Language of the Anglo-Saxon Era
A people living in the east, near the Caspian Sea, spoke a language called Proto-Indo-European, as indicated by written records. They were farmers and fighters who spread the language over Europe, Iran, and we now called Persian, Hindi, Armenian, Greek, Russian, Polish, Irish, Italian, French, Spanish, German, English, Dutch, Norwegian Swedish, and a good many others. We call these languages Indo-Europeans lived in what is now southern Denmark and northern Germany. They were called Angles and Saxons who consisted of a large grou[p of Germanic peoples living in parts of northern Europe.
The English language has passed four major stages over about 1,500 years. When we speak about the development of the English language than we speak about Old English, or Anglo-Saxon, which dates from AD 449 to 1066, Middle English from 1066 to 1450 or 1500, Early Modern English from 1500 to 1660, and Late Modern English from 1660 to the present time.
Old English was a dialect of West Germanic which was spoken by the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes who were Germanic peoples. As time went on, Old English turned out to take on the original Continental form, and so four major dialects developed. Kentish which was spoken by the Jutes, West Saxon which was spoken by the Saxons and Northumbrian and Mercain, English was a language which was characterized by strong and weak verbs, a dual and grammatical distinctions of gender. The vocabulary of Old English was very rare. Some proper nouns were borrowed from the language of the Celts. Even Latin words are "altar, mass, priest, psalm, temple, kitchen, palm, and pear." Also Germanic invaders who had come into contact with Roman culture influenced the Old English language. The largest number of Latin words was introduced as a result of the spread of Christianity. About 40 Scandinavian words were introduced into Old English, by the Norsemen, or Vikings, who invaded Britian from the late 8th century on. The first words which were introduced were according to sea and battle. Later on the word law entered the language, the verb form are, and often used words such as "take, cut, both, ill, and ugly."
As early as 1200, in the Middle English Period the three or four grammatical case forms of nouns in the singular had been reduced to two, and the noun ending -es had been adopted. The declension of the noun was simplified further by dropping the final n from five cases of the fourth, or weak, declension; by neutralizing all vowel endings to e (sounded like the a in Modern English sofa), and by extending the masculine, nominative, and accusative plural ending -as, later neutralized also to-es, to other declensions and other cases. Only one example of weak plural ending, oxen, survives in Modern English; kine and brethren are later formations. Several representatives of the Old English modification of the root vowel in the plural, such as man, men, and foot, feet, survive also. Distinctions of natural gender replaced the pronouns were reduced to a common form. Also, the Scandinavian "they, them" replaced the odd expressions "hie, hem".
The conjugation of verbs was simplified by the omission of endings and by the use of common form for the singular and plural of the past tense of strong verbs. Words like egg, sky, sister, window, and get, came into the language from Old Norse in the early period of Middle English. The Normans also brought other additions to the vocabulary. Words like baron, noble, feast, and 900 other new words entered the English language before 1250. Also French words from the Norman nobility were introduced pertaining to government, church, army, etc. During the 14th century supported the influence of East Midland. This led to the direct development of the East Midland dialect into the Modern English language.
Transition from Middle English to Modern English
At about 1350 to 1550 there was a major change in the
pronunciation of vowels. The Great Vowel Shift by the Danish
changed the pronunciation of distinctive vowels and diphthongs of
Middle English. But the spelling was still the same and preserved
from 1475 on which dates the advent of printing in England during
the shift. The Great Vowel Shift introduced the pronunciation of
the letters a, e, i, o, and u, which differ from most Western
European languages.
Modern English Period
In the early part of the Modern English period the vocabulary was
enlarged by words from about fifty different languages. Some
Latin and Greek words for example increased the English language
during the Renaissance. Also English travelers brought new words
home from their journeys. The main development started during
this period and continued throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.
The colonial expansion contributed to the enlarged vocabulary as
well as scientific turns to denote new concepts, discoveries, and
inventions.
