History of EnglishHistory of English
Where do languages come from? Click
here and explore this topic further. 
Interesting question: If English is a Germanic language, why do so many of our words come from Greek and Latin?
Keep reading and find out.
Romano-Celtic Period -- 55 B.C. to circa 410 A.D.
Old English Period -- circa 449 to 1066 Click here to go to Worksheet
Middle English Period -- 1066 to 1500 Click here to go to Worksheet2
Modern
English
Period --1500 to the present Click here to go to
Worksheet3
During the Romano-Celtic Period, the Romans dominated England.
However, English acquired few words from Latin at this time, mostly
words having to do with the Roman soldiers, such as Winchester and
Lancaster which come from the Latin "castra," camp. We know that
place names that end in --"chester" or --"caster" once were a Roman
"castra." Other words such as "street" from the Latin "strata" came
into English at this time.
Then the Roman soldiers left England, called back to defend what was left of the Roman Empire from the Germanic invaders. As we know, they failed. So, about 476 A.D. we say the Roman Empire fell.
Now with the Roman soldiers gone, England was quite vulnerable to attack. The first to come from across the North Sea were the Jutes from Jutland in Denmark. Not just one ship came, but many came day after day. Later came a group called the Angles who became dominant. Then a group called the Saxons who were also powerful. As the Angles and the Saxons fought and neither could completely overcome the other, they finally reached a compromise. Thus we have another name for the Old English Period known as the Anglo-Saxon Period.
It was during this period that someone wrote down an epic tale of a hero named Beowulf of their old country. A marvelous tale of a hero who is asked to get rid of the monster Grendel. Of course, he does. The old story was memorized and probably sung and accompanied on a lute before someone, we don't know who, wrote it down.
Another important piece of writing at this time was the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle which King Alfred the Great ordered to be written, to give an account from where they had come to their present time.
English during this time was an inflected language. Like Latin, it had many cases for the nouns, and the endings gave meaning to the words, not word order. By the time of the Middle English Period, most of the word endings had been dropped. This was the greatest change from Old English to Middle English.
About 90% of our most common words come from Old English. Words like our personal pronouns: I, me, he, she, him, her, us, them; forms of the verb "be": is, am, are, was, were; other verbs that change spelling in their principal parts such as go, went, gone, sing, sang, sung; and small words such as the, in, of, etc.
The Middle English Period began with the Battle of Hastings, 1066. William, Duke of Normandy, defeated Harold, King of England. The story is told in a beautiful piece of embroidery called the Bayeux Tapestry. William was crowned on Christmas Day, 1066, and shortly began construction on the Tower of London, which today has grown into a large complex of buildings and houses the crown jewels and armour of famous kings like Henry VIII. (Even his horse had armour!) William didn't know any English; he tried to learn it but gave up, saying it was too difficult to learn. So, French was spoken in the court and became the dominant language in England at this time!
French had a huge impact on the English language. English acquired many pairs of synonyms such as the English word "folk" and the French word "people." French enriched the English language by adding as many as 10,000 new words. Most of our terms for government ( realm, royal, crown, etc.) come from French which, of course, is from Latin.
French also changed the spelling of many words. For example, cild became child; cwen became queen; hwo became who; hwaet became what. Isn't that interesting? Word study is fascinating!
Then William Caxton brought the printing press to England.
As time passed, pronunciation continued to change, but the printing press preserved the old spelling. That's why today we have words that end in a silent e, or other silent letters in the middle, like might. The greatest change from the middle period to the modern period was pronunciation and the way English was spoken in London became the standard.
The Modern Period dates from about 1500 to the present. It coincides pretty much with the Renaissance which started in Italy but was a little late getting to England. (They were fighting with each other.) Elizabeth I was interested in cultural things and so helped usher in the Renaissance in England.
There were three big developments in the world at the beginning of this period.
1) Intellectual- the Renaissance, that rebirth of learning everything Greek and Latin. It was during the Renaissance that most of our words from Greek and Latin entered English. That's why most of our words come from those languages, yet basically English is a Germanic language! ( Now you know the answer to the big question at the beginning of this lesson.) Following on the heels of the Renaissance was the Reformation which also was very interested in the Greek language since the New Testament in the Bible was written in Greek. Thats what Martin Luther was studying when he came to the realization that what he was reading was not what he had always been taught. That was in 1517.
2) Political - British Colonialism. That was when England defeated the Spanish Armada and became very powerful, even later becoming an empire. They sent people all around the world to settle and live in their conquered places, including, of course, the USA. (Remember, Jamestown, etc.?) They had control over countries all over the earth so they claimed that the "sun never set on the British empire." As settlers interacted with natives, new words were added to the English vocabulary.
3) Economic and Technical - This refers to the industrial and post industrial revolution. Every time something new was invented a new name had to be invented too. So scientists often turned to the Greek and Latin languages for their new names., unless they used their own. That sometimes happened like Rudolph Diesel who invented the diesel engine.
The English language has been very enriched by the addition of all of these words so that English probably has the largest vocabulary of any other language. All these words allow writers to make fine distinctions. There is a word to describe exactly what you want to say. So all that vocabulary study, especially etymology, is worth the effort.
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