English language in the context of "Daniel Boone"

The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, and colonisation attempts by Scotland during the 17th century. At its height in the 19th and early 20th centuries, it became the largest empire in history and, for a century, was the foremost global power. By 1913, the British Empire held sway over 412 million people, 23 percent of the world population at the time, and by 1920, it covered 35.5 million km (13.7 million sq mi), 24 per cent of the Earth's total land area. As a result, its constitutional, legal, linguistic, and cultural legacy is widespread. At the peak of its power, it was described as "the empire on which the sun never sets", as the sun was always shining on at least one of its territories.

During the Age of Discovery in the 15th and 16th centuries, Portugal and Spain pioneered European exploration of the world, and in the process established large overseas empires. Motivated by the great wealth these empires generated, England, France, and the Netherlands began to establish colonies and trade networks of their own in the Americas and Asia. A series of wars in the 17th and 18th centuries with the Netherlands and France left Britain the dominant colonial power in North America. Britain became a major power in the Indian subcontinent after the East India Company's conquest of Mughal Bengal at the Battle of Plassey in 1757.

French (français [fʁɑ̃sɛ] or langue française [lɑ̃ɡ fʁɑ̃sɛːz] ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. Like all other Romance languages, it descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire. French evolved from Northern Old Gallo-Romance, a descendant of the Latin spoken in Northern Gaul. Its closest relatives are the other langues d'oïl—languages historically spoken in northern France and in southern Belgium, which French (Francien) largely supplanted. It was also influenced by native Celtic languages of Northern Roman Gaul and by the Germanic Frankish language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders. As a result of French and Belgian colonialism from the 16th century onward, it was introduced to new territories in the Americas, Africa, and Asia, and numerous French-based creole languages, most notably Haitian Creole, were developed. A French-speaking person or nation may be referred to as Francophone in both English and French.

French is an official language in 26 countries, as well as one of the most geographically widespread languages in the world, with speakers in about 50 countries. Most of these countries are members of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF), the community of 54 member states which share the use or teaching of French. It is estimated to have about 310 million speakers, of which about 74 million are native speakers; it is spoken as a first language (in descending order of the number of speakers) in France, Canada (Quebec), Belgium (Wallonia and the Brussels-Capital Region), western Switzerland (Romandy region), parts of Luxembourg, and Monaco. Meanwhile in Francophone Africa it is spoken mainly as a second language or lingua franca, though it has also become a native language in a small number of urban areas; in some North African countries like Algeria, despite not having official status, it is also a first language among some upper classes of the population alongside the indigenous ones, but only a second one among the general population.

Spanish (español) or Castilian (castellano) is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from the Vulgar Latin spoken on the Iberian Peninsula of Europe. It originated in the Kingdom of Castile, a historical kingdom in north-central Spain. Today, it is a global language with 519 million native speakers, mainly in the Americas and Spain, and about 636 million speakers total, including second-language speakers. Spanish is the official language of 20 countries, as well as one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Spanish is the world's second-most spoken native language after Mandarin Chinese; the world's fourth-most spoken language overall after English, Mandarin Chinese, and Hindustani (Hindi-Urdu); and the world's most widely spoken Romance language. The country with the largest population of native speakers is Mexico.

Spanish is part of the Ibero-Romance language group, in which the language is also known as Castilian (castellano). The group evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin in Iberia after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century. The oldest Latin texts with traces of Spanish come from mid-northern Iberia in the 9th century, and the first systematic written use of the language happened in Toledo, a prominent city of the Kingdom of Castile, in the 13th century. Spanish colonialism in the early modern period spurred the introduction of the language to overseas locations, most notably to the Americas.

Lady Macbeth is a leading character in William Shakespeare's tragedy Macbeth (c. 1603–1607). As the wife of the play's tragic hero, Macbeth (a Scottish nobleman), Lady Macbeth goads her husband into committing regicide, after which she becomes queen of Scotland. Some regard her as becoming more powerful than Macbeth when she does this, because she is able to manipulate him into doing what she wants. After Macbeth becomes a murderous tyrant, she is driven to madness by guilt over their crimes and kills herself offstage.

Lady Macbeth is a powerful presence in the play, most notably in the first two acts. Following the murder of King Duncan, however, her role in the plot diminishes. She becomes an uninvolved spectator to Macbeth's plotting and a nervous hostess at a banquet dominated by her husband's hallucinations. Her sleepwalking scene in the fifth act is a turning point in the play, and her line "Out, damned spot!" has become a phrase familiar to many speakers of the English language. The report of her death late in the fifth act provides the inspiration for Macbeth's "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" speech.

Basileus (Ancient Greek: βασιλεύς) is a Greek term and title that has signified various types of monarchs throughout history. In the English-speaking world, it is perhaps most widely understood to mean 'monarch', referring to either a 'king' or an 'emperor'. The title was used by sovereigns and other persons of authority in ancient Greece (especially during the Hellenistic period), the Byzantine emperors, and the kings of modern Greece. The name Basileios (Basil), deriving from the term basileus, is a common given name in the Eastern Orthodox Church and Syriac Orthodox Church for the Maphrian.

The feminine forms are basileia (βασίλεια), basilissa (βασίλισσα), basillis (βασιλίς), or the archaic basilinna (βασιλίννα), meaning 'queen' or 'empress'. The related term basileia (βασιλεία) has meanings such as 'sovereignty', 'royalty', 'kingdom', 'reign', 'dominion' and 'authority'.

Terra incognita or terra ignota (Latin "unknown land"; incognita is stressed on its second syllable in Latin, but with variation in pronunciation in English) is a term used in cartography for regions that have not been mapped or documented. The expression is believed to be first seen in Ptolemy's Geography c. 150. The term was reintroduced in the 15th century from the rediscovery of Ptolemy's work during the Age of Discovery. The equivalent on French maps would be terres inconnues (plural form), and some English maps may show Parts Unknown. Similarly, uncharted or unknown seas would be labeled mare incognitum, Latin for "unknown sea".

The name of Greece differs in Greek compared with the names used for the country in other languages and cultures, just like the names of the Greeks. The ancient and modern name of the country is Hellas or Hellada (Greek: Ελλάς, Ελλάδα; in polytonic: Ἑλλάς, Ἑλλάδα), and its official name is the Hellenic Republic, Helliniki Dimokratia (Ελληνική Δημοκρατία [eliniˈci ðimokraˈti.a]). In English, however, the country is usually called Greece, which comes from the Latin Graecia (as used by the Romans).

The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the northern Indian subcontinent, most of Europe, and the Iranian plateau, with additional native branches found in regions such as parts of Central Asia (e.g., Tajikistan and Afghanistan), southern Indian subcontinent (Sri Lanka and the Maldives) and Armenia. Historically, Indo-European languages were also spoken in Anatolia and Northwestern China. Some European languages of this family—English, French, Portuguese, Italian, Russian, Spanish, and Dutch—have expanded through colonialism in the modern period and are now spoken across several continents. The Indo-European family is divided into several branches or sub-families, including Albanian, Armenian, Balto-Slavic, Celtic, Germanic, Hellenic, Indo-Iranian, and Italic, all of which contain present-day living languages, as well as many more extinct branches.

Today the individual Indo-European languages with the most native speakers are English, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Hindustani, Bengali, Punjabi, French, and German; many others spoken by smaller groups are in danger of extinction. Over 3.4 billion people (42% of the global population) speak an Indo-European language as a first language—by far the most of any language family. There are about 446 living Indo-European languages, according to an estimate by Ethnologue, of which 313 belong to the Indo-Iranian branch.

British English is the set of varieties of the English language native to the United Kingdom, especially Great Britain. More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in England, or, more broadly, to the collective dialects of English throughout the United Kingdom taken as a single umbrella variety, for instance additionally incorporating Scottish English, Welsh English, and Northern Irish English. Tom McArthur in the Oxford Guide to World English acknowledges that British English shares "all the ambiguities and tensions [with] the word 'British' and as a result can be used and interpreted in two ways, more broadly or more narrowly, within a range of blurring and ambiguity".

Variations exist in formal (both written and spoken) English in the United Kingdom. For example, the adjective wee is almost exclusively used in parts of Scotland, north-east England, Northern Ireland, Ireland, and occasionally Yorkshire, whereas the adjective little is predominant elsewhere. Nevertheless, there is a meaningful degree of uniformity in written English within the United Kingdom, and this could be described by the term British English. The forms of spoken English, however, vary considerably more than in most other areas of the world where English is spoken and so a uniform concept of British English is more difficult to apply to the spoken language.

The English-speaking world comprises the 88 countries and territories in which English is an official, administrative, or cultural language. In the early 2000s, between one and two billion people spoke English, making it the largest language by number of speakers, the third largest language by number of native speakers and the most widespread language geographically. The countries in which English is the native language of most people are sometimes termed the Anglosphere. Speakers of English are called Anglophones.

Early Medieval England was the birthplace of the English language; the modern form of the language has been spread around the world since the 17th century, first by the worldwide influence of England and later the United Kingdom, and then by that of the United States. Through all types of printed and electronic media of these countries, English has become the leading language of international discourse and the lingua franca in many regions and professional fields, such as science, navigation and law.