The English language evolved from a West-Germanic language, first spoken in Early Medieval England that slowly developed into a global lingua franca. Through the worldwide expansion of Colonial England and later on the influence of the United States of America, English became the third most spoken language after Mandarin Chinese and Spanish, with a total number of native speakers ranging from 360-400 million and 600-700 million as foreign language. It is currently the most spoken language in the United Kingdom, the United States of America, Canada, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand and it is widely spoken in the Caribbean, Africa and South Asia. Due to its expansion around the world, this language produced a diverse range of artists and thinkers: on one hand we have classic writers such as William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Jane Austen and Georges Orwell, and on another we have world famous musicians like Michael Jackson, bands like Led Zeppelin or Queen, or groundbreaking hip hop artists like Tupac Shakur and Eminem.