Definition of English: English is a language of Indo-European Germanic language family, which consists of 26 letters. English letters come from Latin letters, Latin letters come from Greek letters, and Greek letters evolved from Phoenician letters. English is the official language designated internationally (as the mother tongue), the most widely used first language in the world, and the official language of the European Union, many international organizations and Commonwealth countries. The number of native speakers of English ranks third in the world, second only to Chinese and Spanish.
History of English development:
1, Old English Period (449-1100): In 597, a priest named Augustine came to England from Rome to preach. Roman culture was introduced into England with Christianity. At the same time, some Latin words entered English.
2. Middle English period (A.D. 1 100 to 1500): During the Middle English period, English experienced drastic changes. Most of the suffix changes disappear, and the nature of nouns also disappears. Word order, function words and intonation become the main means to express sentence relations. If Old English is a typical comprehensive language like other Germanic languages, by the end of Middle English, English has gradually become an analytical language. And this trend has been going on.
3. Modern English (A.D. 1500-present): The Renaissance began in Italy in the14th century and had a great influence on Britain in the two centuries after the16th century. During this period, the study of ancient Greek and Roman culture was emphasized to counter the feudal culture in the Middle Ages. Therefore, many foreign words, mainly Latin and Greek, have been introduced into English and become the basic components of English written language and terminology. At the same time, it also provides a lot of synonyms for English.