The below text is taken from Omniglot: The Online Encyclopedia of of Writing Systems & Langauges.
English is a West Germanic language related to Scots, Dutch, Frisian and German. It has a significant amount of vocabulary from Old Norse, Norman French, Latin and Greek, and loanwords from many other languages.
There are about 1.2 billion speakers of English. Some 350 million people speak English as a native language, and a further 850 million speak it as a second or foreign language. Countries where English is widely spoken include: the UK, Ireland, the USA, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Singapore, Malaysia, Malta, Cyprus, Barbados, Marshall Islands, Jamaica, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, US Virgin Islands, Dominica, Palau, Grenada, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, Bahamas, Suriname, Vanuatu, Anitgua and Barbuda, Saint Kitts and Nevis, the Cayman Islands, Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Belize, the Philippines, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Israel, Austria, Germany, Finland, Switzerland and Belgium [source].
Modern English Alphabet
A recording of the English alphabet by Simon Ager (British English)