The History of English

Monday 7 October 2013

English is the third most commonly spoken language in the world today. But how did the English language develop?

Early inhabitants of Great Britain spoke a form of Celtic, but with the Roman invasion c. 55 BC came the introduction of Latin, that caused changes in the indigenous languages.

After the fall of the Roman Empire the Anglo-Saxons arrived in Britain and brought Germanic dialects from Europe. A new language began to emerge… It was the period of Old English. The next significant contribution to Old English came with the dramatic invasion of the Vikings.  They landed in the North East coast of England, where they destroyed the famous monastery, butchering the monks and leaving a trail of blood and destruction.  However, the Vikings weren’t all bad. They also helped expanding Old English.

The last successful invasion of Britain came in 1066 with the arrival of William the Conqueror and the Normans. The Normans brought not only a whole new vocabulary, but also a major transformation to the grammar of Old English.  French became the official language in England. So, from the 12^th to the 15^th Century it was used Middle English.

Modern English developed after William Caxton established England's first press.  The invention of the printing press made books available to more people. The books became cheaper and more people learned to read. Printing also brought standardization to English.

By the time of Shakespeare's writings (1592-1616), the language had become clearly recognizable as Modern English. There were three big developments in the world at the beginning of Modern English period: the Renaissance, the Industrial Revolution, and the British Colonialism.

It was during the English Renaissance that most of the words from Greek and Latin entered English.

England began the Industrial Revolution (18th century) and this had also an effect on the development of the language as new words had to be invented or existing ones modified to cope with the rapid changes in technology. 

Britain was an Empire for 200 years between the 18th and 20th centuries and English language continued to change as the British Empire moved across the world - to the USA, Australia, New Zealand, India, Asia and Africa. They sent people to settle and live in their conquered places and as settlers interacted with natives, new words were added to the English vocabulary.

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

If you want to learn more about this subject in a funny way go to this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rexKqvgPVuA

Andreia Codeço