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c. 5000 BCE Settled in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
Their expansion resulted in Proto-Germanic languages. -
Lead by Emperor Claudius
Incorporated few Latin words used by merchants and soldiers.
Incorporated the basis for writing.
Examples: win (wine), caese (cheese), candel (candle), , cycene (kitchen), rosa (rose), cest (chest), pund (pound), munt (mountain), straet (street), wic (village), mil (mile), weall (wall) -
c. 450
Angles, Saxons, and Jutes spoke the same West Germanic language but in different dialects. This combination resulted in what we know as Old English. Words which were incorporated into English: goes (goose), see (sea), boat (boat), stoarm (storm), snie (snow), blau (blue), trije (three), fjour (four). Place names throughout England ending with the Anglo-Saxon “-ing”, “-ton” , “-ford”, “-ham” and “-stead” -
c. 450 - c. 1100 Old English was influenced by the arrival of germanic tribes, adjusting the new language to latin writing. Basis vocabulary of modern English. Old English had three genders (masculine, feminine, neuter) in the noun and adjective, and nouns, pronouns, and adjectives were inflected for case.
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c.750
The Old English poem was composed. It is referred as the most important Old English literature. It portrays the language, formal poetry and preserves culture and history. -
Late settlements incorporated Old Norse.
Accents and pronunciations are heavily influenced by Old Norse.
Up to 1,000 Norse words were permanently added to the English lexicon. Examples: man, wife, child, son, daughter, brother, friend, live, make, like, house, home, people, family, horse, water, time, eyes, ears, mouth, nose, work, come, go, be, find, see, look, laughter, night, day, sun, first, many, one, two, other, some, what, when, which, where, word, etc -
Northern French (Old French) is introduced in Britain.
Anglo-Norman was spoken as a result of the invasion and settlements. -
c. 1100 - 1500
At the begining of the Norman Conquest, they spoke a rural dialect of French with considerable Germanic influences, usually called Anglo-Norman or Norman French. Anglo-Norman French became the language of the kings and nobility of England while lower classes continued to speak English until the last one overcome the Anglo-Norman language. -
Written by Geoffrey Chaucer between 1380 - 1400
The book was so important because Chaucer decided to write in English instead of French. -
c. 1400
The English, of necessity, had become “Normanized”, but, over time, the Normans also became “Anglicized”, particularly after 1204 when King John’s ineptness lost the French part of Normandy to the King of France and the Norman nobles were forced to look more to their English properties. -
c. 1400
During this time, a series of changes in English pronunciation took place. Through this, the pronunciation of all Middle English long vowels was changed. -
William Caxton establishes the first priting press which helped to standarize the English language -
c.1500 - c.1800
The grammatical and orthographical conventions of literary English in the late 16th century and the 17th along with The English Renaissance changed the language. -
The first authorised edition of the Bible in English, authorised by King Henry VIII of England -
c.1590
Started working on his first plays -
Opens a window for language evolution
Words from Latin or Greek were imported wholesale during this period, either intact (e.g. genius, species, militia, radius, specimen, criterion, squalor, apparatus, focus, tedium, lens, antenna, paralysis, nausea, etc) or, more commonly, slightly altered (e.g. horrid, pathetic, iilicit, pungent, frugal, anonymous, dislocate, explain, excavate, meditate, adapt, enthusiasm, absurdity, area, complex, concept, invention, technique, -
Jamestown was the first permanent English settlement in the New World, established. New words are adoppted from Native Americans -
Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies is a collection of plays published in 1623.
Word order had become more fixed in a subject-verb-object pattern. He personally coined neologisms or new words in his many works.Examples: bare-faced, critical, leapfrog, love is blind, star-crossed lovers, as luck would have it, complex auxiliary verb system. -
Was the first British daily newspaper -
Starts around 1750 and ending around 1830.
The innovation develop the need to name new things and techniques which increased the vocabulary. -
Published on 15 April 1755 and written by Samuel Johnson -
At the height of the British Empire, Britain ruled almost one quarter of the earth’s surface. Trading and expansion welcomed new words from different locations to English Language. -
This period of time starts in 1800 and continues until present days
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The 20th Century was, among other things, a century of world wars, technological transformation, and globalization, and each has provided a source of new additions to the lexicon. For example, words like blockbuster, nose-dive, shell-shocked, camouflage, radar. Electronic and computer terminology: byte, software, laptop, online. Internet: spam, download, blog, emoticon, podcast. -
The language now incorporates new slangs, technologies, foods and gadgets such as: nerd, unplugged, parkour, sexting, meme, selfie, twerk, vaping, etc.