The Evolution of English

History of the West Germanic Language:

• English is a West Germanic language that developed from Ingvaeonic languages brought to Britain by Anglo-Saxon migrants from northwest Germany, southern Denmark, and the Netherlands.

• Old English reflected the varied origins of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms established in different parts of Britain, and the Late West Saxon dialect eventually became dominant.

• After the Norman conquest in 1066, Old English was replaced by Anglo-Norman (Anglo-Norman French) as the language of the upper classes, which led to much lexical borrowing and grammatical simplification.

• Early Modern English incorporated many Renaissance-era loans from Latin and Ancient Greek, as well as borrowings from other European languages, including French, German, and Dutch.

• Modern English proper, similar to what is spoken today, was in place by the late 17th century.

• English as we know it today came to be exported to other parts of the world through British colonization and is now the dominant language in many countries.

• The grammar of Old English was much more inflected than modern English, combined with freer word order, and was grammatically quite similar in some respects to modern German.

• Vikings from Norway and Denmark invaded parts of Britain, and their North Germanic language, Old Norse, had significant influence on the English language.

• Middle English was spoken from the time of the Norman Conquest in 1066 until the end of the 15th century, and it was influenced by both Anglo-Norman and Anglo-French.

• Middle English was also influenced by Old Norse, and about 10,000 French (and Norman) loanwords entered Middle English, particularly terms associated with government, church, law, the military, fashion, and food.

• The strong influence of Old Norse on English becomes apparent during the Middle English period.

• English has a deep connection to Romance languages due to the comingling of Norman French and Old English, resulting in Middle English, a language that evolved into the English we speak today.A Brief History of the English Language

• Theories of Celtic influence on English have been criticized by many linguists.

• English literature reappeared in the 13th century due to the changing political climate and the decline of Anglo-Norman.

• English became the official language of England in the 14th century.

• The English language changed substantially during the Middle English period, with a shift from heavily inflected to analytic grammar.

• English spelling was influenced by Norman French, leading to the use of "th" instead of the Old English letters "thorn" and "eth".

• The Great Vowel Shift in the 15th century transformed the pronunciation of all long vowels in English.

• The first English dictionary, A Table Alphabeticall, was published in 1604.

• Late Modern English has many more words than Early Modern English, due to the Industrial Revolution and the British Empire.

• The English language has over 400 million speakers of British and North American English, and over one billion speakers worldwide.

• English has undergone extensive changes to its vowel system over the past 1,200 years, but fewer changes to its consonants.

• English used to have an extensive declension system, but this was simplified during the Middle English period.

• The modern form of English pronouns has lost many of the distinctions found in Old English and Middle English.