continued from page from Latin ….

continued from page

from Latin and Norman French, there are more than half a million words in the Oxford English Dictionary, whereas German has about 185,000 words and French not even 100,000.

The co-authors of the delightful book “The Story of English” note that the English language didn’t exist when Julius Caesar invaded Britain a couple of millennia ago. Then, 500 years later it was spoken by as many people as speak Cherokee today. By Shakespeare’s time in the 16th century, several million Englishmen spoke it, and, a couple of hundred years after that, it had exploded around the globe.

Today, about 1.5 billion people speak English. Only about 400 million of those speak it as their first language. It is the language of business, entertainment and the internet. There are more English speakers in India than the U.K. and roughly as many English speakers in Nigeria as in Britain.

No language has ever been as ubiquitous, and the U.S. government is now giving it its official due.

Rich Lowry is editor of the National Review.

Synd., Inc.