History of the English language

• English originated from Ingvaeonic languages, which were a set of languages brought to Britain in the 5th to 7th centuries AD by Anglo-Saxons coming from Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands

Old English

• Old English was first written using a runic script called the "futhorc"
• The diffusion of Christianity encouraged the adoption of some latin words
• Beowulf was written in Old English

Middle English

• During the Middle English period, vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar evolved drastically
• Was spoken around the time of the Norman Conquest in 1066
• At this time french was still the formal language that was spoken in courts and governments. A lot of french words were used even in Middle English
• Official documents began to be produced regularly in English during the 15th century
• Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, published in the late 14th century, were written in Middle English

The Great Vowel Shift

• The Great Vowel Shift was a series of pronunciation changes affecting vowels that took place between the 1400s and 1600s
• The causes of the Great Vowel Shift are still unknown and have been a source of debate. Most plausible causes:
  • Population migration
  • French loanwords being used a lot
  • War against France: efforts being taken to make English sound less like French

Early Modern English

• During the 15th century spelling conventions remained largely constant, while pronunciation changed the most
• Shakespeare's writings are a good example of Early Modern English

Modern English

• Modern English is the form of the English language that has been spoken since the Great Vowel Shift
• The majority of native speakers are found in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Ireland
• More than one billion people worldwide use English as their first or second language
• English has more non-native speakers than any other language