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This article is written in British English, which has its own spelling conventions (colour, travelled, centre, defence, artefact, analyse) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

English language has been listed as one of the Language and literature good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.

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September 21, 2019	Good article reassessment	Kept
This article was on the Article Collaboration and Improvement Drive for the week of November 30, 2019.
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This article has been viewed enough times in a single year to make it into the Top 50 Report annual list. This happened in 2010, when it received 9,183,400 views.

There is a request, submitted by Sdkb, for an audio version of this article to be created. For further information, see WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia.

The rationale behind the request is: "Subject is of particular interest to English language-learners, many of whom particularly benefit from spoken articles. Note: barnstar offered as reward".

Source updates for vocab section

The source that is used to confirm the number of English words is described as a 1989 Oxford English Dictionary, and links to an archived page. This needs to be updated. Also, I think that the English vocabulary's famous designation as the largest in the world should be addressed here. Norabur (talk) 02:39, 30 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Although I've heard of this designation in pop culture, do we have an actual credible source/study that supports the claim? Wolfdog (talk) 16:38, 5 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-protected edit request on 13 May 2024

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Change "United States of America" to "United States" 4.39.220.106 (talk) 18:13, 13 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Done _signed,Willondon (talk) 18:19, 13 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

British English

No mention of MLE or estruary English? MLE in particular is spreading to many cities in England. Definitely worth a mention. Bigbotnot2 (talk) 20:28, 14 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Questionable examples of Norse influence

"Other core Norse loanwords include "give", "get", "sky", "skirt", "egg", and "cake", typically displacing a native Anglo-Saxon equivalent."

How is "give" a Norse loanword, when it is common all over the West Germanic languages? (Dutch and Low German "geven", High German "geben" etc.) "skirt" (with a shifted meaning) can also be found in German "Schürze", probably stemming from Middle Low German schörte, from Old Saxon skurtia!

"cake" is "Kuchen" in German.

Granted, some originally used West Germanic words might have been given up and later re-introduced via Norse words of the same etymology...94.219.14.131 (talk) 02:41, 14 July 2024 (UTC).[reply]

Pretty easily:

skirt and shirt are cognate doublets, but are of Norse and Anglo-Saxon origin respectively.
give displaced its Anglo-Saxon doublet, which fell out of use as yiven during the Middle English period

And so on. Remsense诉 02:53, 14 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

External link

Will the following link be accepted: Free English Grammar and Vocabulary Lessons? תיל"ם (talk) 04:40, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This is not appropriate to include. This article's main goal is describing English and explaining characteristics about it, not teaching the language. The external links currently on the article are for giving more information describing English that cannot be included in the text of the article (namely, archives of sound recordings). IndigoManedWolf (talk) 05:31, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Inconsistent figures

The lead section mentions >2 billion total speakers, whereas the infobox states that there are less than 1.5 billion. Sure, there are countless organizations publishing figures, each with their own way of estimating and different definitions of someone being able to speak English. However, I think the figures presented in the lead section and infobox should at least be the same, perhaps - if necessary - with a note or link to a subsection in which it is explained why there are such large ranges in estimates. Maxeto0910 (talk) 23:20, 16 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

While the scholars with the 2 billion figure are recognizable to me, it's clear they were not really rigorous in the journal cited. I've switched the lead figure to Ethnologue. Remsense ‥ 论 00:49, 17 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Instrumental case

The reference to the instrumental case being lost in the Middle English period is surely wrong. This case was largely lost already in Old English. Does the author mean the dative? 86.190.145.222 (talk) 20:14, 30 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]