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English adjectives are words such as good, big, interesting, and Canadian that most typically modify nouns, denoting characteristics of their referents (e.g., a red car). As modifiers, they come before the nouns they modify and after determiners.[182] English adjectives also function as predicative complements (e.g., the child is happy).

In Modern English, adjectives are not inflected so as to agree in form with the noun they modify, as adjectives in most other Indo-European languages do. For example, in the phrases the slender boy, and many slender girls, the adjective slender does not change form to agree with either the number or gender of the noun.

Some adjectives are inflected for degree of comparison, with the positive degree unmarked, the suffix -er marking the comparative, and -est marking the superlative: a small boy, the boy is smaller than the girl, that boy is the smallest. Some adjectives have irregular suppletive comparative and superlative forms, such as good, better, and best. Other adjectives have comparatives formed by periphrastic constructions, with the adverb more marking the comparative, and most marking the superlative: happier or more happy, the happiest or most happy.[183] There is some variation among speakers regarding which adjectives use inflected or periphrastic comparison, and some studies have shown a tendency for the periphrastic forms to become more common at the expense of the inflected form.[184]

English determiners are words such as the, each, many, some, and which, occurring most typically in noun phrases before the head nouns and any modifiers and marking the noun phrase as definite or indefinite.[185] They often agree with the noun in number. They do not typically inflect for degree of comparison.

English pronouns conserve many traits of case and gender inflection. The personal pronouns retain a difference between subjective and objective case in most persons (I/me, he/him, she/her, we/us, they/them) as well as an animateness distinction in the third person singular (distinguishing it from the three sets of animate third person singular pronouns) and an optional gender distinction in the animate third person singular (distinguishing between she/her [feminine], they/them [epicene], and he/him [masculine]).[186][187] The subjective case corresponds to the Old English nominative case, and the objective case is used in the sense both of the previous accusative case (for a patient, or direct object of a transitive verb), and of the Old English dative case (for a recipient or indirect object of a transitive verb).[188][189] The subjective is used when the pronoun is the subject of a finite clause, otherwise the objective is used.[190] While grammarians such as Henry Sweet[191] and Otto Jespersen[192] noted that the English cases did not correspond to the traditional Latin-based system, some contemporary grammars, for example Huddleston & Pullum (2002), retain traditional labels for the cases, calling them nominative and accusative cases respectively.

Possessive pronouns exist in dependent and independent forms; the dependent form functions as a determiner specifying a noun (as in my chair), while the independent form can stand alone as if it were a noun (e.g. the chair is mine).[193] The English system of grammatical person no longer has a distinction between formal and informal pronouns of address (the old second person singular familiar pronoun thou acquired a pejorative or inferior tinge of meaning and was abandoned).

Both the second and third persons share pronouns between the plural and singular:

Pronouns are used to refer to entities deictically or anaphorically. A deictic pronoun points to some person or object by identifying it relative to the speech situation—for example, the pronoun I identifies the speaker, and the pronoun you, the addressee. Anaphoric pronouns such as that refer back to an entity already mentioned or assumed by the speaker to be known by the audience, for example in the sentence I already told you that. The reflexive pronouns are used when the oblique argument is identical to the subject of a phrase (e.g. "he sent it to himself" or "she braced herself for impact").[196]

Prepositional phrases (PP) are phrases composed of a preposition and one or more nouns, e.g. with the dog, for my friend, to school, in England.[197] Prepositions have a wide range of uses in English. They are used to describe movement, place, and other relations between different entities, but they also have many syntactic uses such as introducing complement clauses and oblique arguments of verbs.[197] For example, in the phrase I gave it to him, the preposition to marks the recipient, or Indirect Object of the verb to give. Traditionally words were only considered prepositions if they governed the case of the noun they preceded, for example causing the pronouns to use the objective rather than subjective form, "with her", "to me", "for us". But some contemporary grammars such as that of Huddleston & Pullum (2002:598–600) no longer consider government of case to be the defining feature of the class of prepositions, rather defining prepositions as words that can function as the heads of prepositional phrases.[citation needed]

English verbs are inflected for tense and aspect and marked for agreement with present-tense third-person singular subject. Only the copula verb to be is still inflected for agreement with the plural and first and second person subjects.[183] Auxiliary verbs such as have and be are paired with verbs in the infinitive, past, or progressive forms. They form complex tenses, aspects, and moods. Auxiliary verbs differ from other verbs in that they can be followed by the negation, and in that they can occur as the first constituent in a question sentence.[198][199]

Most verbs have six inflectional forms. The primary forms are a plain present, a third-person singular present, and a preterite (past) form. The secondary forms are a plain form used for the infinitive, a gerund-participle and a past participle.[200] The copula verb to be is the only verb to retain some of its original conjugation, and takes different inflectional forms depending on the subject. The first-person present-tense form is am, the third person singular form is is, and the form are is used in the second-person singular and all three plurals. The only verb past participle is been and its gerund-participle is being.

English has two primary tenses, past (preterite) and non-past. The preterite is inflected by using the preterite form of the verb, which for the regular verbs includes the suffix -ed, and for the strong verbs either the suffix -t or a change in the stem vowel. The non-past form is unmarked except in the third person singular, which takes the suffix -s.[198]

English does not have future verb forms.[201] The future tense is expressed periphrastically with one of the auxiliary verbs will or shall.[202] Many varieties also use a near future constructed with the phrasal verb be going to ("going-to future").[203]

Further aspectual distinctions are shown by auxiliary verbs, primarily have and be, which show the contrast between a perfect and non-perfect past tense (I have run vs. I was running), and compound tenses such as preterite perfect (I had been running) and present perfect (I have been running).[204]

For the expression of mood, English uses a number of modal auxiliaries, such as can, may, will, shall and the past tense forms could, might, would, should. There are also subjunctive and imperative moods, both based on the plain form of the verb (i.e. without the third person singular -s), for use in subordinate clauses (e.g. subjunctive: It is important that he run every day; imperative Run!).[202]

An infinitive form, that uses the plain form of the verb and the preposition to, is used for verbal clauses that are syntactically subordinate to a finite verbal clause. Finite verbal clauses are those that are formed around a verb in the present or preterite form. In clauses with auxiliary verbs, they are the finite verbs and the main verb is treated as a subordinate clause.[205] For example, he has to go where only the auxiliary verb have is inflected for time and the main verb to go is in the infinitive, or in a complement clause such as I saw him leave, where the main verb is see, which is in a preterite form, and leave is in the infinitive.

English also makes frequent use of constructions traditionally called phrasal verbs, verb phrases that are made up of a verb root and a preposition or particle that follows the verb. The phrase then functions as a single predicate. In terms of intonation the preposition is fused to the verb, but in writing it is written as a separate word. Examples of phrasal verbs are to get up, to ask out, to back up, to give up, to get together, to hang out, to put up with, etc. The phrasal verb frequently has a highly idiomatic meaning that is more specialised and restricted than what can be simply extrapolated from the combination of verb and preposition complement (e.g. lay off meaning terminate someone's employment).[206] In spite of the idiomatic meaning, some grammarians, including Huddleston & Pullum (2002:274), do not consider this type of construction to form a syntactic constituent and hence refrain from using the term "phrasal verb". Instead, they consider the construction simply to be a verb with a prepositional phrase as its syntactic complement, i.e. he woke up in the morning and he ran up in the mountains are syntactically equivalent.

The function of adverbs is to modify the action or event described by the verb by providing additional information about the manner in which it occurs.[175] Many adverbs are derived from adjectives by appending the suffix -ly. For example, in the phrase the woman walked quickly, the adverb quickly is derived in this way from the adjective quick. Some commonly used adjectives have irregular adverbial forms, such as good, which has the adverbial form well.

Modern English syntax language is moderately analytic.[207] It has developed features such as modal verbs and word order as resources for conveying meaning. Auxiliary verbs mark constructions such as questions, negative polarity, the passive voice and progressive aspect.

English word order has moved from the Germanic verb-second (V2) word order to being almost exclusively subject–verb–object (SVO).[208] The combination of SVO order and use of auxiliary verbs often creates clusters of two or more verbs at the centre of the sentence, such as he had hoped to try to open it.

In most sentences, English only marks grammatical relations through word order.[209] The subject constituent precedes the verb and the object constituent follows it. The example below demonstrates how the grammatical roles of each constituent are marked only by the position relative to the verb:

An exception is found in sentences where one of the constituents is a pronoun, in which case it is doubly marked, both by word order and by case inflection, where the subject pronoun precedes the verb and takes the subjective case form, and the object pronoun follows the verb and takes the objective case form.[210] The example below demonstrates this double marking in a sentence where both object and subject are represented with a third person singular masculine pronoun:

Indirect objects (IO) of ditransitive verbs can be placed either as the first object in a double object construction (S V IO O), such as I gave Jane the book or in a prepositional phrase, such as I gave the book to Jane.[211]

In English a sentence may be composed of one or more clauses, that may, in turn, be composed of one or more phrases (e.g. Noun Phrases, Verb Phrases, and Prepositional Phrases). A clause is built around a verb and includes its constituents, such as any NPs and PPs. Within a sentence, there is always at least one main clause (or matrix clause) whereas other clauses are subordinate to a main clause. Subordinate clauses may function as arguments of the verb in the main clause. For example, in the phrase I think (that) you are lying, the main clause is headed by the verb think, the subject is I, but the object of the phrase is the subordinate clause (that) you are lying. The subordinating conjunction that shows that the clause that follows is a subordinate clause, but it is often omitted.[212] Relative clauses are clauses that function as a modifier or specifier to some constituent in the main clause: For example, in the sentence I saw the letter that you received today, the relative clause that you received today specifies the meaning of the word letter, the object of the main clause. Relative clauses can be introduced by the pronouns who, whose, whom and which as well as by that (which can also be omitted.)[213] In contrast to many other Germanic languages there are no major differences between word order in main and subordinate clauses.[214]

English syntax relies on auxiliary verbs for many functions including the expression of tense, aspect, and mood. Auxiliary verbs form main clauses, and the main verbs function as heads of a subordinate clause of the auxiliary verb. For example, in the sentence the dog did not find its bone, the clause find its bone is the complement of the negated verb did not. Subject–auxiliary inversion is used in many constructions, including focus, negation, and interrogative constructions.

The verb do can be used as an auxiliary even in simple declarative sentences, where it usually serves to add emphasis, as in "I did shut the fridge." However, in the negated and inverted clauses referred to above, it is used because the rules of English syntax permit these constructions only when an auxiliary is present. Modern English does not allow the addition of the negating adverb not to an ordinary finite lexical verb, as in *I know not—it can only be added to an auxiliary (or copular) verb, hence if there is no other auxiliary present when negation is required, the auxiliary do is used, to produce a form like I do not (don't) know. The same applies in clauses requiring inversion, including most questions—inversion must involve the subject and an auxiliary verb, so it is not possible to say *Know you him?; grammatical rules require Do you know him?[215]

Negation is done with the adverb not, which precedes the main verb and follows an auxiliary verb. A contracted form of not -n't can be used as an enclitic attaching to auxiliary verbs and to the copula verb to be. Just as with questions, many negative constructions require the negation to occur with do-support, thus in Modern English I don't know him is the correct answer to the question Do you know him?, but not *I know him not, although this construction may be found in older English.[216]

Passive constructions also use auxiliary verbs. A passive construction rephrases an active construction in such a way that the object of the active phrase becomes the subject of the passive phrase, and the subject of the active phrase is either omitted or demoted to a role as an oblique argument introduced in a prepositional phrase. They are formed by using the past participle either with the auxiliary verb to be or to get, although not all varieties of English allow the use of passives with get. For example, putting the sentence she sees him into the passive becomes he is seen (by her), or he gets seen (by her).[217]

Both yes–no questions and wh-questions in English are mostly formed using subject–auxiliary inversion (Am I going tomorrow?, Where can we eat?), which may require do-support (Do you like her?, Where did he go?). In most cases, interrogative words (wh-words; e.g. what, who, where, when, why, how) appear in a fronted position. For example, in the question What did you see?, the word what appears as the first constituent despite being the grammatical object of the sentence. (When the wh-word is the subject or forms part of the subject, no inversion occurs: Who saw the cat?.) Prepositional phrases can also be fronted when they are the question's theme, e.g. To whose house did you go last night?. The personal interrogative pronoun who is the only interrogative pronoun to still show inflection for case, with the variant whom serving as the objective case form, although this form may be going out of use in many contexts.[218]

While English is a subject-prominent language, at the discourse level it tends to use a topic-comment structure, where the known information (topic) precedes the new information (comment). Because of the strict SVO syntax, the topic of a sentence generally has to be the grammatical subject of the sentence. In cases where the topic is not the grammatical subject of the sentence, it is often promoted to subject position through syntactic means. One way of doing this is through a passive construction, the girl was stung by the bee. Another way is through a cleft sentence where the main clause is demoted to be a complement clause of a copula sentence with a dummy subject such as it or there, e.g. it was the girl that the bee stung, there was a girl who was stung by a bee.[219] Dummy subjects are also used in constructions where there is no grammatical subject such as with impersonal verbs (e.g., it is raining) or in existential clauses (there are many cars on the street). Through the use of these complex sentence constructions with informationally vacuous subjects, English is able to maintain both a topic-comment sentence structure and a SVO syntax.

Focus constructions emphasise a particular piece of new or salient information within a sentence, generally through allocating the main sentence level stress on the focal constituent. For example, the girl was stung by a bee (emphasising it was a bee and not, for example, a wasp that stung her), or The girl was stung by a bee (contrasting with another possibility, for example that it was the boy).[220] Topic and focus can also be established through syntactic dislocation, either preposing or postposing the item to be focused on relative to the main clause. For example, That girl over there, she was stung by a bee, emphasises the girl by preposition, but a similar effect could be achieved by postposition, she was stung by a bee, that girl over there, where reference to the girl is established as an "afterthought".[221]

Cohesion between sentences is achieved through the use of deictic pronouns as anaphora (e.g. that is exactly what I mean where that refers to some fact known to both interlocutors, or then used to locate the time of a narrated event relative to the time of a previously narrated event).[222] Discourse markers such as oh, so or well, also signal the progression of ideas between sentences and help to create cohesion. Discourse markers are often the first constituents in sentences. Discourse markers are also used for stance taking in which speakers position themselves in a specific attitude towards what is being said, for example, no way is that true! (the idiomatic marker no way! expressing disbelief), or boy! I'm hungry (the marker boy expressing emphasis). While discourse markers are particularly characteristic of informal and spoken registers of English, they are also used in written and formal registers.[223]

It is generally stated that English has around 170,000 words, or 220,000 if obsolete words are counted; this estimate is based on the last full edition of the Oxford English Dictionary from 1989.[224] Over half of these words are nouns, a quarter adjectives, and a seventh verbs. There is one count that puts the English vocabulary at about 1 million words—but that count presumably includes words such as Latin species names, scientific terminology, botanical terms, prefixed and suffixed words, jargon, foreign words of extremely limited English use, and technical acronyms.[225]

Due to its status as an international language, English adopts foreign words quickly and borrows vocabulary from many other sources. Early studies of English vocabulary by lexicographers, the scholars who formally study vocabulary, compile dictionaries, or both, were impeded by a lack of comprehensive data on actual vocabulary in use from good-quality linguistic corpora,[226] collections of actual written texts and spoken passages. Many statements published before the end of the 20th century about the growth of English vocabulary over time, the dates of first use of various words in English, and the sources of English vocabulary will have to be corrected as new computerised analyses of linguistic corpus data become available.[225][227]

English forms new words from existing words or roots in its vocabulary through a variety of processes. One of the most productive processes in English is conversion,[228] using a word with a different grammatical role, for example using a noun as a verb or a verb as a noun. Another productive word-formation process is nominal compounding,[225][227] producing compound words such as babysitter or ice cream or homesick.[228] A process more common in Old English than in Modern English, but still productive in Modern English, is the use of derivational suffixes (-hood, -ness, -ing, -ility) to derive new words from existing words (especially those of Germanic origin) or stems (especially for words of Latin or Greek origin).

Formation of new words, called neologisms, based on Greek and/or Latin roots (for example television or optometry) is a highly productive process in English and in most modern European languages, so much so that it is often difficult to determine in which language a neologism originated. For this reason, American lexicographer Philip Gove attributed many such words to the "international scientific vocabulary" (ISV) when compiling Webster's Third New International Dictionary (1961). Another active word-formation process in English is the creation of acronyms,[229] words formed by pronouncing abbreviations of longer phrases as single words, e.g. NATO, laser, scuba.

English, besides forming new words from existing words and their roots, also borrows words from other languages. This borrowing is commonplace in many world languages, but English has been especially open to borrowing of foreign words throughout the last 1,000 years.[231] Nevertheless, most of the core vocabulary and the most common words in English are still West Germanic.[232][233] The English words first learned by children as they learn to speak are mainly Germanic words from Old English.[225] It is not possible to speak or write English without Germanic words, but it is possible to write or speak many sentences in English without foreign loanwords.[234]

But one of the consequences of long language contact between French and English in all stages of their development is that the vocabulary of English has a very high percentage of "Latinate" words (derived from French, especially, and also from other Romance languages and Latin). French words from various periods of the development of French now make up one-third of the vocabulary of English.[235] Linguist Anthony Lacoudre estimated that over 40,000 English words are of French origin and may be understood without orthographical change by French speakers.[236] Words of Old Norse origin have entered the English language primarily from the contact between Old Norse and Old English during colonisation of eastern and northern England. Many of these words are part of English core vocabulary, such as egg and knife.[237]

English has also borrowed many words directly from Latin, the ancestor of the Romance languages, during all stages of its development.[227][225] Many of these words had earlier been borrowed into Latin from Greek. Latin or Greek are still highly productive sources of stems used to form vocabulary of subjects learned in higher education such as the sciences, philosophy, and mathematics.[238] English continues to gain new loanwords and calques ("loan translations") from languages all over the world, and words from languages other than the ancestral Anglo-Saxon language make up about 60% of the vocabulary of English.[239]

English has formal and informal speech registers; informal registers, including child-directed speech, tend to be made up predominantly of words of Anglo-Saxon origin, while the percentage of vocabulary that is of Latinate origin is higher in legal, scientific, and academic texts.[240][241]

English has had a strong influence on the vocabulary of other languages.[235][242] The influence of English comes from such factors as opinion leaders in other countries knowing the English language, the role of English as a world lingua franca, and the large number of books and films that are translated from English into other languages.[243] That pervasive use of English leads to a conclusion in many places that English is an especially suitable language for expressing new ideas or describing new technologies. Among varieties of English, it is especially American English that influences other languages.[244] Some languages, such as Chinese, write words borrowed from English mostly as calques, while others, such as Japanese, readily take in English loanwords written in sound-indicating script.[245] Dubbed films and television programmes are an especially fruitful source of English influence on languages in Europe.[245]

Since the ninth century, English has been written in a Latin alphabet (also called Roman alphabet). Earlier Old English texts in Anglo-Saxon runes are only short inscriptions. The great majority of literary works in Old English that survive to today are written in the Roman alphabet.[38] The modern English alphabet contains 26 letters of the Latin script: a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, m, n, o, p, q, r, s, t, u, v, w, x, y, z (which also have capital forms: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z).

The spelling system, or orthography, of English is multi-layered and complex, with elements of French, Latin, and Greek spelling on top of the native Germanic system.[246] Further complications have arisen through sound changes with which the orthography has not kept pace.[51] Compared to European languages for which official organisations have promoted spelling reforms, English has spelling that is a less consistent indicator of pronunciation, and standard spellings of words that are more difficult to guess from knowing how a word is pronounced.[247] There are also systematic spelling differences between British and American English. These situations have prompted proposals for spelling reform in English.[248]

Although letters and speech sounds do not have a one-to-one correspondence in standard English spelling, spelling rules that take into account syllable structure, phonetic changes in derived words, and word accent are reliable for most English words.[249] Moreover, standard English spelling shows etymological relationships between related words that would be obscured by a closer correspondence between pronunciation and spelling—for example, the words photograph, photography, and photographic,[249] or the words electricity and electrical. While few scholars agree with Chomsky and Halle (1968) that conventional English orthography is "near-optimal",[246] there is a rationale for current English spelling patterns.[250] The standard orthography of English is the most widely used writing system in the world.[251] Standard English spelling is based on a graphomorphemic segmentation of words into written clues of what meaningful units make up each word.[252]

Readers of English can generally rely on the correspondence between spelling and pronunciation to be fairly regular for letters or digraphs used to spell consonant sounds. The letters b, d, f, h, j, k, l, m, n, p, r, s, t, v, w, y, z represent, respectively, the phonemes /b, d, f, h, dʒ, k, l, m, n, p, r, s, t, v, w, j, z/. The letters c and g normally represent /k/ and /ɡ/, but there is also a soft c pronounced /s/, and a soft g pronounced /dʒ/. The differences in the pronunciations of the letters c and g are often signalled by the following letters in standard English spelling. Digraphs used to represent phonemes and phoneme sequences include ch for /tʃ/, sh for /ʃ/, th for /θ/ or /ð/, ng for /ŋ/, qu for /kw/, and ph for /f/ in Greek-derived words. The single letter x is generally pronounced as /z/ in word-initial position and as /ks/ otherwise. There are exceptions to these generalisations, often the result of loanwords being spelled according to the spelling patterns of their languages of origin[249] or residues of proposals by scholars in the early period of Modern English to follow the spelling patterns of Latin for English words of Germanic origin.[253]

For the vowel sounds of the English language, however, correspondences between spelling and pronunciation are more irregular. There are many more vowel phonemes in English than there are single vowel letters (a, e, i, o, u, w, y). As a result, some "long vowels" are often indicated by combinations of letters (like the oa in boat, the ow in how, and the ay in stay), or the historically based silent e (as in note and cake).[250]

The consequence of this complex orthographic history is that learning to read and write can be challenging in English. It can take longer for school pupils to become independently fluent readers of English than of many other languages, including Italian, Spanish, and German.[254] Nonetheless, there is an advantage for learners of English reading in learning the specific sound-symbol regularities that occur in the standard English spellings of commonly used words.[249] Such instruction greatly reduces the risk of children experiencing reading difficulties in English.[255][256] Making primary school teachers more aware of the primacy of morpheme representation in English may help learners learn more efficiently to read and write English.[257]

English writing also includes a system of punctuation marks that is similar to those used in most alphabetic languages around the world. The purpose of punctuation is to mark meaningful grammatical relationships in sentences to aid readers in understanding a text and to indicate features important for reading a text aloud.[258]

Dialectologists identify many English dialects, which usually refer to regional varieties that differ from each other in terms of patterns of grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation. The pronunciation of particular areas distinguishes dialects as separate regional accents. The major native dialects of English are often divided by linguists into the two extremely general categories of British English (BrE) and North American English (NAE).[259] There also exists a third common major grouping of English varieties: Southern Hemisphere English, the most prominent being Australian and New Zealand English.

The fact that English has been spoken in England for 1,500 years explains why England has a great wealth of regional dialects.[260] Within the United Kingdom, Received Pronunciation (RP), an educated accent associated originally with the South East of England, has been traditionally used as a broadcast standard and is considered the most prestigious of British accents. The spread of RP (also known as BBC English) through the media has caused many traditional dialects of rural England to recede, as youths adopt the traits of the prestige variety instead of traits from local dialects. At the time of the 1950-61 Survey of English Dialects, grammar and vocabulary differed across the country, but a process of lexical attrition has led most of this variation to disappear.[261]

Nonetheless, this attrition has mostly affected dialectal variation in grammar and vocabulary. In fact, only 3% of the English population actually speak RP, the remainder speaking in regional accents and dialects with varying degrees of RP influence.[262] There is also variability within RP, particularly along class lines between Upper and Middle-class RP speakers and between native RP speakers and speakers who adopt RP later in life.[263] Within Britain, there is also considerable variation along lines of social class; some traits, though exceedingly common, are nonetheless considered "non-standard" and associated with lower-class speakers and identities. An example of this is h-dropping, which was historically a feature of lower-class London English, particularly Cockney, and can now be heard in the local accents of most parts of England. However, it remains largely absent in broadcasting and among the upper crust of British society.[264]

English in England can be divided into four major dialect regions: South East English, South West English (also known as West Country English), Midlands English and Northern English. Within each of these regions, several local dialects exist: within the Northern region, there is a division between the Yorkshire dialects, the Geordie dialect (spoken around Newcastle, in Northumbria) and the Lancashire dialects, which include the urban subdialects of Manchester (Mancunian) and Liverpool (Scouse). Having been the centre of Danish occupation during the Viking invasions of England, Northern English dialects, particularly the Yorkshire dialect, retain Norse features not found in other English varieties.[265]

Since the 15th century, South East England varieties have centred on London, which has been the centre from which dialectal innovations have spread to other dialects. In London, the Cockney dialect was traditionally used by the lower classes, and it was long a socially stigmatised variety. The spread of Cockney features across the South East led the media to talk of Estuary English as a new dialect, but the notion was criticised by many linguists on the grounds that London had been influencing neighbouring regions throughout history.[266][267][268] Traits that have spread from London in recent decades include the use of intrusive R (drawing is pronounced drawring /ˈdrɔːrɪŋ/), t-glottalisation (Potter is pronounced with a glottal stop as Po'er /ˈpɒʔə/) and th-fronting, or the pronunciation of th- as /f/ (thanks pronounced fanks) or /v/ (bother pronounced bover).[269]

Scots is today considered a separate language from English, but it has its origins in early Northern Middle English[270] and developed and changed during its history with influence from other sources, particularly Scots Gaelic and Old Norse. Scots itself has a number of regional dialects. In addition to Scots, Scottish English comprises the varieties of Standard English spoken in Scotland; most varieties are Northern English accents, with some influence from Scots.[271]

In Ireland, various forms of English have been spoken since the Norman invasions of the 11th century. In County Wexford and in the area surrounding Dublin, two extinct dialects known as Forth and Bargy and Fingallian developed as offshoots from Early Middle English and were spoken until the 19th century. Modern Irish English, however, has its roots in English colonisation in the 17th century. Today Irish English is divided into Ulster English, the Northern Ireland dialect with strong influence from Scots, and various dialects of the Republic of Ireland. Like Scottish and most North American accents, almost all Irish accents preserve the rhoticity which has been lost in the dialects influenced by RP.[19][272]

North American English is generally homogeneous compared to British English, but this has been disputed.[273] American accent variation is increasing at the regional level and decreasing at the very local level,[274] though most Americans still speak within a phonological continuum of similar accents,[275] known collectively as General American English (GA), with differences hardly noticed even among Americans themselves, including Midland and Western American English.[276][277][278] In most American and Canadian English dialects, rhoticity (or r-fulness) is dominant, with non-rhoticity (or r-dropping) being associated with lower prestige and social class, especially since the end of World War II. This contrasts with the situation in England, where non-rhoticity has become the standard.[279]

The English language is far and away the most widely used in the United States. Its roots trace back to the British colonial era, which began with the settlement in present-day Jamestown, Virginia in 1607. While German was the predominant language among German immigrants, who arrived primarily in eastern Pennsylvania, English was ultimately widely adopted throughout the Thirteen Colonies that ultimately launched both the American Revolution and American Revolutionary War against the Kingdom of Great Britain, then ruled by King George III and establishing the United States as an independent sovereign nation in September 1783.

Separate from General American English are American dialects with clearly distinct sound systems that have developed over time, including Southern American English, the English of the coastal Northeastern United States—including New York City English and Eastern New England English—and African-American Vernacular English; all of these, aside from certain subdialects of the American South, were historically non-rhotic. Canadian English varieties, except for those of the Atlantic provinces and perhaps Quebec, are generally considered to fall under the General American English continuum, although they often show raising of the vowels /aɪ/ and /aʊ/ before voiceless consonants and have distinct norms for writing and pronunciation as well.[280]

In Southern American English, the most populous American "accent group" outside of General American English,[281] rhoticity now strongly prevails, replacing the region's historical non-rhotic prestige.[282][283][284] Southern accents are colloquially described as a "drawl" or "twang",[285] being recognised most readily by the Southern Vowel Shift initiated by glide-deleting in the /aɪ/ vowel (e.g. pronouncing spy almost like spa), the "Southern breaking" of several front pure vowels into a gliding vowel or even two syllables (e.g. pronouncing the word "press" almost like "pray-us"),[286] the pin–pen merger, and other distinctive phonological, grammatical, and lexical features, many of which are actually recent developments of the 19th century or later.[287]

Spoken primarily by working- and middle-class African Americans, African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) is also largely non-rhotic and likely originated among enslaved Africans and African Americans influenced primarily by the non-rhotic, non-standard older Southern dialects. A minority of linguists,[288] contrarily, propose that AAVE mostly traces back to African languages spoken by the slaves who had to develop a pidgin or Creole English to communicate with slaves of other ethnic and linguistic origins.[289] AAVE's important commonalities with Southern accents suggest it developed into a highly coherent and homogeneous variety in the 19th or early 20th century. AAVE is commonly stigmatised in North America as a form of "broken" or "uneducated" English, as are white Southern accents, but linguists today recognise both as fully developed varieties of English with their own norms shared by large speech communities.[290][291]

Since 1788, English has been spoken in Oceania, and Australian English has developed as the first language of the vast majority of the inhabitants of the Australian continent, its standard accent being General Australian. The English of neighbouring New Zealand has to a lesser degree become an influential standard variety of the language.[292] Australian and New Zealand English are each other's closest relatives with few differentiating characteristics, followed by South African English and the English of South East England, all of which have similarly non-rhotic accents, aside from some accents in the South Island of New Zealand. Australian and New Zealand English stand out for their innovative vowels: many short vowels are fronted or raised, whereas many long vowels have diphthongised. Australian English also has a contrast between long and short vowels, not found in most other varieties. Australian English grammar aligns closely with British and American English; like American English, collective plural subjects take on a singular verb (as in the government is rather than are).[293][294] New Zealand English uses front vowels that are often even higher than in Australian English.[295][296][297]

The first significant exposure of the Philippines to the English language occurred in 1762 when the British occupied Manila during the Seven Years' War, but this was a brief episode that had no lasting influence. English later became more important and widespread during American rule between 1898 and 1946 and remains an official language of the Philippines. Today, the use of English is ubiquitous in the Philippines, being found on street signs and marquees, in government documents and forms, in courtrooms, in the media and entertainment industries, in the business sector, and in various other aspects of daily life.[298] One particularly prominent form of English usage in the country is found in everyday speech: most Filipinos from Manila use or, at the very least, have been exposed to Taglish, a form of code-switching between Tagalog and English.[299] A similar code-switching method is used by urban native speakers of Bisayan languages under the name of Bislish.

English is spoken widely in southern Africa and is an official or co-official language in several of the region's countries. In South Africa, English has been spoken since 1820, co-existing with Afrikaans and various African languages such as the Khoe and Bantu languages. Today, about nine percent of the South African population speaks South African English (SAE) as a first language. SAE is a non-rhotic variety that tends to follow RP as a norm. It is one of the few non-rhotic English varieties that lack intrusive R. The second-language varieties of South Africa differ based on the native languages of their speakers.[300] Most phonological differences from RP are in the vowels.[301] Consonant differences include the tendency to pronounce /p, t, t͡ʃ, k/ without aspiration (e.g. pin pronounced [pɪn] rather than as [pʰɪn] as in most other varieties), while r is often pronounced as a flap [ɾ] instead of as the more common fricative.[302]

Nigerian English is a variety of English spoken in Nigeria.[303] It has traditionally been based on British English, but in recent years, because of influence from the United States, some words of American English origin have made it into Nigerian English. Additionally, some new words and collocations have emerged from the variety out of a need to express concepts specific to the culture of the nation (e.g. senior wife). Over 150 million Nigerians speak English.[304]

Several varieties of English are also spoken in the Caribbean islands that were colonial possessions of Britain, including Jamaica, the Leeward and Windward Islands and Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, the Cayman Islands and Belize. Each of these areas is home both to a local variety of English and a local English-based creole, combining English and African languages. The most prominent varieties are Jamaican English and Jamaican Creole. In Central America, English-based creoles are spoken on the Caribbean coasts of Nicaragua and Panama.[305] Locals are often fluent in both the local English variety and the local creole languages, and code-switching between them is frequent. Indeed, a way to conceptualise the relationship between such creole and standard varieties is to view them as a spectrum of language registers in which the most creole-like forms serve as the "basilect" and the most RP-like forms serve as the "acrolect", the most formal register.[306]

Most Caribbean varieties are based on British English and consequently, most are non-rhotic, except for formal styles of Jamaican English which are often rhotic. Jamaican English differs from RP in its vowel inventory, which has a distinction between long and short vowels rather than tense and lax vowels as in Standard English. The diphthongs /ei/ and /ou/ are monophthongs [eː] and [oː] or even the reverse diphthongs [ie] and [uo] (e.g. bay and boat pronounced [bʲeː] and [bʷoːt]). Often word-final consonant clusters are simplified so that "child" is pronounced [t͡ʃail] and "wind" [win].[307][308][309]

As a historical legacy, Indian English tends to take RP as its ideal, and how well this ideal is realised in an individual's speech reflects class distinctions among Indian English speakers. Indian English accents are marked by the pronunciation of phonemes such as /t/ and /d/ (often pronounced with retroflex articulation as [ʈ] and [ɖ]) and the replacement of /θ/ and /ð/ with dentals [t̪] and [d̪]. Sometimes Indian English speakers may also use spelling-based pronunciations where the silent ⟨h⟩ found in words such as ghost is pronounced as an Indian voiced aspirated stop [ɡʱ].[310]

Non-native English speakers may pronounce words differently due to having not fully mastered English pronunciation. This can happen either because they apply the speech rules of their mother tongue to English ("interference") or through implementing strategies similar to those used in first language acquisition.[311] They may create innovative pronunciations for English sounds, not found in the speaker's first language.[311]

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain,[k] is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of the continental mainland.[13][14] It comprises England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.[l][15] It includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland, and most of the smaller islands within the British Isles.[16] Northern Ireland shares a land border with the Republic of Ireland; otherwise, the United Kingdom is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea, the English Channel, the Celtic Sea, and the Irish Sea. The total area of the United Kingdom is 94,354 square miles (244,376 km2),[d][7] with an estimated population of nearly 67.6 million people in 2022.[8]

In 1707, the Kingdom of England (which included Wales) and the Kingdom of Scotland united under the Treaty of Union to create the Kingdom of Great Britain. The Acts of Union 1800 incorporated the Kingdom of Ireland to create the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1801. Most of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922 as the Irish Free State, and the Royal and Parliamentary Titles Act 1927 created the present name, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

The UK became the first industrialised country and was the world's foremost power for the majority of the 19th and early 20th centuries, particularly during the "Pax Britannica" between 1815 and 1914.[17][18] At its height in the 1920s, the British Empire encompassed almost a quarter of the world's landmass and population, and was the largest empire in history. However, its involvement in the First World War and the Second World War damaged Britain's economic power and a global wave of decolonisation led to the independence of most British colonies.[19][20][21] British influence can be observed in the legal and political systems of many of its former colonies, and British culture remains globally influential, particularly in language, literature, music and sport. English is the world's most widely spoken language and the third-most spoken native language.[22]

The United Kingdom is a constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy.[m][24] The UK has three distinct jurisdictions; England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.[25] Since 1998, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have their own devolved governments and legislatures while England is governed directly by the UK Government.[26] The capital and largest city of the United Kingdom is London. Other major cities include Birmingham, Liverpool, Nottingham, Sheffield, Bristol, Glasgow and Leicester.[27] Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland's national capital cities are Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, respectively.

The UK has the world's sixth-largest economy by nominal gross domestic product (GDP), and the ninth-largest by purchasing power parity. It is a recognised nuclear state and is ranked fourth globally in military expenditure.[28][29] The UK has been a permanent member of the UN Security Council since its first session in 1946. It is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations, the Council of Europe, the G7, the OECD, NATO, the Five Eyes, AUKUS and the CPTPP.

The Acts of Union 1707 declared that the Kingdom of England and Kingdom of Scotland were "United into One Kingdom by the Name of Great Britain".[n][30] The term "United Kingdom" has occasionally been used as a description for the former Kingdom of Great Britain, although its official name from 1707 to 1800 was simply "Great Britain".[31] The Acts of Union 1800 united the kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland in 1801, forming the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Following the partition of Ireland and the independence of the Irish Free State in 1922, which left Northern Ireland as the only part of the island of Ireland within the United Kingdom, the name was changed in 1927 to the "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland".[32]

Although the United Kingdom is a sovereign country, England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are also widely referred to as countries.[33] The UK Prime Minister's website has used the phrase "countries within a country" to describe the United Kingdom.[34] Some statistical summaries, such as those for the twelve NUTS 1 regions refer to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland as "regions".[35] Northern Ireland is also referred to as a "province".[36] With regard to Northern Ireland, the descriptive name used "can be controversial, with the choice often revealing one's political preferences".[37]

The term "Great Britain" conventionally refers to the island of Great Britain, or politically to England, Scotland and Wales in combination.[38] It is sometimes used as a loose synonym for the United Kingdom as a whole.[39] The word England is occasionally used incorrectly to refer to the United Kingdom as a whole, a mistake principally made by people from outside the UK.[40]

The term "Britain" is used as a synonym for Great Britain,[41][42] and the United Kingdom.[43][42] Usage is mixed: the UK Government prefers to use the term "UK" rather than "Britain" or "British" on its website (except when referring to embassies),[44] while acknowledging that both terms refer to the United Kingdom and that elsewhere "British government" is used at least as frequently as "United Kingdom government".[45] The UK Permanent Committee on Geographical Names recognises "United Kingdom", "UK" and "U.K." as shortened and abbreviated geopolitical terms for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in its toponymic guidelines; it does not list "Britain" but notes that "it is only the one specific nominal term 'Great Britain' which invariably excludes Northern Ireland".[45] The BBC historically preferred to use "Britain" as shorthand only for Great Britain, though the present style guide does not take a position except that "Great Britain" excludes Northern Ireland.[46]

The adjective "British" is commonly used to refer to matters relating to the United Kingdom and is used in law to refer to United Kingdom citizenship and matters to do with nationality.[47] People of the United Kingdom use several different terms to describe their national identity and may identify themselves as being British, English, Scottish, Welsh, Northern Irish, or Irish;[48] or as having a combination of different national identities.[49] The official designation for a citizen of the United Kingdom is "British citizen".[45]

Settlement by Cro-Magnons of what was to become the United Kingdom occurred in waves beginning by about 30,000 years ago.[50] The island has been continuously inhabited only since the last retreat of the ice around 11,500 years ago. By the end of the region's prehistoric period, the population is thought to have belonged largely to a culture termed Insular Celtic, comprising Brittonic Britain and Gaelic Ireland.[51]

The Roman conquest, beginning in 43 AD, and the 400-year rule of southern Britain, was followed by an invasion by Germanic Anglo-Saxon settlers, reducing the Brittonic area mainly to what was to become Wales, Cornwall and, until the latter stages of the Anglo-Saxon settlement, the Hen Ogledd (northern England and parts of southern Scotland).[52] Most of the region settled by the Anglo-Saxons became unified as the Kingdom of England in the 10th century.[53] Meanwhile, Gaelic-speakers in north-west Britain (with connections to the north-east of Ireland and traditionally supposed to have migrated from there in the 5th century)[54] united with the Picts to create the Kingdom of Scotland in the 9th century.[55]

In 1066, the Normans invaded England from northern France. After conquering England, they seized large parts of Wales, conquered much of Ireland and were invited to settle in Scotland, bringing to each country feudalism on the Northern French model and Norman-French culture.[56] The Anglo-Norman ruling class greatly influenced, but eventually assimilated with, the local cultures.[57] Subsequent medieval English kings completed the conquest of Wales and tried unsuccessfully to annex Scotland. Asserting its independence in the 1320 Declaration of Arbroath, Scotland maintained its independence thereafter, albeit in near-constant conflict with England.

The English monarchs, through inheritance of substantial territories in France and claims to the French crown, were also heavily involved in conflicts in France, most notably the Hundred Years' War, while the Kings of Scots were in an alliance with the French during this period.[58]

Early modern Britain saw religious conflict resulting from the Reformation and the introduction of Protestant state churches in each country.[59] The English Reformation ushered in political, constitutional, social and cultural change in the 16th century and established the Church of England. Moreover, it defined a national identity for England and slowly, but profoundly, changed people's religious beliefs.[60] Wales was fully incorporated into the Kingdom of England,[61] and Ireland was constituted as a kingdom in personal union with the English crown.[62] In what was to become Northern Ireland, the lands of the independent Catholic Gaelic nobility were confiscated and given to Protestant settlers from England and Scotland.[63]

In 1603, the kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland were united in a personal union when James VI, King of Scots, inherited the crowns of England and Ireland and moved his court from Edinburgh to London; each country nevertheless remained a separate political entity and retained its separate political, legal, and religious institutions.[64]

In the mid-17th century, all three kingdoms were involved in a series of connected wars (including the English Civil War) which led to the temporary overthrow of the monarchy, with the execution of King Charles I, and the establishment of the short-lived unitary republic of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland.[65]

Although the monarchy was restored, the Interregnum along with the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the subsequent Bill of Rights 1689 in England and Claim of Right Act 1689 in Scotland ensured that, unlike much of the rest of Europe, royal absolutism would not prevail, and a professed Catholic could never accede to the throne. The British constitution would develop on the basis of constitutional monarchy and the parliamentary system.[66] With the founding of the Royal Society in 1660, science was greatly encouraged. During this period, particularly in England, the development of naval power and the interest in voyages of discovery led to the acquisition and settlement of overseas colonies, particularly in North America and the Caribbean.[67]

Though previous attempts at uniting the two kingdoms within Great Britain in 1606, 1667, and 1689 had proved unsuccessful, the attempt initiated in 1705 led to the Treaty of Union of 1706 being agreed and ratified by both parliaments.

On 1 May 1707, the Kingdom of Great Britain was formed, the result of the Acts of Union 1707.[68] In the 18th century, cabinet government developed under Robert Walpole, in practice the first prime minister (1721–1742). A series of Jacobite uprisings sought to remove the Protestant House of Hanover from the throne and restore the Catholic House of Stuart. The Jacobites were finally defeated at the Battle of Culloden in 1746, after which the Scottish Highlanders were forcibly assimilated into Scotland by revoking the feudal independence of clan chiefs. The British colonies in North America that broke away in the American War of Independence became the United States, recognised by Britain in 1783. British imperial ambition turned towards Asia, particularly to India.[69]

Britain played a leading part in the Atlantic slave trade, mainly between 1662 and 1807 when British or British-colonial slave ships transported nearly 3.3 million slaves from Africa.[70] The slaves were taken to work on plantations, principally in the Caribbean but also North America.[71] Slavery coupled with the Caribbean sugar industry had a significant role in strengthening the British economy in the 18th century.[72] However, with pressure from the abolitionism movement, Parliament banned the trade in 1807, banned slavery in the British Empire in 1833, and Britain took a role in the movement to abolish slavery worldwide through the blockade of Africa and pressing other nations to end their trade with a series of treaties.[73]

In 1800 the parliaments of Great Britain and Ireland each passed an Act of Union, uniting the two kingdoms and creating the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland on 1 January 1801.[74]

After the defeat of France at the end of the French Revolutionary Wars and Napoleonic Wars (1792–1815), the United Kingdom emerged as the principal naval and imperial power (with London the largest city in the world from about 1830).[75] Unchallenged at sea, British dominance was later described as Pax Britannica ("British Peace"), a period of relative peace among the great powers (1815–1914) during which the British Empire became the global hegemon and adopted the role of global policeman.[76] By the time of the Great Exhibition of 1851, Britain was described as the "workshop of the world".[77] From 1853 to 1856, Britain took part in the Crimean War, allied with the Ottoman Empire against Tsarist Russia,[78] participating in the naval battles of the Baltic Sea known as the Åland War in the Gulf of Bothnia and the Gulf of Finland, among others.[79] Following the Indian Rebellion in 1857, the British government led by Lord Palmerston assumed direct rule over India. Alongside the formal control it exerted over its own colonies, British dominance of much of world trade meant that it effectively controlled the economies of regions such as East Asia and Latin America.[80]

Throughout the Victorian era, political attitudes favoured free trade and laissez-faire policies, as well as a gradual widening of the voting franchise, with the 1884 Reform Act championed by William Gladstone granting suffrage to a majority of males for the first time. The British population increased at a dramatic rate, accompanied by rapid urbanisation, causing significant social and economic stresses.[81] By the late 19th century, the Conservatives under Benjamin Disraeli and Lord Salisbury initiated a period of imperial expansion in Africa, maintained a policy of splendid isolation in Europe, and attempted to contain Russian influence in Afghanistan and Persia, in what came to be known as the Great Game.[82] During this time, Canada, Australia and New Zealand were granted self-governing dominion status.[83] At the turn of the century, Britain's industrial dominance became challenged by the German Empire and the United States.[84] The Edwardian era saw social reform and home rule for Ireland become important domestic issues, while the Labour Party emerged from an alliance of trade unions and small socialist groups in 1900, and suffragettes campaigned for women's right to vote.[85]

Britain was one of the principal Allies that defeated the Central Powers in the First World War (1914–1918). Alongside their French, Russian and (after 1917) American counterparts,[86] British armed forces were engaged across much of the British Empire and in several regions of Europe, particularly on the Western Front.[87] The high fatalities of trench warfare caused the loss of much of a generation of men, with lasting social effects in the nation and a great disruption in the social order. Britain had suffered 2.5 million casualties and finished the war with a huge national debt.[87] The consequences of the war persuaded the government to expand the right to vote in national and local elections with the Representation of the People Act 1918.[87] After the war, Britain became a permanent member of the Executive Council of the League of Nations and received a mandate over a number of former German and Ottoman colonies. Under the leadership of David Lloyd George, the British Empire reached its greatest extent, covering a fifth of the world's land surface and a quarter of its population.[88]

By the mid-1920s, most of the British population could listen to BBC radio programmes.[89][90] Experimental television broadcasts began in 1929 and the first scheduled BBC Television Service commenced in 1936.[91] The rise of Irish nationalism, and disputes within Ireland over the terms of Irish Home Rule, led eventually to the partition of the island in 1921.[92] The Irish Free State became independent, initially with Dominion status in 1922, and unambiguously independent in 1931. Northern Ireland remained part of the United Kingdom.[93] The 1928 Equal Franchise Act gave women electoral equality with men in national elections. Strikes in the mid-1920s culminated in the General Strike of 1926, which ended in a victory for the government led by Stanley Baldwin. Britain had still not recovered from the effects of the First World War when the Great Depression (1929–1932) led to considerable unemployment and hardship in the old industrial areas, as well as political and social unrest with rising membership in communist and socialist parties. A coalition government was formed in 1931.[94]

Nonetheless, "Britain was a very wealthy country, formidable in arms, ruthless in pursuit of its interests and sitting at the heart of a global production system."[95] After Nazi Germany invaded Poland in 1939, Britain entered the Second World War. Winston Churchill became prime minister and head of a coalition government in 1940. Despite the defeat of its European allies in the first year, Britain and its Empire continued the war against Germany. Churchill engaged industry, scientists and engineers to support the government and the military in the prosecution of the war effort.[95]

In 1940, the Royal Air Force defeated the German Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain. Urban areas suffered heavy bombing during the Blitz. The Grand Alliance of Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union formed in 1941, leading the Allies against the Axis powers. There were eventual hard-fought victories in the Battle of the Atlantic, the North Africa campaign and the Italian campaign. British forces played important roles in the Normandy landings of 1944 and the liberation of Europe. The British Army led the Burma campaign against Japan, and the British Pacific Fleet fought Japan at sea. British scientists contributed to the Manhattan Project whose task was to build an atomic weapon.[96] Once built, it was decided, with British consent, to use the weapon against Japan.[97] The wartime net losses in British national wealth amounted to 18.6% (£4.595 billion) of the prewar wealth (£24.68 billion), at 1938 prices.[98]

The UK was one of the Big Three powers (along with the US and the Soviet Union) who met to plan the post-war world;[99] it was an original signatory to the Declaration by United Nations and became one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. It worked closely with the United States to establish the IMF, World Bank and NATO.[100] The war left the UK severely weakened and financially dependent on the Marshall Plan,[101] but it was spared the total war that devastated eastern Europe.[102]

In the immediate post-war years, the Labour government under Clement Attlee initiated a radical programme of reforms, which significantly impacted British society in the following decades.[103] Major industries and public utilities were nationalised, a welfare state was established, and a comprehensive, publicly funded healthcare system, the National Health Service, was created.[104] The rise of nationalism in the colonies coincided with Britain's much-diminished economic position, so that a policy of decolonisation was unavoidable. Independence was granted to India and Pakistan in 1947.[105] Over the next three decades, most colonies of the British Empire gained their independence, and many became members of the Commonwealth of Nations.[106]

The UK was the third country to develop a nuclear weapons arsenal (with its first atomic bomb test, Operation Hurricane, in 1952), but the post-war limits of Britain's international role were illustrated by the Suez Crisis of 1956. The international spread of the English language ensured the continuing international influence of its literature and culture.[108][109] As a result of a shortage of workers in the 1950s, the government encouraged immigration from Commonwealth countries. In the following decades, the UK became a more multi-ethnic society.[110] Despite rising living standards in the late 1950s and 1960s, the UK's economic performance was less successful than many of its main competitors such as France, West Germany and Japan.

In the decades-long process of European integration, the UK was a founding member of the Western European Union, established with the London and Paris Conferences in 1954. In 1960 the UK was one of the seven founding members of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), but in 1973 it left to join the European Communities (EC). In a 1975 referendum 67% voted to stay in it.[111] When the EC became the European Union (EU) in 1992, the UK was one of the 12 founding member states.