You are not authorized to access this page.

English Language Timeline

By Hrr19
  • 400

    Beginning

  • Period: 450 to 1150

    Old English

  • 700

    Approximate date of the earliest manuscript records of Old English

  • 750

    Suspected date of Beowulf's writing

  • 867

    Danes raid England and Danish begins to influence English

  • 1000

    Old Norse loanwords enter the language

    These words included sister, wish, skin, and die.
  • The Norman Invasion
    1066

    The Norman Invasion

  • 1150

    Approximate date of the earliest surviving texts in Middle English

  • Period: 1150 to 1450

    Middle English

  • 1362

    Parliament is opened with its first speech delivered in English

  • Chaucer's Canterbury Tales
    1400

    Chaucer's Canterbury Tales

  • 1400

    The Great Vowel Shift begins

    This changed the pronunciation of words like bite, meat, meet, mate, out, boot, and boat.
  • 1436

    The invention of the Printing Press

  • Period: 1450 to

    Modern English

  • 1492

    The discovery of North America

  • William Bullokar's Pamphlet for Grammar is published

  • Robert Cawdrey's Table Alphabeticall or the first English dictionary is published

  • Publication of Shakespeare's First Folio

  • The American Revolution

  • The Telegraph is invented by Samuel Morse

    The Telegraph is invented by Samuel Morse

  • End