History of English

Here a brief history of the English Language:

 English is a Germanic Language of the Indo-european Family. It is known as the language of science, aviation, computing, diplomacy, and tourism.Nowadays,English plays an important part in the cultural, political, and economic life of many countries such as  The  United States of America,Canada, New Zealand, and Australia.

 

Old English: 450-1150

 It is predominantly Anglo-Saxon. It also borrowed from church Latin and from Old Norse.   In the 7th century Christian missions to Britain brought learning and literacy, initially entirely in Latin, but an Old English written language  emerged in the northeast and in the West Saxon kingdom of Alfred the Great in the second half of the 9th century.

The first known written English sentence was : "This she-wolf is a reward to my kinsman" is an Anglo Saxon runic inscription on a gold medallion found in Suffolk.

Middle English: 1150-1500

From 1250-1400, English adopted the greatest number of French words, most of them are still in use.It  changed in fundamental ways, especially in pronunciation and grammar. Some dialects retain some of the early pronunciations for a few words, For example the pronunciation of the word down is pronounce/ doon/ in northern England and Scotland).

Early Modern English: 1500-1800

Latin and Greek were the most important sources of new words, followed by French, Italian, and Spanish. Most Latin and Greek introductions were deliberate attempts by 16th and early 17th century writers to enrich the language, to elevate `low' English.Words also came  from 50 other languages, because of the expansion of the British Empire.

Modern English 1900- present days

With the increase in communication, travel, radio and television, all these different types of English have mixed. So in Britain now, because of American and Australian TV programming, they use many parts of Australian and American English. And words from many other languages - French, German, Spanish, Arabic, even Nepali  have been borrowed.

English continues to change and develop, with hundreds of new words arriving every year.