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Beowulf was an epic poem that was written in old English, which also had 3,182 lines.
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Mid 9th century--Danes raid England and occupy Northumbria, and they established a kingdom in York. The language
the Danes used began to influence England. -
The Norman Invasion actually brought a good change to the English spoken, which was to bring French here. So then the Upper class spoke French while the lower class was to speak English and the middle class spoke Middle English.
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Henry II declared himself overlord of Ireland, introducing Norman French and English to the country.
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Chaucer wrote many stories, but one of the famous ones is "Canterbury Tale". It is a collection of 24 stories, which runs of 17,000 lines written in Middle English.
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The printing press was invented then. It made room for people to read the books that most who could not read couldn't. It also helped bring about what other languages heard of the English language. And also of how the language was pronounced, since most of the pronounciation now is on paper.
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The discovery of North America helped with the language as well, since it brought Spanish into the world. Most of those who discovered it spoke Spanish. So some words from English language became pronounced differently with those who spoke Spanish.
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Shakespeare had a lot of plays written, including one of the most famous ones "Romeo and Juliet". He first got it published at this date.
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In the American Revolution, we fought against Britain to obtain our rights to speak out. It also was about political ideas.
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John Keats wrote a letter to Benjamin Robert Haydon in 1817, on May 10th, and it mentions Shakespeare as a very influential writer:
"I remember your saying that you had notions of a good Genius presiding over you. I have of late had the same thought--for things which I do half at Random are afterwards confirmed by my judgment in a dozen features of Propriety.
Is it too daring to fancy Shakespeare this Presider." -
This story was written by James Halliwell-Phillipps. He wrote it in Middle English language, and was published in Joseph Jacobs "English Fairy Tales" which he credited the story of the three little pigs to Halliwell.
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The Olympic Games were events of sports that were in different countries and usually were held in host countries. The first known games were in Greece for honoring a funeral of someone important.
