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591 BCE
Christians add Latin
While Anglo-Saxons were away, christian missionaries brought latin to english.
The influence of Latin in English, therefore, is primarily lexical in nature, being confined mainly to words derived from Latin roots -
410 BCE
Germanic tribes arrived to Britain
Romans left Britain and germanic tribes (Angles, Saxons & Jutes) started flooding into the isles. They germanic languages they spoke became known as Anglo Saxon.
Anglo-Saxon vocabulary was much more useful.
And as a curious fact, 4 days of the week (from tuesday to friday were named in honour of Anglo Saxon gods. -
Jan 1, 800
Vikings added words to the mix
Vikings came to britain, adding several words from old norse -
Jan 1, 1066
Norman Invation of England
William the conqueror invaded England bringing new concepts like french language. Which added french words to the language previously spoken there. As well as latin vocabulary that was used at churches.
But common man spoke english, able to communicate only by speaking more slowly & loudly, until the others understood him. -
Jan 1, 1300
Words from Normans
By this time, english had absorbed about ten thousand words from normans -
Jan 1, 1337
Hundred Years War
It began the Hundred Years War (that actually lasted 116 years) against France.
At the end, english took over as the language of power. -
Apr 26, 1564
William Sheakspeare was born
The English language owes a great debt to Shakespeare. He invented over 1700 of our common words by changing nouns into verbs, changing verbs into adjectives, connecting words never before used together, adding prefixes and suffixes, and devising words wholly original. -
Translation of the Bible
A team of wise scribes translated the Bible. Preachers read it at every church. It´s words, and phrases begat a whole glossary of metaphore & morality that still shapes the way english is spoken today -
Science in Britain
Britain was full physicists, at first they worked in Latin. But after, they realised they all spoke english and they could transform our understanding of the universe much quicker. -
Dictionary of the English Language
Dr. Johnson starts writing the dictionary of the english language, derivated that everybody spelt english as they want.
This dictionary took nine years to write, and it was 18 inches tall. It cointeined 42,773 entries -
Toppling Napoleon
The britain empire globbed up around ten million square miles, four hundred million people. -
Oxford English Dictionary
A new book was started, and it would be the Oxford English Dictionary. It took another seventy years to be finished. It eventually paid in 1928 and it´s continued to be revised, proving that english is always evolving, and people adding new vocabulary -
First world war
Left new varieties of english to develop all over the globe -
Internet arrives
With internet arrival, it changed the way people speak english, bringing new vocabulary, and expressions. -
Nowadays English speakers
Around 1.5 billion people speak english. Of these, about a quarter are native speakers, a quarter speak it as their second language and a half, had leaned the language.
