Claim: People in New Zealand speak the English language.

English -LSB- ˈɪŋɡlɪʃ -RSB- is a West Germanic language that was first spoken in early medieval England and is now the global lingua franca . Named after the Angles , one of the Germanic tribes that migrated to England , it ultimately derives its name from the Anglia -LRB- Angeln -RRB- peninsula in the Baltic Sea . It is closely related to the Frisian languages , but its vocabulary has been significantly influenced by other Germanic languages , as well as by Latin and Romance languages , particularly French .   English is either the official language or one of the official languages in almost 60 sovereign states . It is the most commonly spoken language in the United Kingdom , the United States , Canada , Australia , Ireland , and New Zealand , and is widely spoken in some areas of the Caribbean , Africa , and South Asia . It is the third most common native language in the world , after Mandarin and Spanish . It is the most widely learned second language and an official language of the United Nations , of the European Union , and of many other world and regional international organisations . It is the most widely spoken Germanic language , accounting for at least 70 % of speakers of this Indo-European branch .   English has developed over the course of more than 1,400 years . The earliest forms of English , a set of Anglo-Frisian dialects brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the fifth century , are called Old English . Middle English began in the late 11th century with the Norman conquest of England , and was a period in which the language was influenced by French . Early Modern English began in the late 15th century with the introduction of the printing press to London and the King James Bible , and the start of the Great Vowel Shift . Through the worldwide influence of the British Empire , modern English spread around the world from the 17th to mid-20th centuries . Through all types of printed and electronic media , as well as the emergence of the United States as a global superpower , English has become the leading language of international discourse and the lingua franca in many regions and in professional contexts such as science , navigation , and law .   Modern English grammar is the result of a gradual change from a typical Indo-European dependent marking pattern with a rich inflectional morphology and relatively free word order , to a mostly analytic pattern with little inflection , a fairly fixed SVO word order and a complex syntax . Modern English relies more on auxiliary verbs and word order for the expression of complex tenses , aspect and mood , as well as passive constructions , interrogatives and some negation . Despite noticeable variation among the accents and dialects of English used in different countries and regions -- in terms of phonetics and phonology , and sometimes also vocabulary , grammar and spelling -- English-speakers from around the world are able to communicate with one another with relative ease .