A brief history of English language

A brief history of English language






The history of English language can be understand as by going through different stages of English language - following from its Indo-European origins, through Old English - Middle English - Modern English to the present English.





So, now we can go through Indo European languages families, it is far the largest family because almost more than the half of the modern world’s languages were derived from Indo European languages and only a few such as Russian languages are not from the Indo-European languages. The Indo-European languages are descendants of a single prehistoric language, reconstructed as Proto-Indo-European, spoken sometime in the Neolithic era.

The Indo-European languages subdivided as:

1. Albanian

2. Anatolian

3. Armenian

4. Balto-Slavic

5. Celtic

6. Germanic

7. Hellenic

8. lndo-Iranian

9. Italic

10. Tocharian


Here English language is related to the Germanic language, but at the same time differs plainly from all the other Indo-European languages. History tells us that english came to Britain as a language of invaders - the Angles, Saxon and jutes, who conquered the island in the fifth century. The oldest records of English, in eighth and ninth centuries confirm this, for their language closely resembles that of the oldest records of continental Germanic speech. So it is assumed that such systematic similarities are not accidental. With the passage time migration took place and varieties of dialect raised which are sufficiently different from each other.





The Anglo - Saxon were originally the inhabitants of Sleswick and the surrounding areas between Germany and Denmark. They were three tribes Angles, Saxons and Jutes. Romans called them Saxons, ethnologically they all three belonged to the Low German branch. Their attacks became more powerful and frequent when they understood that the Romans power showed definite signs of decay and thus made Britain their permanent home. The natives of Britain were reduced to minority groups. The Romans were already left and with them their culture. Thus the ground was clear for the Saxons to build up a civilization of their own. Because of these reasons we can say that English history begins with the arrival of Anglo -Saxons. So Anglo-Saxon is the ancestor of Old English, for us it is a strange language, because we cannot make even a single line of the so called Old English. For us it is an inflexible language like Latin or Sanskrit.

Anglo-Saxon had mainly 4 dialects. They were

1. Northumbrian- language of North of England

2. Merican- language of Midlands

3. Kentish - language of the south -east

4. West saxon - language in west and south, language of King Alfred, which became the standard form of Old English.


Old English period : 500 - 1066 AD.

Anglo Saxon literature : manuscripts during their period is both in Latin and their vernacular.

Some of literaryworks were

1.Beowulf - in 3182 lines, illustrating the Germanic heroic code, which deals with the battle of good verses evil.

2. Widsith- 142 lines tells the Germanic history, the title means far journey.

3. The fight at finnsbury- heroic poem.

All these were written in Alfred's English, an unmodified germanic english language.


Middle English period :1066 - 1500

Began with the Norman conquest and french became offical language of England. Norman spoke rural French and Anglo -Norman french became the language of the kings anf nobles of England for more than 300 years. At that time Latin was used in written language, specially in church and the government French official records. Eg. The doomsday book is written in Latin to emphasis its legal authority. But 95% vast majority peasants and low class spoke English. And it is the time of collaboration of old english with Anglo Norman and it is referred to as middle English. It was the period of making of English language. The english vocabulary is enriched with many French word relating to religion government art and war. Totally 10 thousands words are adopted in that 75% are still in current use.

Some literary works in the period

1. Layamon's Brut

2. Orm's Ormullum

3. Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales

4. Dunbar's Two married women and a widow


Early Modern English period :1500- 1700

It is the period of Tudor and the period is remembered for the significant translation of the Bible, by a group of clerics in between 1604-1611because it was done in the period of james I, so it is also called King James Bible.




The vocabulary of english expanded

Greatly, during the period. Writers were in favour of loanwords to express new concepts, especially from Latin. Others advocated the use of existing words. Some advocated the revival of obsolete words and the adoption of regional dialect. The Elizabeth age (1558-1603), age of Renaissance and reformation and age of intense partoistism. So at this period English language began to acquire traditions of its own and gave up unhealthy Latin tradition. The different branches of literature grew up rapidly.
Some famous writer in the period
1. Edmund spenser
2. William Shakespeare
3. Christopher marlowe
4. Sidney
5. Sir Philip Sidney , etc.





Modern English period : 1700 to 1900


This period is also known new english period. In this period the great vowel shift happen. Spelling reforms were undertaken, dictionarieswere composed and english is transplanted to other lands giving rise to new, non- native varities of English. Rise of English novels and it reached almost the stage of perfection.

Some great author 's of this period were

William wordsworth

William Blake

S. T. Coleridge

P. B. Shelley

Jane austen

Present English period : 1900 on wards

The world wide presence have made english as a common language. And has more non native speakers than any other language. Standardised and settled down as an analytical language and made it an appropriate vehicle for science. Dictionaries were composed and transplanted in other lands that gave rise to new varities of English.

The details of the rise of the English language is in its earlt stages as a local dialect and later as a provisional type, the speech which laterbecame a standard language, have borrowed widely and as it gains in prestige. This movement for a universal language is an attempt to make language more useful extensively. This descriptive information about language is a pre- requisite for historical understanding also.starting from a common parent language, we find modern english with greatly shortened words and simple morphology.