Today’s English is the continuation of the language of the 5th-century Germanic invaders of Britain.No records exist of pre-invasion forms of the language.The language most closely related to English is the West Germanic language Frisian.The history of English is an aspect of the history of the English people and their development.Thus in the 9th cent.the standard English was the dialect of dominant Wessex (see Anglo-Saxon literature).The Norman Conquest (11th cent.) brought in foreign rulers,whose native language was Norman French; and English was eclipsed by French as the official language.When English became again (14th cent.) the language of the upper class,the capital was London,and the new standard (continued in Modern Standard English) was a London dialect.
It is convenient to divide English into periods—Old English (or Anglo-Saxon; to c.1150),Middle English (to c.1500; see Middle English literature),and Modern English; this division implies no discontinuity,for even the hegemony of French affected only a small percentage of the population.The English-speaking areas have expanded at all periods.Before the Normans the language was spoken in England and Southern Scotland,but not in Cornwall,Wales,or,at first,in Strathclyde.English has not completely ousted the Celtic languages from the British Isles,but it has spread vastly overseas.
A Chronology of the English Language
55 BCE Roman invasion of Britain under Julius Caesar
43 CE Roman invasion and occupation under Emperor Claudius.Beginning of Roman rule of Britain
436 Roman withdrawal from Britain complete
449 Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain begins
450-480 Earliest Old English inscriptions date from this period
597 St.Augustine arrives in Britain.Beginning of Christian conversion of the Anglo-Saxons
731 The Venerable Bede publishes The Ecclesiastical History of the English People in Latin
792 Viking raids and settlements begin
865 The Danes occupy Northumbria
871 Alfred becomes king of Wessex.He has Latin works translated into English and begins practice of English prose.The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is begun
911 Charles II of France grants Normandy to the Viking chief Hrolf the Ganger.The beginning of Norman French
c.1000 The oldest surviving manuscript of Beowulf dates from this period
1066 The Norman conquest
c.1150 The oldest surviving manuscripts in Middle English date from this period
1171 Henry II conquers Ireland
1204 King John loses the province of Normandy to France
1348 English replaces Latin as the medium of instruction in schools,other than Oxford and Cambridge which retain Latin
1349-50 The Black Death kills one third of the British population
1362 The Statute of Pleading replaces French with English as the language of law.Records continue to be kept in Latin.English is used in Parliament for the first time
1384 Wyclif publishes his English translation of the Bible
c.1388 Chaucer begins The Canterbury Tales
c.1400 The Great Vowel Shift begins
1476 William Caxton establishes the first English printing press
1485 Caxton publishes Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur
1492 Columbus discovers the New World
1525 William Tyndale translates the New Testament
1536 The first Act of Union unites England and Wales
1549 First version of The Book of Common Prayer
1564 Shakespeare born
1603 Union of the English and Scottish crowns under James the I (VI of Scotland)
1604 Robert Cawdrey publishes the first English dictionary,Table Alphabeticall
1607 Jamestown,the first permanent English settlement in the New World,established
1611 The Authorized,or King James Version,of the Bible is published
1616 Death of Shakespeare
1623 Shakespeare's First Folio is published
1666 The Great Fire of London.End of The Great Plague
1702 Publication of the first daily,English-language newspaper,The Daily Courant,in London
1755 Samuel Johnson publishes his dictionary
1770 Cook discovers Australia
1776 Thomas Jefferson writes the Declaration of Independence
1782 Washington defeats Cornwallis at Yorktown.Britain abandons the American colonies
1788 British penal colony established in Australia
1803 Act of Union unites Britain and Ireland
1828 Noah Webster publishes his dictionary
1851 Herman Melville publishes Moby Dick
1922 British Broadcasting Company founded
1928 The Oxford English Dictionary is published