Around 1.35 billion people speak English globally, making it one of the most spoken languages worldwide as of 2021.

English was first spoken in early medieval England, and has eventually become the leading language of international discourse in the 21st century.

It belongs to the West Germanic group of the Indo-European language family, along with German, Frisian and Dutch (Netherlandic, Flemish).

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Five interesting facts about the English language:

1. There are hundreds of new words added to the English language every year.

2. The sentence “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog” uses all 26 letters of the English alphabet.

3. More people in the world have learned English as a second language than there are native English speakers.

4. The first English dictionary was written in 1755.

5. Shakespeare added over 1,000 words to the English language.

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