English is a West Germanic language that originated in England in the Middle Ages. Today it is the most widely spoken language in the world and is regarded as the international language of communication, science, trade and the Internet. English is an official language in many countries, including the USA, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and numerous former British colonies. It has a flexible sentence structure, a comparatively simple morphology, but a complex orthography. The vocabulary is heavily influenced by Latin, French and other languages, making English an extremely dynamic and adaptable language.