By about 600 BCE German tribes Angles, Saxon and Jutes
entered to British isles and they spread in a large portion in European region. Their language was called Celtic.
On 50 BCE Julius Saesar conquered these isles
and the dominant laguage changed from Celtic to Romance language Latin. The
Celtic tribes moved into corners of the region and they survived in Wales and
Ireland, even today with their Celtic language while most of the Celtic language
speaking tribes went extinct along with their language.
The Angles came from
"Englaland" and
their
language was called "English" - from which the words
"England" and "English" are derived.
The invading tribes spoke similar languages and it developed in Britain into Old English. But there is a huge difference in old English and the English we use today. Even the natives won’t be able to understand Old English. However almost half of the words used in English today are old English words. Old English was used until 1100 and it is called as Anglo-Saxon as well.
In 597 Augastine invaded England and as a result Christianity came along. Thus words such as
Nun
Priest
Easter
Faith
God came into English.
In the latter half of the 9th century, Danish invaders arrived British coast
No major influence took place but important words such as
Law
Outlaw
They
Them
Their were added to English language as a result.#
Middle English (1100-1500)
In 1066 (French / Norman Invaders) William
the conqueror invaded Britain and they brought French language with them. And since then
French became the royal language.
French was used by the court, royals and
business classes. Therefore there was a division of people who speak English and
people who speak French. This led to make a division of classes in Britain where
high class spoke French and low class spoke English.
Anglo Saxons (low class) kept animals and
meats were for French high class. Therefore animal's names are in English and their meat is in French.
In fourteenth century English became the main language again and the influence of French continued to
stay. It is known as Middle English and native speakers will hardly understand
Middle English today.
ModernEnglish
Early Modern English (1500-1800)
Since 16th
century British started to invade other parts of the world and this resulted English to expose to other parts of the world and on the other hand influences
from other languages took part in English as well.
The invention of printing publications started in London and this made London dialect to be standardized.
Late Modern English (1800-Present)
The difference between Early Modern English and Late Modern English is the vocabulary.
As a result of industrialization,
new tools, equipment and machines were built and they needed new words.
Therefore new words were created.
Words such as
Toffee
Cereal
Bridge
Ambulance
Leukemia
Pneumonia were added to English Language in this time.
On the other hand as a result of Britain capturing the power of most parts of the world, English became a common language
in most of the parts in the world. It resulted English to adopt many words from
languages of those particular countries into vocabulary.
With the colonization, when Britain was invading other countries, words from different colonized countries invaded English Language. Such as,
Hindi – Loot, Jungle, Thug,
Bazzar
Arabic – Algebra, Alcohol,
Coffee, Lemon
Japanese – Kimona, Tsunami,
Karoke, Typhoon
Even today English Language is evolving (rather adopting) with the modern technology and is creating new words and borrowing new words from different languages which has made English language to update with the time and to spread into every nook and corner of the world.
Below it is shown a summary of "the evolution of English Language".
