WATCH: Celebrating International English Day

ACCORDING to the United Nations (UN), one in four people speak English – either as a native or secondary language.

English is also considered to be the lingua franca of the world and is used as the standard language for business and higher education, as well as a variety of fields, such as computer programming.

Every year, we celebrate this flexible and popular language on April 23, which is considered to be both the date of birth and death of William Shakespeare. The famous playwright is considered to be one of the greatest writers in the English language and has had a huge impact on modern-day English.

The annual observance was launched as an initiative to promote the use of all six of the UN’s official languages – the others being Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian and Spanish – as well as to celebrate multilingualism and cultural diversity.

However, as popular as the language is, it also has a number of rules, spellings and pronunciations that confuse and frustrate even native speakers. For example, the rule of I before E except after C has its own exceptions.

So, to facilitate the commemoration, Caxton Local Media has found a few clips on social media that poke some fun at these vexing anomalies.

 

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