English is one of the most widely used languages in the world. Recent estimates suggest that over 337 million people speak English as their first language, with possibly some 350 million speaking it as a second language. America has the largest number of English speakers - over 226 million speak the language as a mother tongue. English is an official language in India, alongside Hindi, and some 3,000 English newspapers are published throughout the country. English is also the favoured language of the world’s major airlines and international commerce. Over 80 per cent of the world’s electronically stored information is in English and two-thirds of the world’s scientists read in English. English is an official language, or has a special status in over 75 of the world’s territories.

If the rest of the world isn’t talking English, they’re borrowing English words to add to their own language: the Japanese go on a ‘pikunikku’ (picnic), Italians program their computers with ‘il software’, Germans talk about ‘ein Image Problem’ and ‘das Cashflow’ and Czechs say ‘ahoy!’ for ‘hello’ - a greeting traditionally used by English sailors, which is interesting as there’s no sea in the Czech Republic!

True cockneys traditionally come from a very small part of London.
In fact, only those born within the sound of Bow Bells, which ring out from the church of St Mary-le-Bow, Cheapside in the City of London, could by tradition consider themselves ‘cockneys’. In reality the cockney heartland lies in the East End of London.
Like many other small communities, cockneys had a large number of words and phrases which had special meanings for them, but they took this to extremes by inventing a whole new dialect - ‘rhyming slang’ - which has been in use since the mid 19th century. Rhyming slang uses a phrase that rhymes with a word, instead of the word itself - thus ‘stairs’ becomes ‘apples and pairs’, ‘phone’ becomes ‘dog and bone’ and ‘word’ becomes ‘dicky bird’! To add to the confusion for the uninitiated, the rhyming part of the word is often dropped: thus ‘daisies’ are ‘boots’ (from ‘daisy roots’).

Some people complain that rhyming slang is simply spoken to give the cockney an unfair advantage over strangers - the wily cockney spots an attentive or enquiring stranger and lapses into rhyming slang so that he or she can’t be understood! However, numerous colloquial expressions derive from rhyming slang, and have even been heard in use in the House of Commons, such as ‘let’s get down to brass tacks’ means ‘lets talk facts’!

Britain’s Afro-Caribbean population does not have its own language, although many second and even third-generation West Indians speak a dialect of Standard English described as Creole, or Jamaican Creole (patois).

Britain’s Asian population speaks a variety of languages, often using different languages for writing and speaking. The national languages of India and Pakistan are Hindi and Urdu. Northern Indian languages are also widely used in Britain - Punjabi, Gujarati and Bengali. These three languages have a common derivation in Sanskrit, the classical language of ancient India, but are not necessarily mutually intelligible. There are more Asian speakers of Punjabi in Britain than any other language, followed by speakers of Urdu, Bengali and Gujarati.

Two of the main Chinese dialects spoken by the Chinese in Britain are Cantonese, the language of urban Hong Kong and Guangdong province, and Mandarin, spoken by those from mainland China.

The playwright William Shakespeare (1564-1616) and the novelist Charles Dickens (1812-1870) remain two of the most popular and widely known British writers the world over. In addition to writing 35 known plays, Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets and sometimes acted in small parts in his own plays - he is known to have played the Ghost in ‘Hamlet’. His best known plays include: ‘Romeo and Juliet’, ‘King Lear’, ‘Hamlet’ and
‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’. Dickens began his writing career as a journalist, and all his novels were first published serially in periodicals.
Many of his works highlight the injustice of 19th century social institutions and the inequalities between the rich and the poor. His most famous works include ‘Oliver Twist’, ‘A Christmas Carol’ and ‘David Copperfield’.

The novels of Jane Austen (1775-1817) are known for their subtlety of observation and irony, together with their penetrating insights into the provincial life of the middle-classes in the early part of the 19th century.
Her works include ‘Emma’, ‘Pride and Prejudice’ and ‘Sense and Sensibility’ - all recently dramatised on film and TV to critical acclaim.
The Brontë sisters, Charlotte (1816-55), Emily (1818-48) and Anne (1820-49), were three talented 19th-century women novelists whose works are regarded as classics today. Charlotte is best known for her novel ‘Jane Eyre’ and Emily for ‘Wuthering Heights’ - both novels feature strong, independent heroines.

Many distinguished works of contemporary fiction have been awarded the Booker Prize, given annually to the best novel published in Britain. Novels must be written in English by a citizen of Britain, the Commonwealth or the Republic of Ireland. The winner of the Booker Prize in 1997 was Arundhati Roy for her novel ‘The God of Small Things’.

Bernice Rubens is a contemporary Welsh-Jewish writer who grew up in Cardiff. She has received much critical acclaim for her novels, among them Booker Prize winner ‘The Elected Member’.
Glasgow-born James Kelman is a leading contemporary writer from Scotland whose writing echoes the rhythms of the Glaswegian dialect. His books include ‘A Disaffection’, which won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1989 and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.

One of the most widely known English poets is remarkable because his work has been continuously transcribed, published, read and commented on since his death. That he lived over 600 years ago is no less remarkable. He is Geoffrey Chaucer (c.1345-1400).
His best known work is ‘The Canterbury Tales’, a collection of tales by a group of pilgrims bound for the shrine of St. Thomas Becket at Canterbury. Chaucer is buried in Westminster Abbey.

The Welsh poet, Dylan Thomas (1914-53) is perhaps best known for his play ‘Under Milk Wood’. This was first written as a radio drama and broadcast by the BBC in 1954, before being adapted for the stage.
One of the liveliest poets writing in Britain today is Ted Hughes. Hughes was made Poet Laureate in 1984. The Poet Laureate is a member of the Royal Household, appointed by the Royal Warrent, who composes odes in celebration of State occasions. The appointment dates from the time of King James I (1603-1625). The Romantic poet William Wordsworth (1770-1850) was Poet Laureate from 1843-1850.
Another popular contemporary poet is Seamus Heaney born in Northern Ireland. His early poems reflect Irish rural life and work and can be found in the collections ‘Death of a Naturalist’ (1966) and Wintering Out’ (1972). His language is often weighty, making use of clusters of consonants an monosyllables.