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The exact point in time is not known, but in the 5th century the British Isles were invaded by the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes. This invasion resulted in the beginning of what we today know as English.
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In the 9th to 10th centuries, the Vikings settled on the British Isles.
Their language, Norse, had a big influence on the English language. They introduced the ending on last names "-son" which is still used today. They also introduced the commonly used pronouns "they", "their" and "them". -
England was invaded by the Normans who came from the northan part of France for hudreds of years. From 1066 to ca 1470. As a result of this French was spoken alongside English and Latin. After the invasion English had changed quite a bit and looked a lot like the language English is today.
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In 1476 a man named William Caxton invented the printing press. This was an important invention for the English language. This invention ment that text could be mass produced and allowed to circulate all over the nation. This ment that there had to be rules for how the language was set up. Before the printing press many varieties of English was spoken throughout the nation. But after its invention English was to be spoken in nearly the same way in the whole nation.
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Shakespeare and the King James Bible (1611) both had a great influence on English. One of the major contributions both Shakespeare and the King James Bible had to the English language was the idioms used by the King James Bible and Shakespeare.
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In 1755 the first dictionary of the English language was published. In 1762 the first grammar book was published and in 1774 the same was for the first English pronounciation dictionary. This was all a result of "The Inkhorn Controversy" which was a result of many authors being conserned by the changes the English language was undergoing.
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During the Modern English period there hasn't been as many big changes to the language as earlier. With that in place, there stil has been som notable changes. In the 19th and 20th century new words made their way into the English language. These words came along with imperialism, urbanization and industrialization. They were added simply because English was lacking words to describe new inventions, discoveries and so on.
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In 1806 a man named Noah Webster published the first Amerian dictionary in which he described the differences between British and American English. It is because of Webster and his dictionary that there is a fairly clear distinction between British and American English.
