HISTORY OF THE
ENGLISH
LANGUAGE

Do languages change and evolve?
Where does the ENGLISH we speak
today come from?

The answer lies in the History
of the British Isles
THE CELTS
The Celts settled in England more than 2500
years ago.
First known languages: the celtic ones: Welsh
and Scots-Gaelic.
Some Celtic words survive today (whisky
“water of life”)
THE ROMANS
55 BC: Roman Invasion.
The Romans spoke Latin.
Latin names to places: any place name containing “chester” comes from the
Roman word for “camp.” Can you think of any??
OLD ENGLISH (450 – 1100 AD)
5th century AD; three Germanic
tribes invaded Britain, the Angles, the
Jutes and the Saxons.
The invaders spoke languages of
Germanic origin
Similarity between many English and
German words: the numbers
(seven/sieben, eight/acht, nine/neun,
ten/zehn) or the pronouns (mine//mein,
me/mich).
Half of the most commonly used
words in Modern English have Old
English roots: be, strong, water
OLD ENGLISH (cont.)
But old English did not sound or look like English today. Native English
speakers now would have great difficulty understanding Old English!
Beowulf (anonymous)
MIDDLE ENGLISH (1100 – 1500 )
1066: Battle of Hastings. The
Normands, led by William the
Conqueror, invaded Britain.
They spoke a kind of French.
More than 10,000 French words
came into English; beef/bœuf,
veal/veau, pork/ porc liberty/liberté)
MIDDLE ENGLISH (cont.)
This was the language of the great poet Geoffrey Chaucer,
(1340 – 1400) but it would still be difficult for native English speakers to
understand today!)
The Canterbury Tales, G. Chaucer.
EARLY MODERN ENGLISH (1500–
1800)
1476; William Caxton introduced the
printing press in London.
Many more books could be published.
Books became cheaper
More people learned to read.
English needed to be written in a standard
way.
Spelling and grammar became fixed.
1604 First English dictionary.
EARLY MODERN ENGLISH (cont.)
William Shakespeare (1564 – 1616) is the most
famous writer from this period. Many people call him “”the
father of modern English” because he invented many
new words and took many others that were used only in
spoken English.
Hamlet, W.
Shakespeare
MODERN ENGLISH (1800– present)
Many more languages got introduced into English due to:
The industrial revolution.
The expansion of the British Empire.
Technology.
some VARIETIES OF ENGLISH
today