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They were the first group of Indo European speakers to move across Europe. the arrival of the Celtic language in Britain. This version of Celtic was to evolve into Brittonic (or Brythonic), which in turn gave rise to Welsh, Cornish and Breton. -
The Celtic language is known as Brythonic and was spoken throughout Britain when the Romans arrived in 55 BC. -
The Anglo-Saxon invasions of the British Isles in the 5th century AD pushed the British Celts to the west and to the north which caused the Celtic dialects to become separate languages. In Cornwall and Devon, they developed into Cornish, and in Wales they evolved into Welsh. -
The dialect of English spoken by the first Anglo-Saxons became what we now call Old English. It was in use from the arrival of the Anglo Saxons until the Norman Conquest in 1066. Is placed in the Anglo-Frisian group of West Germanic languages, branch of the Indo-European family of languages (Celtic, Italic, Germanic, Balto-Slavic, Tocharian, Indo-Iranian, Armenian, Anatolia and Greek.) -
St. Agustine and a group of monks arrived in
Kent. They had come from Rome to teach the
Anglo Saxon about Christianity.
Old English borrowed some Celtic words, as a result of the spread of Christianity; the Anglo
Saxons borrowed a number of Latin words from the
Roman Christians: about 450 appear in Old English
literature. -
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The Vikings had a great influence in the development of Old English after they took London and Canterbury. King Alfred won an important battle which allowed him to make an agreement with the Vikings, dividing England in two; one side for them and one side for King Alfred (Battle of Edington, 878). The Vikings and the English were able to communicate because those two languages were similar. -
Many words from Old Norse entered and enriched Old English -
King Alfred started a history of England in English: The Anglo Saxon Chronicle, which was a diary of events, written by monks in different parts of the country and it is important because it started in the year 1 AD with the birth of Christ and it was the first book of its kind in western Europe. -
The greatest piece of literature in Old English was probably created in the 8th century but not written until 250 years later. It´s about a brave Scandinavian man called Beowulf who fights and kills the terrible creature called Grendel. -
The end of the English period is marked by the Norman Conquest -
It starts with the Normand conquest of England, due to this, Norman French became the government language of England. -
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John lost Normandy to the French, which loosened the ties between England and the Continent. -
The Hundred Year’s War began, ending in 1453, which promoted English nationalism. -
All court proceedings had to be conducted in English as a requirement -
By the end of the fourteenth century, public documents and records began to be written in English, and Henry IV used English to claim the throne -
The printing press was brought by William Caxton, promoting literacy throughout the population such as The Canterbury Tales. -
For a long time after the Norman Conquest, England was trilingual. Latin was the language of the Church, Norman French of the government, and English of the majority of the country’s population.
During this period, Latin continued to exert an important influence on the English vocabulary. The major and most important influence of this period was French.
It ended around this year -
Was characterized by its statecraft, literature, science, exploration, and commerce. Shakespeare wrote the bulk of his plays.
As English speakers travelled they decided to borrow words from other languages. French continued to be a major source of loanwords into English; Spanish and Portuguese became significant sources for new words, due to colonial expansion in Latin America. Celtic and Scandinavian languages continued to influence English. -
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The American Revolution resulted in the foundation of the first independent nation of English speakers outside the British Isles. -
Is considered to have started in the 1800’s and continues until the present day. This is a period of expansion, English was spread around the world, first by British colonization and empire-building, and more recently by American activities in world affairs. The world’s total number of English speakers may be more than a billion.