From the history of the English language

Genetically, English belongs to the Germanic or Teutonic group of languages, which is one of the twelve groups of the Indo-European (IE) linguistic family. Most of the area of Europe and large parts of other continents are occupied today by the IE languages, Germanic being one of their major groups.

The Germanic languages in the world are as follows:

English - in Great Britain, Ireland, the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the South African Republic, and many other former British colonies and dominions; German - in Germany, Austria, Luxem­burg, Liechtenstein, part of Switzerland; Ne­therlandish - the Netherlands and Flanders (Belgium) (known also as Dutch and Flemish respectively); Afrikaans - in the South African Republic; Danish - in Denmark; Swedish - in Sweden and Finland; Norwegian - in Norway; Icelandic - in Iceland; Frisian - in some regions of the Netherlands and Germany, Faeroese - in the Faeroe Islands.

It is difficult to estimate the number of people speaking Germanic languages, especially on account of English, which in many countries is one of two languages in a bilingual community, e.g. in Canada. The estimates for English range from 250 to 300 million people who have it as their mother tongue. The total number of people speaking Germanic languages approaches 440 million. To this rough estimate and indefinite number of bilingual people in over 50 countries where English is used as an official language could be added.

From the British Isles English spread all over the world, but English has not always been the language of the inhabitants of those islands. When the Romans colonized England in the 1^st century of our era, the country was inhabited by Celtic tribes, and until the 5^th century only Celtic languages were spoken by the people of Britain.

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1. Group of languages does English belong to?

2. What other languages belong to this group?

3. How many people Germanic languages speak?

4. What you know from the history of the English language?

5. When Romans colonized England?

6. Who colonized England in the 1^st century of our era?

7. What Celtic tribes language spoke?

8. Where English spread from the British Isles?

9. Has been English always the language of those islands?

10. Were Celtic languages spoken by the people of Britain until the 5^th century?