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1) How did English became the most popular or official language of so many countries? (particularly the US. And I'm especially wondering why was English preferred on other languages.)
2) How come so many words in modern English are derived from French (also old French) and Latin, and so few from Old and Middle English? (you can answer this separately) ...I'm asking this because it strike me as odd, that a modern form of a language would derive most of its words from other languages.
3) How and why did the Americans adopted their own accent? and how come there are so many variations of American accent?
Enlighten me oh folks of infinite linguistic wisdom!
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Ackshly, many English words derive from Old English - a lot of our very basic words do. Hand, foot, mother, father, son, daughter, wife, man, life, bone, fire, lord, lady, good, evil, sun, moon, bird....the list goes on and on.
The incursion of French happened over several centuries, which explains why we have jaunty, gentle and genteel all from the French word "gentil" re-entering the language at several different times. The latest and largest incursion happened in 1066, when William of Normandy defeated Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings and began a hostile takeover of England. I direct you to a lovely little passage in "Ivanhoe", where a swineherd and a jester are discussing language - or, more properly, why a bovine is a good Saxon cow ("cu") on the hoof, but Norman beef ("boeuf") on the table. Similarly the English pig becomes French pork and the English sheep, French mutton.
Perhaps someone else has some scholarly info on accents. Canajans have 'em too.
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The pronunciation of English has changed in both Britain and North America since the first English settlers arrived there. Hence different accents. Anywhere you get a language spoken in different areas which are not in close contact you're going to get different accents. Do you have regional accents of Hebrew in Israel yet? Even if you don't, I'm sure there were different regional accents in Biblical times. This site http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexperts/faq/aboutenglish/proportion?view=uk puts the proportion of present-day English vocabulary which derives from Old English and other Germanic languages as 25%. But these tend to be the most common words in the language. When the Norman French invaders foisted their language on us, we developed the habit of using French/Latin derivatives for more formal/learned/official contexts.
Bingley
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Speaking of which, how did most of these words came to be derived from both languages? Was there a council for "formation of sophisticated new English words through Latin and French"? And yes, I know that "many" English words are derived from Old/Middle English (particularly the basics), just not "most" words according to my sources (which is exemplified in the link Bingley posted)  Quote:
Do you have regional accents of Hebrew in Israel yet?
We do.
Quote:
Anywhere you get a language spoken in different areas which are not in close contact you're going to get different accents
I think I understand now.
Let the record state the first question is still unanswered. 
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> first question is still unanswered
perhaps because the original *settlers came from England?
formerly known as etaoin...
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So, the US, Canada, Australia, etc, were all overwhelmed by settlers from England that it became the official language of all of these countries?
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Carpal Tunnel
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well, the sun never sets on the British Empire, as they used to say.
formerly known as etaoin...
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Quote:
So, the US, Canada, Australia, etc, were all overwhelmed by settlers from England that it became the official language of all of these countries?
Just So. That's our story and it's sticking to us. 
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The world is slowly beginning to make more sense...
Thanks!
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By coincidence, I am reading a book by an Israeli linguist, Ghil'ad Zuckermann called Language Contact and Lexical Enrichment in Israeli Hebrew. He covers the various ways that Israelis have coped with a language that lacked many terms for everyday and modern objects. One process he writes about is camoulflaged borrowing, where words are dervied from German, Russian, Yiddish, and English words but by a sort of folk etymological process that tries to disguise the fact of a foreign loanword by clothing it with a Semitic root. Sometimes these sources are multiple, e.g., Israeli karpada 'toad' "from" French crapaud 'toad' and Aramaic qurpda 'an unknown kind of animal'. Sometimes the words are calques (or loan translations) like gan yeladim 'kindergarden'.
As for differing pronunciations of Hebrew, there are at least five that I am aware of: Tiberian, Sephardic, Ashkenazic, Yemenite, and Israeli. I'm sure there are more.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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