English Language History

English Language History

1. Old English 450 to 1100

   • How did it get born?
     • English was conceived as a Germanic when this tribes started arriving to Britain after Romans had left.
   • Romans influence during this era
     • Latin influence into English language came from the Roman culture in this era borrowing prefixes like pro and sub.

2. Middle English 1100 to 1500

   • Vikings invaded
     • Suddenly, something unexpected happened in Britain; a Viking invasion changed the lifestyle for those people, and also caused the mixture of both languages, English and Old Norse. From this situation English got words like egg, choose and also Thursday which literally means Thor's day.
   • Old French and English
     • During this era, French language sneaked into Britains high class only, and from this division we got words like lawyer and attorney which difference still to this day.

3. Modern English 1500 to this day

   • Shakespeare
     • William Shakespeare is considered one of the most important playwrights of all time, and is also a very important character in the history of English language by creating many words like assassination, manager, uncomfortable and a bunch more.
   • Great Vowel Shift
     • This changed the pronunciation of this language forever, the vowels A-E-I-O-U were left to be said in many different ways depending on the word.
   • The last big change
     • When Britain started to colonize another countries, the language was being transformed by this action borrowing words through languages all around the world.

4. Representation of the three eras of English Language

5. Carlos Zuñiga Gomez 305.

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