If you're here, you probably understand English, if not, I don't really know how you read this. English, since the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, has effectively become the generic lingua franca that you either know or want to know. This has placed English in a very different position from other commonly studied languages. Those who study French or Latin often do so recreationally, and, as such, will study the history and complexities of the languages. Many who study English, however, seem to predominantly focus on the fundamentals of the language itself, disregarding it's history and often redunant minor grammatical quirks. I think that the position English holds in this aspect is quite unfortunate, and, because of this, I'm here to educate you all about "random shit i think is kinda cool about english" (patent pending).

English, tragically, originated in England, and as such, met the requirement of being kinda bad for mawhile, being far less eloquent than many other languages for the bulk of it's existence. This was in large part because English was a peasant's language, originating from various West Germanic dialects, with little external influence from the traditional Romance languages. This meant that English, whilst extremely common, lacked the vocabulary many other languages had.

English's reputation of being a peasant's language that scholars would avoid with a 50 foot poll began to change around the 14th-16th century, however. People came to the shocking conclusion "wait why dont we just add more words," and bam, now English is 28% Latin, and 28% French, problem solved. Around this time is when English began to gain a reputation globally, and literary works began to get translated into English, most notably including religious texts. For the first time, too, English author's began to gain global popularity, since they were able to actually make compelling written works for the first time, such as Shakespeare and Milton.

The language didn't really gain significant global recognition until the rise of the British Empire and the United States, though, and even with the rise of these two powers, French was still the language of diplomacy and research. English didn't truly become the lingua franca of the world until the aforementioned Treaty of Versailles in 1919, which was led by the United States. The United States, despite being in France, hosted the meeting in English. In my eyes, this represented the pivotal point where English gained true global significance.

This peculiar history is exactly why English is so strange now, even if it may not seem so to native speakers. You're effectively speaking a language with German grammar and German base words, but with a little French and Latin vocabulary thrown in. This is exactly why English is so commonly regarded as a hard language to learn, it wasn't a language built by scholars, it was a product of the common man throwing components into a language over centuries.

Almost every other language was made with every single concept having a purpose, designed only to be written by the highest classes of society, but not English, and that's why I find English so interesting. English, against all odds, has become the dominant language for literary works, research, and politics, despite being so distanced from such concepts at it's creation. I've studied numerous languages, both willingly, and out of necesity due to moving, I haven't even lived in an English speaking country for years, but man, it'll always be my favorite language. TM out.