners Category:Best Drama Actress Golden Globe (film) winners Category:GLAAD Media Awards winners Category:Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead winners Category:Living people Category:Naturalized citizens of the United States Category:Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role Screen Actors Guild Award winners Category:People from Benoni Category:South African emigrants to the United States Category:South African female models Category:South African film actors Category:South African people of Dutch descent Category:South African people of German descent Category:South African people of Huguenot descent Category:United Nations Messengers of Peace Category:White South African people

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