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The inhabitants of Britain previously spoke a Celtic language. Angles, Saxons and Jutes crossed the North Sea from what is the present day Denmark and northern Germany.

The history of the language can be traced back to the arrival of three Germanic tribes to the British Isles during the 5th Century AD. Most international tourism, aviation and diplomacy is conducted in English. Over 70% of all post / mail is written and addressed in English. Two thirds of all scientific papers are written in English. Half of all business deals are conducted in English. Mandarin (Chinese) is spoken by more people, but English is now the most widespread of the world's languages. Speakers of languages like French, Spanish and Arabic may disagree, but English is on its way to becoming the world's unofficial international language. This compares to 27 for French, 20 for Spanish and 17 for Arabic.

United States of America and its dependencies.

South Africa (with Afrikaans, Xhosa and Zulu).

Singapore (with Malay, Mandarin and Tamil).

Majority English speaking populations are shown in bold. English plays a part in the cultural, political or economic life of the following countries. It is listed as the official or co-official language of over 45 countries and is spoken extensively in other countries where it has no official status. It is the language of science, aviation, computing, diplomacy, and It is estimated that there are 300 million native speakers and 300 million who use English as a second language and a further 100 million use it as a foreign language. The second most spoken language in the world.