The history of English starts when Germanic invaders and tribes invaded Britain in the 5th century AD. Today English is the most spoken language. Out of 4-5 000 languages, English is by far the most used language and today approximately 400 million people have English as their first language.Because so many speak the language, there has developed different varieties of English, for instance South-American English. It is actually applied to the first language dialects of English. There are social and regional variations within South American English and like it is in Britain, South- African is non-rhotic. There has also developed South-African English dialects. In the capital the African-English is very strongly English-based, well more east in the country the language is more influenced by the African language. The South-African English is very similar to English, however there are words that don’t exist in Britain or America that usually are derived from the African language. It is of course the south-African that have adopted the English language, however the English language have also adopted some African words, for instance apartheid. A couple of examples of English words that the South-Africans have developed are; bass = boss and mallie = mother. Underneath there will follow a link to a youtube clip of a actor characterizing and imitating a south-african.
