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Period: 6000 BCE to 6000 BCE
Proto-Indo-Europeans
The Proto-Indo-Europeans were a hypothetical prehistoric ethnolinguistic group of Eurasia who spoke Proto-Indo-European according to linguistic reconstruction.
Indo-European languages emerge later. -
Period: 500 BCE to 750 BCE
Proto-Germanic
common ancestor (proto-language) of all the Germanic languages such as modern English, Frisian, Dutch, Afrikaans, German, Luxembourgish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Faroese, and Swedish. -
Period: 500 BCE to 1000 BCE
The Old English (or Anglo-Saxon) Period
- The angles and the Saxons who together gave us the term Anglo-Saxon. Romans left some but not much of their Latin language the Anglo-Saxon vocab was much more useful. -10th century, English and Danes mix fairly peacefully, and many Scandinavian (or Old Norse) loanwords enter the language, including such common words as sister, wish, skin, and die.
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Period: 43 BCE to 500 BCE
The Prehistory of English
- In 43 BC The Romans invade Britain (400 years of control)
- In 410 BC The Goths (speakers of a now extinct East Germanic language) sack Rome. The first Germanic tribes arrive in Britain.
- In the 5th Century Angles, Saxons, and other German settlers arrive in Britain (speaking West Germanic dialects)
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793
Vikings
They attacked and invaded Britain from 793 AC to 1066 AD. They gave English around 2000 words. -
1000
Beowulf
Approximate date of the only surviving manuscript of the Old English epic poem Beowulf, composed by an anonymous poet between the 8th century and the early 11th century. (The first written evidence). -
Period: 1100 to 1500
Middle English Period
The Norman William the Conqueror invaded England in 1066, bringing the French language, the Doomsday book and the duty-free Gauloise multi pack. French was for all official business. Latin was still used in church and common man spoke English. The English absorbed about 10,000 new words from the Normans. -
1362
Official language
The Statute of Pleading makes English the official language in England. Parliament is opened with its first speech delivered in English. -
1392
The Canterbury Tales
The outstanding English poet before Shakespeare and “the first finder of English language.” His "The Canterbury Tales" ranks as one of the greatest poetic works in English. They were written between 1387 and 1400. -
Period: 1500 to
The Modern English
About 2000 new words and phrases were invented by William Shakespeare. Shakespeare's poetry showed the world that English was a rich vibrant language with limitless expressive and emotional power.
The King James Bible new translation was in 1611, was the root of the matter in a language, it was read in every church in all Britain. It begat a whole glossary of metaphor and morality that still shapes the way English is spoken today. -
English of Science
The Royal Society of London appoints a committee to consider ways of "improving" English as a language of science.
Scientists spoke English and they understood that they could transform our understanding of the universe much quicker by talking in their own language. But science was discovering things faster than they could name them. -
The age of the dictionary Part 1
- English expanded in all directions along came a new breed of men called lexicographers, the greatest was doctor Johnson whose Dictionary of the English language took him nine years to write he was 18 inches tall and contained 42,773 entries.
- In 1857 a new book was started become the Oxford English Dictionary it took 70 years to be finished
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The age of the dictionary Part 2
1783—Noah Webster publishes his American Spelling Book.
1816—John Pickering compiles the first dictionary of Americanisms.
Mid 19th century—A standard variety of American English develops. English is established in Australia, South Africa, India, and other British colonial outposts. They went to the Caribbean looking for gold (added words: barbecues, cannibal, canoe). In Africa (voodoo and zombies), in Australia (nugget and boomerang). -
Internet English
1950s, The number of speakers using English as a second language exceeds the number of native speakers.
Language reverts to type in 1972, the Internet arrived a free global space to share information ideas and amusing pictures.
Internet changed people speaking, for example conversations were getting shorter and it was added the abbreviations as common way to communication. -
Global English
High speed broadband connection words from over 350 languages and establishing itself as a global institution. There's Hindglish which is Hindi English, Chinglish which is Chinese English and singlish which is Singaporean English
Twenty-first century, the entire world has become narrow, accessible and familiar for all the people living on this earth, English is used as a common language even though there are some variations in habits, cultures, traditions, regions and idiosyncrasies.