How many people speak English in the contemporary world?

Which languages make separate groups in the Indo-European family of languages?t should be noted that alongside with large groups of languages, like Germanic, Italic or Slavic, the Indo-European family includes individual groups each of which consists of only one language, such as Albanian, Armenian and Greek.It goes without saying that our chief interest will be with the Germanic (Teutonic) group, since it includes English and its nearest relatives. It is divided into three main subgroups: East Germanic, North Germanic and West Germanic. The chief language of East Germanic was Gothic, now known mainly from fragments of the 4th century translation of the Holy Bible by Wulfila (Ulfilas), the Aryan bishop of the West Goths
Name the subgroups of the Germanic group of languages.The North Germanic (Scandinavian) subgroup includes Norwegian, Icelandic, Swedish, Danish and Faroese. The study of these languages is important for us as the Scandinavian dialects influenced the development of the English language in the epoch of Scandinavian invasions into Britain
East Germanic Gothic – the lan-ge of Goths (1B.C. – 6-8 A.D.) Vandal – died out very early and practically left no traces Burgundian - died out very early and practically left no traces
English belongs to the West Germanic subgroup together with High German, Low German, Dutch and Frisian.
Which languages belong to the West Germanic subgroup? English belongs to the West Germanic subgroup together with High German, Low German, Dutch and Frisian.
Are the relations of languages based upon belonging of the nations speaking those languages to the same race?It is very important to determine genetic relations among the languages of the world as the literary monuments of the earliest period of the language are few and fragmentary. To get the reliable data about the phonetics, word-stock and the grammatical structure of a language that existed many centuries ago it is necessary to take into consideration the facts of other languages belonging to the same family or group. It goes without saying that languages may effect each other by contact, whether they are related or not. In the times of social upheavals, wars and great migrations languages could be mixed, or some nations could borrow languages of other peoples. That is why linguists usually emphasize that the genetic classification of languages should not be confused with ethno-geographic classifications: “The relations of languages are not based upon belonging of the nation speaking those languages to the same race”