History of English Language English is a Germanic Language of the Indo-European Family. It is the second most spoken language in the world. 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. It is the language of science, aviation, computing, diplomacy, and tourism. It is listed as the official or co-official language in 45 countries. English is well on its way to becoming the unofficial international language of the world. Even though Mandarin (Chinese) may be spoken by more people, English is by far the most widespread of the world's languages